Gay Rights and Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs

Gay Rights and Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs

     When you were growing up, did you go to church on Sunday? Did you go to church on Sunday morning and then on Sunday evening and then on Wednesday night? Did you go to VBS, or Vacation Bible School? Did you go to summer Bible Camp? Have you ever "gone forward" at the end of an emotional "alter call" and ask for forgiveness of sins? Do you still remember all the verses of Martin Luther's "A Might Fortress is Our God?" or at least the English translation of it? Do you know what a "sword drill" is? (For the uninitiated, that is where your Sunday School teacher calls out Bible verses, and the first kid to stand up and recite it wins that round). Do you know John 3:16 by memory?

     If you answered in the affirmative to those questions, you probably grew up Evangelical, like I did. Well, technically, I only became Evangelical in the 9th grade, but I was heavily influenced by Evangelical culture and thought. I remained an evangelical until the early 2000s. I no longer consider myself such, and for a variety of reasons. However, one of the major reasons is that in his senior year of high school, one of our sons told us he was gay. It's not as if that kept us out of church; not right away anyway. When he told us, the one thing we told him is that we would not reject him. We would love him, love our son for who he is. However, as I continued to attend Evangelical churches, I realized that the church rejected him, and rejected who he is. What the church says is that they "hate the sin, but love the sinner." And even though we struggled with finding our identity outside church, since we had both attended since childhood, we found we could no longer sit in the pew in tacit agreement with this view. 

     It's very trendy and liberal now to say that you will accept your child no matter who he or she is. It might also be a bit of a lie. Parents have dreams for their kids. Parents now have "gender reveal" events, something that for my generation seems just a bit over the top. People who do that certainly seem to be signaling that gender identity is alive and well. On the other side of the spectrum, some parents use the pronouns "they" and "them" to refer to their children until they can achieve gender identity awareness all on their own.  Here is the thing. Your kid is an individual, no matter what you do or say. Of course, children need love and nurturing. Having two loving parents is a good thing for a child, but so is having loving grandparents and aunts and uncles. Having teachers who support kids is a good thing. Keeping pedophile priests and coaches away from kids and in prison is a good thing. But no matter what, your children will, most of the time, grow into individuals, not versions of you. 

     Because of my experiences, I am fairly aware of the feelings evoked when issues like LGBTQ rights make their way into the political agenda. Here, I want to take up Nebraska Legislative Bill (LB) 627. LB627 was introduced by Senator Patti Pansing-Brooks of Lincoln, and is entitled "Prohibit  discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity." Under this bill, "it would be an unlawful employment practice for an employer, an employment agency, or a labor organization to discriminate against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity" according to the filed statement of intent. As in past years, this bill was filibustered before it had a chance to be brought to the floor for an up-down vote. The opponents of this bill claimed that they and their constituents' "sincerely held religious beliefs" prevented them from being able to support this bill. 

     Most of those who claim "sincerely held religious beliefs" happen to be Evangelical. Most of them claim scriptural passages to support their views. It's important to note here that nearly all Evangelicals say they accept the Bible literally. That is, they say that the Bible is the inspired, literal, word of God. It is not "inspired" in the way Shakespeare was inspired by stories from Rome, Olde England, or Italy. When Evangelicals use the word "inspired," they mean "God-breathed." This is a slight variation from what Muslims say about the Koran. In that case, Allah literally wrote the Koran, and he wrote in Arabic. In the case of the Bible, God spoke through the various authors. So when an Evangelical claims this stance, they mean that this word is not only applicable to a particular historical context, they mean it is applicable in a universal way in all historical contexts. 

     Of course, those who criticize Evangelicals for this stance, and other stances they take, often do so not from the standpoint of intellectual criticism, but rather from the perspective of snark. One thing I have learned about people in my years is that responding to someone's argument by belittling them does nothing to change their minds. In fact, it serves only to make them more convinced they are right. Of course, we live in hypermedia age. Social media does not help. Typical of the snarkiness of some critics is the comment I saw on Twitter about Evangelical belief in a "sky fairy" who is needed to justify all arguments. And often, self-proclaimed atheists take to Twitter to assert that free-thinkers like themselves are the only ones who see the logic of offering equal rights to LGBTQ persons.

     There is another approach. Unfortunately, people who have never actually read the Bible will not use this approach. In addition to belittling believers for belief in a higher being, many of these kinds of critics would not spend the time to read the book being referenced by the believers. What this means in practice is that Evangelicals are less inclined to actually think critically about their own arguments. Again, in case I am not making this clear: lots of people in our hypermedia age don't waste much time critically examining their own assumptions. My approach is one of criticism, not personal attack, to sincerely ask Evangelicals if they truly take the Bible literally, or whether they take in literally in a selective manner.

     It is fairly easy to find scriptures that condemn homosexuality. Most of the most most damning come from the Old Testament. "Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, that is detestable," says Leviticus 18:22. A bit later in Leviticus 20:13, the law (and Leviticus is the book of the law) declares that "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." There are New Testament references as well, including in Romans 1:27, where men having sex with other men is called "shameful," 1 Timothy:10, where those practicing homosexuality are condemned along with slave traders and liars, and in I Corinthians 6. Also, in the Epistle of Jude, reference is made to the ancient destroyed towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, which Evangelicals say were destroyed by heavenly fire and brimstone because of widespread practice of adultery, prostitution, and homosexuality. 

     It's also important to note that for Evangelicals, the condemnation of homosexuality is part and parcel of the view that "Biblical Marriage" is marriage between one man and one woman. One of the main passages held up as the support for this ideal is Mark 10:7-9, where Jesus says "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

     If those were the only verses in the Bible that talked about sexual or gender relations, I understand the point Evangelicals make. Unfortunately, they are among the verses of the Bible that strongly support their view. Often Evangelicals do not discuss the verses that cause problems. When they do, they often bring up ways of talking around the verses, so as not to cause cognitive dissonance. In other words, they take the Bible selectively literally. What are some of these troublesome verses?

     First is the issue of whether ideal marriage is a marriage of love between one man and one woman. In her book Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, Stephanie Coontz shows that for most of its history, the institution of marriage was not always about one man and one woman. That doesn't mean monogamous marriage is a bad idea now; in fact, it's a great idea. However, it wasn't always now. Often it was about one man and several women. Further, the idea that people marry for love is only a few hundred years old, according to Coontz. Often arranged marriages were entered into for purposes of politics, land, or business. It's important to note that arranged marriages are still practiced in some cultures. 

     Much of the Old Testament not only acknowledges this view of marriage, it actively supports it. I remember as a young man, my pastor would often say that God only tolerated the polygamy of Old Testament heroes, but his "ideal" was one man-one woman monogamy. My problem is that God sure seems to bless the polygamists. Just as an aside here, Evangelicals are often quite critical of Islam because it is a marriage of polygamy. In fact, most Muslims practice monogamous marriages just as most Christians do. It is hard to find a hero of the Old Testament with more than one wife who was actually condemned by God for that specific practice. 

     Abraham was father of Issac. But Abraham also famously had another son named Ishmael, who was borne by his wife's handmaiden Hagar. It was Abraham's wife, Sarah, who told Abraham to sleep with Hagar to bear the child that God had promised them. Then when Sarah herself later gave birth to Isaac, she forced them into exile. Abraham also had many other children with another wife after his wife Sarah died.

      Isaac only had one wife, named Rebekah, and she bore him twin sons, Jacob and Esau. Their sibling rivalry was second only to that of Cain and Abel in Genesis. Jacob was the second twin, and therefore cut off from the firstborn birthright. But because Jacob was his mother's favorite, she helped him deceive Isaac into obtaining the firstborn blessing. That is an interesting story on its own. 

    Jacob is the patriarch whom God himself renamed "Israel," and it is he who is the father of the twelve tribes. But in terms of marriage, here is the important thing: those twelve sons were the offspring of Jacob and four different women, only two of whom were his wives. Jacob had worked seven years to marry Rachel, but her father deceived him into marrying her sister Leah first. The sister he was in love with, Rachel, became his wife later. Leah bore seven sons, and Rachel two. One of these two was Joseph, who became the adviser to Pharaoh, and the first of many Israelites to inhabit Egypt. But Israel also fathered three children with handmaidens of both Leah and Rachel. The twelve sons of Jacob were, literally, the Children of Israel. They were the patriarchs of a nation. But there is no mention in the scriptures that any one of the sons was less an Israelite than the others because of the circumstances of conception or birth. 

     Later we meet King David, husband of at least five wives. Demonstrating the thesis of Stephanie Coontz, several of David's marriages were political in nature. His predecessor, King Saul, offered his daughter to David in exchange for proof that David had killed many of the enemy Philistines in battle, which David offered in the form of their severed foreskins. But David also married daughters of the kings of three surrounding kingdoms. Of course, the most famous love affair David had was with Bathsheeba, the woman he had seen bathing on her rooftop. David impregnated her, and upon discovering this, called her husband back from the front lines so he could sleep with his wife. But Uriah, Bathsheeba's husband, refuses to do so. In frustration, David sends Uriah back to where the fierce fighting is taking place, and he is killed. David later marries Bathsheeba, and their son Absalom, grows to hate and attempt to overthrow his father. 

     Nathan the prophet comes to David to condemn him for his sin with Bathsheeba. But here is the thing: David is not condemned for having more than one woman. He had at least fives wives as well as concubines. No, what Nathan condemns David for is taking the only wife of Uriah, a poor man who could afford to have only one wife. The sin of adultery in this case is coveting and taking another's wife. It was not the sin of having many wives; that he had many wives is simply the fact. 

     The idea that marriage is one man-one woman is really not supportable, at least not in the Old Testament. It is not that all men had several wives, but it is clear that the practice of polygamy was not an offense. In the New Testament, we find a different setting. Whereas the Old Testament tells the story of the wandering of the Israelites, the New Testament setting is mostly found in and around Jerusalem, Galilee, and other regions of Roman Palestine. The story of Jesus is found exclusively in this setting. Later the text follows the missionary journeys of Paul, Peter, John and other apostles throughout Asia Minor and the Mediterranean region. But this is a mostly urban area. The idea that multiple marriages would be needed or desired was somewhat obviated by social setting. 

     If the ideal of marriage that Evangelicals claim is not really supported by the Bible, what about the idea how a woman enters into the marriage contract in the first place? If in the New Testament, we see the idea that a man might actually leave his father and mother to marry a woman he desires, in the Old Testament, we see strong signs that the woman simply had no choice in the matter. 

     Deuteronomy 22: 13-30 is one of the most graphic passages in the Old Testament. However, it lays out rules for what happens when a man essentially rapes a woman. In verses 13 - 21, we see that a man can demand a virginity test of his wife, which can be appealed by her father. The judges in the case are the town elders. If they decide in favor of the young woman's father, the accusing husband must pay 100 shekels to the young woman's father. However, if the elders decide that the young woman was not a virgin, she is stoned to death. In verse 22, we learn that a man who sleeps with another man's wife must die, along with the woman. In verse 23, it is noted that if a man shows up in town and sleeps with an engaged woman, they both must be stoned. She is stoned, by the way, because she "did not scream for help" (verse 24). However, the case changes in the country. If a man rapes an engaged woman in the country, and is found out, he will be put to death. However, the woman is spared because she is in the country, and no one would hear her cries for help (verse 27). Finally, if a many rapes a woman not pledged to be married, and they are discovered, he is ordered to pay her father 50 shekels and then marry her (verse 28-29). 

     That circles us back to Leviticus. Many Evangelicals use Leviticus 18:22 to condemn homosexuality. Often, they use not the word "detestable" to describe it, as the translation I use does. They use the word "abomination" as the King James Version uses. The word "abomination" is quite a bit more, well, abominable. However, it is nearly certain that no modern American Evangelical is going to apply Deuteronomy chapter 22 within his own family, with his daughters, and within the church he attends. In fact, most Evangelicals I know would be like most atheists I know in this regard. If some guy rapes their daughter, they are not going to want his 50 shekels. They are going to want the bastard tried, convicted, and thrown in prison. 

     There are many passages of scripture that are either not taken literally, or ignored, by Evangelicals. However, my argument here is about the matter of sexual orientation, or what they might refer to as sexual behavior. If "sincerely held religious beliefs" keep an Evangelical state senator from supporting equal rights for LGBTQ persons, then that senator should also posses the intellectual honesty to say that their rationale is based on a partial, and incomplete, reading of the Bible, a book that is claimed to be taken literally.