This past week in synagogues throughout the world, the weekly portion of Scripture included the following verse from the book of Leviticus: "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination." This proscription has obviously been the source of heated and often vicious debate over the past decades as homosexuals have courageously come out of the closet and forced our culture to wrestle with its full humanity. My colleague Rabbi Brad Hirschfield posted an important and nuanced post on Huffington Post -- "Is Homosexuality an Abomination? Wrestling with Leviticus 18:22" -- suggesting that because this cultural change in attitude towards homosexuals is very complex, the debate would be far more productive if people hid less behind Scripture and ideology and focused more on why this particular issue is so important to them personally. In Rabbi Hirschfield's words, "compassion for an idea is hard to generate, but compassion for a real person is less so."
It strikes me that the way human rights issues have played out since the beginning of modernity -- which, not surprisingly, coincides with the separation of church and state -- should give us all reason to take a deep breath. There is a sort of humbling inevitability to the process of inclusion and to where we place ourselves along the continuum of human rights debate. One of the many ways to characterize the modern experience is the ongoing expansion of human rights and the increasing inclusion of marginal populations. The modern political and social dynamic in both general society and within religious communities has been the same: Marginal classes of people are brought inside legal frameworks and given equal rights. Whether recognizing the full humanity of Jews, African Americans, other ethnic and religious groups, women, the physically challenged, and now homosexuals, the process has been the same. First, a small group within the marginal group realizes they are in fact oppressed, that in profoundly unjust ways they are not treated as full human beings equal before the law. This small group begins to "cry" out for freedom. The initial reaction within the marginal group is usually fear of rocking the boat while the reaction of the dominant class is dismissive if not often brutal. But injustice once realized and freedom once tasted, even if only in one's heart and mind, is very hard to put back into a box, and so a process begins within the marginal class, educating its own people to see their plight and organizing increasing numbers of people ready to fight for inclusion and fairness. At some point very small numbers of people from the dominant class begin to see the light and realize that fellow human beings just like them have been denied equal rights simply because they are different. If the modern period is of any evidence, once this movement perceived as one of human rights begins -- though it may entail great struggle, sacrifice, and bitterness -- it inexorably results in the marginal population being given the same legal rights as the majority population. So America of 2010 is far more inclusive than America of 1810; classes of people denied equal rights and barely seen as human in 1810 have gained their rights by 2010.
It turns out that once the thirst for freedom is felt, the only question is pacing, and this is true in the general society as well as within religious communities, who all go through the same fighting process. Sadly, though, religious communities, even the liberals in those communities, tend to be on a time lag relative to the larger secular body politic. Depending on our psycho-spiritual and psychosocial predispositions and the values of the groups to which we feel most connected, we individually and collectively pace ourselves in one of three ways. Some of us, the traditionalists, hold on for dear life and oppose any change; others, the human rights activists, make great sacrifices to bring about change; and still others, the rest of us, are in the middle, slowly brought along to see the humanity of the Other. These three paces are of course all relative to each other, so as inclusion and equal rights expand, passions intensify.
For some, usually those most denied their rights, change understandably moves too slowly, whereas for others it moves too quickly, and for most of us it sometimes moves too quickly and sometimes too slowly. Of course, whatever our pace, we dress up our positions in either religious language or the secular language of grand principles like justice, fairness, and equality, as if it is not precisely the content of those principles that we are debating. At some point, as people meet each other and realize that the Other is a human being whose difference is nothing to fear, a critical mass, usually a healthy minority and not yet the majority, pushes through the change, which drives the remnant of traditionalists crazy. So traditionalists do have much to "fear" as their variety of arguments against inclusion -- the same arguments that they have brought on every human rights issue (e.g., it is not natural, it will lead to moral corruption, it is sinful, it is against god's will, it will undo the family, it will destroy the fabric of society, etc.) -- will increasingly ring hollow to more and more people. They may be able to slow things down, but they cannot stop these changes no matter what the Bible says. Thank God.
Given that we all know how (if not exactly when) this story of equal rights and full inclusion for homosexuals is going to end, the really interesting question is who we are in this drama. Where do we position ourselves and why? After all, we position ourselves where we do because it works for us, giving us just the right psychic gratification -- whether from our anger, self-righteousness, righteous indignation, or aloofness, and whether we are leaders or followers or stand above critics. Social, cultural, and moral change is hard, and in my experience, when I get a bit too angry at the pace of someone else's capacity for "moral development," or when I get a bit too self-righteous about how morally developed I am relative to those "homophobes," it is because I am actually unconsciously disappointed in my own efforts in working to make this a more just society.
Gays and lesbians (and bisexuals and transsexuals) are going to gain every single right that heterosexuals have: the right to visit their lovers, partners, or spouses in a hospital; the right to share in pensions, health insurance, and inheritance benefits; the right to marry; and the right to adopt. This is just how it is when people begin to see the Other as fully human, and it will even be so in the vast majority of religious communities -- after all, who would have thought that the majority of the most religiously traditional communities would allow inter-racial marriage?
Knowing all this ought not keep social justice activists (sorry, Glenn Beck) from doggedly pursuing equal rights for homosexuals. But it ought to make us feel just a bit less anxious and therefore a bit less angry with traditionalists. Knowing that as long as we continue to fight for the recognition of the humanity of the Other, such recognition will ultimately be won, we might even be a little less triumphant as we win.
Anyway, at some point in the next decades, the vast majority of us will see this as the obvious moral position; will see those views of a previous era as less morally and ethically evolved; and we will feel appropriately embarrassed, if not ashamed, of those days. Given this, it behooves us to remember that the only difference between human rights activists and traditionalists, relatively speaking to the centuries of injustice finally being ameliorated, is having realized something just a bit earlier -- something that the god of Leviticus should have learned from the god of Genesis -- that all human beings are created equal in the divine image.
Follow Rabbi Irwin Kula on Twitter: www.twitter.com/irwinkula
I Understand That We must love others, that's true. I do not hate homossexuals ! But this have to change! Why are they differentt? All of us when we accept Christ we change our way of life!
Equal rights? This is inevitable, but it is madness!And what about their children? How they would emotionally be? Confused at least.
Sorry, but that´s not the family that God planned.
Definitely, all this modernity is killing the Church of Christ.
By the way, i´m from Brazil.
No, what's killing the church is its inability to adapt to an evolving collective intellect, and the hypocrisy of many Christians.
I can't get too excercised about Leviticus 18:22 as all of the old Testament is Hebraic law. I'm not a Hebrew. Leviticus also dictates how ia am to make sacrifices, how to plant and harves my fields, what kind of clothes to wear, how to cut (or not cut) my hair, sidelocks and beard. Do we as modern Americans do these things? Of course not. So get off of your pseudo-Christian high horses and confess that you just want some sort of religious blessing to cover the sin of your hatred of homosexuals.
A heterosexual couple doesn't have to get married in a church in order to gain those rights, they can just drive on down to the courthouse. My partner and I don't want to get married as part of some evil plot to destroy religion. We want to get married so that we can have the same civil, legal rights as everyone else.
I think that you’ll find when one honestly believes homosexuality is a titillating choice, tempting you full of sinful desires then you have clearly had a coming out. News flash; you are gay. And it is not your faith that is being tested---but your sexuality. Heterosexuals do not feel desire for their own gender. Likewise, homosexuals are not sexually aroused by the opposite sex. But the fact that so many Christians feel that they are being tempted by sexually attractive naughty, naughty sinful men explains an awful lot. --- Although, there is nothing wrong with that…
Thanks for asking: "Why should we expand marriage to include Gay people when marriage has always meant the coming together of two different things".
Two? Who said?
Tuesday May 4, 2010
Polygamy Controversy Presents Dilemma for Post-Christian France
By Hilary White
NANTES, France, May 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When a Muslim woman was fined late last month in Nantes, France for driving while wearing a full face veil, the issue of polygamy burst into the spotlight when it was revealed that her husband had three other “wives.”
The incident has re-opened the debate in Europe over the dilemma faced by European governments with, on the one hand, aging native populations and below-replacement birth rates, and, on the other, burgeoning Muslim immigrant populations with customs incompatible with existing laws.
Objections to his alleged polygamy were answered by the woman’s husband, Lies Hebbadj, an Algerian-born Muslim, who pointed out that, in accordance with modern French customs, he does not have four wives but one wife and four mistresses, plus 12 children between them.
“If one can be stripped of one’s French nationality for having mistresses, then many French could lose theirs,” Mr. Hebbadj, a halal butcher, said after consulting his legal counsel. “As far as I know, mistresses are not forbidden, neither in France, nor in Islam.”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/printerfriendly.html?articleid=10050401
How Post-Christian Is England?
Al Mohler provides commentary on the recent arrest of a street preacher in London detained for listing homosexuality as a sin. It’s a not-so-brave new world.
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabitianyabwile/2010/05/04/how-post-christian-is-england/
Is God love? Then what does the scripture reveal to us? His love, His plan. His laws were given as a reflection of that love: how we were to live to experience the best He had for us.
His best for us is that Holy Bond of one man living a lifetime with one woman, cleaving together to become one flesh, the two becoming one.
All the machinations of dissecting Leviticus letter by letter mean nothing. You strain out the gnat but swallow a camel. You try to fit sin into the scripture to fit the social winds of the day, straining to prove it wrong to be acceptable to sinners.
Rights be damned. Let's preach God's perfect will. Only that will set people free. The rest is just millstones around the neck. The right to homosexuality is the right to hell. Let's stop "righting" people into hell.
It's amazing how stunned some gentiles are by the simple pre-Yom Kippur tradition of asking forgiveness from people we've wronged before *being allowed* to ask forgiveness from God.
I can think of lots of reasons for prohibiting consumption of shellfish, for example.
Given that most fishing was probably done in near shore estuaries, there could have been
problems with : dinoflagellates ('red tides'), waters polluted through sewage and / or
mining operations, disposal of corpses in the waters, etc. etc. Same for eating pork,
pigs were scavengers that not only carried trichinosis, etc. but would also eat both animal
and human corpses. That is why they were considered 'unclean' animals.
It would be interesting to interpret Leviticus from a public health perspective.
A British Christian street preacher who was arrested for saying that homosexuality was a sin denied the charges in court Monday.
Dale McAlpine, 42, of Workington, Cumbria, was charged on April 20 with using "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour" after his remarks to a passing shopper were heard by a gay police community support officer.
He denied the charges Monday, and was released on bail pending trial.
McAlpine, a Baptist known to preach from atop a stepladder, was having a conversation on the street with a woman about the Bible's book of Corinthians, which refers to the sins of blasphemy, adultery, drunkenness and homosexuality.
Read more:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Preacher+charged+after+calling+homosexuality/2981430/story.html
Do you believe we should limit speech in this way in the U.S.?
Marriage is what the society says it is. You certainly have the right to argue against some version of marriage, but if the society says it should change, then so it will be. And if it's REALLY important to you, then you should start up your on movement to allow you to marry your grandma. If you can convince enough people that that's the way things should be then maybe you'll get your wish.
Marriage is what the society says. We have the right to argue against some versions of marriage (which seems to be exactly what is going on). When society changes, marriage will change. I don't think anyone is arguing that point. It seems that the ability to marry within the same gender is important for gays which is why they are fighting for it. As the majority does not seem to want it (just like they don't want you to be able to marry your own grandmother). They have not been convinced that gay marriage is appropriate. That is why it is generally illegal.
I guess we are in agreement on everything but the argument about this being a canard. Are you a master of pointing out the obvious or what?
(Though, in truth, all marriages are Civil Marriages in the eyes of the law. The usual setting of the ceremony in a church disguises the legal significance of it.)