Article: Stop Using the Bible to Hate Gays

- Advertisement -

Tags: Fundamentalists, Religious Right, Gays, Bible, Liberal Christianity, Progressive Chrsitianity, Sin, Commandments

"Excuse me, but out of more than one million verses in the Bible there are only seven that reference homosexual behavior. There are thousands that reference justice and fair treatment of the poor and oppressed, and peace."

A sin is a sin. No matter how small it is, it is still a sin that can 't be ignored. Just ask any good right-wing Christian. You can 't overlook any of the sins. You can 't pick and choose which ones to obey.

That 's why so many conservative Christians are rigidly opposed to homosexuals and homosexual marriage in particular. Why, it 's right there in the Bible, just as plain as day, they say: God doesn 't tolerate homosexuals. And if we even slightly tolerate them then terrible things happen. Just ask the right Reverend Jerry Falwell:

- Advertisement -

"[The tragedy of 9/11] could be minuscule . . . if in fact God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve . . . The ACLU 's got to take a lot of blame for this . . . I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle . . . I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen. "

In short, according to the reasoning of Rev. Falwell, gays and lesbians revolt God so badly that the Almighty allowed Osama bin Laden to slaughter innocent civilians to teach us Americans that we had better quit showing what slight tolerance we do now show for homosexuals. Gee, if 9/11 happened because God was upset because Americans allegedly allow that homosexuality is an acceptable deviation from the norm, you would think that God would have first lifted the veil of protection from over Denmark or the Netherlands before he did the homeland of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

But apparently God is as prudish as the fundamentalists. According to the right-wingers, what gets God 's goat is not a president lying about the reasons for starting a brutal and senseless war. What sickens God is a president lying about having sexual pleasure. That 's simply a sin that can 't be ignored. While genocidal holocaust after holocaust might not provoke any outburst of heavenly wrath, a president receiving fellatio is apparently enough to blow the top right off the big guy 's head in the sky.

- Advertisement -

That 's why a sin is a sin and you better not mess around with any of this. So, hey, we better go all the way with strictly following all the commandments and directives in order to avoid even the slightest appearance of wrongdoing. Thus let us eat no more shellfish, as directed in the same book that condemns male homosexuality in the Old Testament. And while on the subject of homosexuality let us born-again literalists remember that since sex between women is nowhere explicitly referenced in the Bible, we must therefore conclude that lesbianism is not a sin.

Further proof for this is found in the conventional conservative argument that AIDS is a plague unleashed by God upon homosexuals. In reality, lesbians have a low incident rate of AIDS when compared to other groups, including heterosexuals. Male homosexuals have the high incident rate, not lesbians. Thus, God must love lesbians.

But, you say in protest, God must also hate hemophiliacs because they have had such a terrible time with AIDS. Actually, according to the laws of the Old Testament, people with medical disorders, physical afflictions and even skin blemishes such as acne all are an abomination unto the Lord and are not to be allowed within a sanctuary or to personally make offerings.

Work not on the Sabbath, or else be ready to be stoned to death. The same goes for any form of sexual misconduct by females. Disobedient children are to be immediately turned over to the elders of one town so that the children can be stoned to death to teach other children a lesson. If beating hell out of them with the rod doesn 't work then stone them to death. Then they 'll finally shut up and sit still.

All these are the demands of God and to break them is to sin, no matter how small. According to the right wingers, you will go to hell for even committing the slightest hint of a violation. Never mind that in the Old Testament that there really is no such a thing as hell. Nor is there really a heaven, at least in any sense as we generally think of it. Heaven and hell are both unique to the New Testament and even then our subsequent conceptualizations are far more elaborate than anything contained in the Bible.

The trouble is that too many modern religious hypocrites are too busy searching for a splinter of a sin in somebody else 's eye that they don 't even see the rotten sin in their own eyes. They condemn homosexuality as a sin because they say it 's in the Bible but completely ignore all the other sins that they routinely commit themselves such as condemning and hating outcasts like homosexuals that they despise. Then there is the matter of them lending the name of Jesus to justify conquest, oppression and war. Excuse me, but out of more than one million verses in the Bible there are only seven that reference homosexual behavior. There are thousands that reference justice and fair treatment of the poor and oppressed, and peace.

- Advertisement -

What is more important, too many modern zealots think themselves totally exempt from Jesus 's commandment to love one another like God does when he "gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust too. " If that is not an endorsement for tolerance and inclusion, I don 't what is.

Furthermore, consider the case of the Apostle Paul. He lived and preached in the Greek world. Lord knows how enamored the ancient Greeks were of homosexuality. Indeed, homosexuality was rampant throughout the ancient Greek world. Yet Paul did not lead one campaign against homosexuals. He did not one time threaten the Greeks that if they didn 't stop tolerating homosexuality that they were going to hell. Oh, that 's right. Paul never once even used the world hell, much less threatens anybody with it if they didn 't act in accordance with his interpretation of moral issues.

Then again, neither did Jesus. Instead, Jesus just taught to love one another and not to condemn. So all of you that would cast stones on those you loath, stop casting those Bibles in the name of Jesus. Your days are at an end for ripping-off Jesus for your power-hungry schemes.

from Jesus was a Liberal