Jamey Rodemeyer, above, is a 14-year-old kid from Buffalo, NY, who earlier this week, after years of being bullied for being gay, committed suicide.
If you’re a Christian who believes that being gay is a morally reprehensible offense against God, then you share a mindset, worldview, and moral structure with the kids who hounded Jamey Rodemeyer, literally, to death. It is your ethos, your convictions, and your theology that informed, supported, and encouraged their cruelty.
We Christians who believe that God created gay people as much in His own image as he did straight people are begging you to reconsider your theology — to do nothing more than be open to an alternative, fully credible, scholastically sound interpretation of one or two lines from Paul.
How can you be unwilling to do something so simple, when you see the horrible ultimate cost of that refusal?
Christ died so that you could love more. And you now support and willingly participant in a system that allows that same Christ to be used as a moral justification for the most vile kind of abuse. How could that have happened? How could something so right have gone so wrong?
Turn, friend. And when you do, open your arms. Discover waiting to embrace you a new Christ behind the relative shell of the one you inherited. Jesus Christ died for your sins. That was unthinkably beautiful. Now Jamey Rodemeyer has died from your sins. That is not. That is the very hell that, awfully enough, you’ve somehow tricked yourself into believing your life refutes.
Please watch this till its end:
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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Every time I read about Jamey my heart breaks again. Because of his death my own gay son changed his major in college and decided to go into Public Health with an emphasis on sexuality studies with the intent on working in the public sector to change policy in sex education and health in schools because of the ignorance around our LGBT youth. Thank you so much John for your unapologetic stand on this issue. Christians who don’t accept and love their gay children, or brothers and sisters are doing irreparable harm to them and isolating them in egregious ways that they have NO qualifications to do so. I am dumbfounded by this continued prejudice and bigotry and supremely grateful that an ever increasing number of Christians are finding the true message of Christ and embracing gay people as one of their own. Christ’s message of love needs to be heard. Once again your message is perfect.
I’m very offended by this. I am a Christian and I don’t believe in homosexuality. But as a Christian I know to love my neighbor like I love myself. Just because I don’t like it and think it’s wrong does not mean that I’m responsible for the poor boy’s death.
You don’t believe in homosexuality? So in other words, it just doesn’t exist? Wake up, honey, time to acknowledge reality. People are gay, whether you like it or not. And if you’re telling gay people that their sexuality is an abomination, then you’ree calling the people themselves abominations, because a person’s sexuality is as much a part of them as being left-handed or red-headed. That’s how people like you are, however indirectly, responsible for these suicides.
*Some people are gay. Obviously I’m not speaking for everyone or for myself.
I don’t care that you are offended. Pay attention to the fact that your injured feelings about how your belief system is driving gay kids to suicide is the first thing you talked about instead of the tragedy of this little boy. Your feelings are secondary if even on the map when kids are dying as a result of you believing they will be eternally condemned if they don’t “repent” from something they havee to ability to change and causes absolutely no harm to anyone (except you).
You “don’t believe in homosexuality”?? I’m not even sure what that means…
Dear Jenelle,
I’m afraid it does. There is a direct and palpable link between Christians who claim that the Bible condemns stable, loving relationships between people of the same gender and the actions of the bullies who drove this boy to his death, Christians who demand that gays are rounded up and executed and governments who make laws depriving LGBT people of their rights and prescribing the death penalty for their love. The opinions of people like you are profoundly influential on these other people; they hear you saying that gays are sinful, sick or disordered and they think it’s fine for them to say and do the thinks they say and do. Until you actually stand up and say that the Bible does not condemn stable, loving gay relationships, that any discrimination against LGBT people is wrong and contrary to the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, then this boy’s blood will be on your hands. I’m only telling you this because I care about your ultimate salvations and want you to be aware of your sin.
in love,
Derek
Hello:
I have been reading the paper and watching the news regarding Jamey Rodemeyer and the one missing component that I am not hearing is anyone distinguishing Homophobic Bullying from other types of bullying as they are completely separate. I wish to include a portion of my graduate thesis http://jasonjdotbiz.wordpress.com/ if for no reason than to raise awareness. Thank you
“Homophobic bullying is not like other types of bullying. If a student is bullied based on race, religion, their weight etc., they can run home to an understanding (often relatable) parent/family who understands their pain and can console them. Gay youth do not have that refuge as they 1) Are usually not out to themselves yet, and 2) fear being thrown out of their homes and family. This pent up frustration, hurt and anger eventually leads to what has (sadly) been happening in the media as of late.”
Jason Galvez
I’m totally with you 100% about gay bullying.
Sometimes, people do bad things. Really really bad things. Sometimes those people are Christians, and sometimes not. (I’m not sure, in this case, if any of this child’s tormentors were actually religious or not). Regardless, as a community of the faithful, we just have to try our best to lead by example to do better for the sake of all the innocents.
My question is: Where does all this hatred come from? I think it’s not just Christianity or any particular religion. The “rap” sub-culture is certainly not LGBT friendly. And the news of what happened on the day of the wake, as told by the lad’s mother on NBC’s Today Show, if reported truly, is deeply disturbing:
“It was the first day of his wake. And my daughter, we let her go to the school event because it was homecoming week that Jamey was looking forward to. We thought it would be great for her to be with all her friends and she was texting that she was having a great time and all of the sudden a Lady Gaga song came on and they all started chanting for Jamey, all his friends and whatever, and then the bullies that put him into this situation started chanting you’re better off dead, we’re glad you’re dead.”
Where does this come from? Let’s be real, we’re not THAT religious or faithful a nation.
Ken, first, do some reading on the rest of this site. There’s a lot of discussion on this topic. but the short version is, our culture is informed by Christianity, whether any one person is Christian or not, so when hate surfaces, it often uses Christian values to justify itself.
that’s where LGBT as a target comes from. where HATE comes from – well, mostly from fear. People fear what they don’t understand and can’t identify with. And it’s really hard to identify with a group that makes up only roughly 10% of the population.
fear turns into hate when that fear is fed and agitated, either because you can’t escape the object of the fear, or because someone keeps telling you repeatedly in a loud voice how terrifying the thing is (which is the same as not being able to escape it.) Nobody hated gays when nobody knew any. As LGBT becomes more visible, the issue’s polarizing, because paradoxically, the more you know, the less afraid you are; BUT; the harder the issue is to ignore, and the more it challenges the comfortable, familiar beliefs of those who would prefer to remain ignorant than to have to admit they were wrong.
Huh? Christianity is embedded to every American institution we have: our legal system, our educational and political systems. Who started the notion that homosexuality is “bad” if not those of us who are Christian?
The same “culture that is informed by Christianity” is the same culture that in Europe birthed the Enlightenment, that birthed this nation, that birthed the Civil Rights Movement, that in many ways birthed both progressive ideals and in a fashion even secular humanism. Thomas Jefferson’s slicing up of the New Testament is part and parcel with, say, today’s Mary Gallagher slicing and dicing of the Old Testament to justify her views. But I would argue that neither action is rooted in Christianity or any unique cultural artifact. Both actions are rooted in humanity.
Part of my issue is that blaming or criticizing a body of faith for a given outcome is a bit like blaming the gun in a murder trial. I think the issues, the motivations, come from someplace else. In this case I confess I wonder if by focusing on Christianity or certain religious figures or presumed teachings, we are in fact failing to look at the true issue- a love of hatred and a society that so celebrates the individual it isolates people from people who are different or who disagree. This, compounded by American exceptionalism may manifest in a kind of undue sense of entitlement to doing what feels good regardless of who gets harmed in the process (at least until one side or the other calls in the lawyers). But look at Nigeria – there culture has very different roots and we still see the same sort of thing when it comes to LGBT persons.
Or maybe not, I don’t know.
Cat’s point, about visibility and fear and hatred is certainly valid. But maybe what Cat points out so eloquently is a symptom, not a cause.
De Tocqueville argued that the war between haves and have nots, insider and outsider, was eternally embedded in the fabric of America, and that assuming all matters of material health and prosperity could be resolved by American ingenuity, he foresaw wars about eye colour breaking out simply because there was nothing else left to fight about. He was of course making that argument a bit tongue in cheek, both praising and condemning the vibrant youthful nation which so fascinated him. But considering how many of his observations have proven true and guide policy makers to this day…
Again, I come back to the idea this is not a Christian problem, though it may be one that Christians of conscience should address. Are we looking at the gun, and failing to see the hand that pulls the trigger?
Yes. Ultimately this, for me, from where I stand looking at this mountain, is about ego. Or, more ironically, it is about sin….but not the sin the self- righteous are denouncing, but their own sin of thinking too highly of themselves while missing, all the while, the forest for the trees. It is about a painful lack of self-awareness…..whose pain affects us all; the cause of which is difficult to remedy, for those who suffer from it are oblivious to their plight.
John, I urge you to consider the role that publicly funded youth organizations play in inculcating intolerance and bullying in our children. I’m thinking of the Boy Scouts of America in particular. Please have a look at my latest blog post – I think you’ll find that if we want to decrease bullying of LGBT kids, we need to start with the BSA right now.
You did a really nice job on that post, Jason. I’ll go link it up.
http://www.facebook.com/JohnShoreFans
I read this whole thread. Most of the conversation was informed, well-thought out and compassionate. I was truly impressed by how it seemed like the people who spoke were inspired by the story of Christ to strive to be more Christ-like in their own actions and thoughts. Who wouldn’t want people to strive to be more loving and accepting, no matter what inspired them? So, thanks for that. It was lovely to read. If you don’t mind an outside perspective though, there is something I noticed that no one really addressed in this discussion.
I think one of the reasons that non-Christian people are sometimes uncomfortable around Christian people, even “tolerant” Christian people, is that they often take it upon themselves to be the judge of everyone else’s choices and behavior.
I’m not an expert on the message that Jesus is trying to impart in the Bible, but it seems like it was mostly meant for people to apply to their own lives to better themselves. What business is it of yours if other people make “bad choices”? If making bad choices needs to be judged at all then isn’t that something that’s up to your God, rather than you, to judge? If they’re not hurting other people then who cares if other people have tattoos, or drink, or ware leather, or don’t have two kids and a white picket fence? Not liking those things comes from your own social values and it doesn’t seem to me like those opinions have a place in an ideology about tolerance and acceptance any more than disapproving of being gay does.
Sincerely,
A mis-judged feeling person.
There’s a lot to you analysis which rings true to me.
One of the greatest distinctions between American Christianity and Christianity in western Europe is the approach towards others you describe: You must believe as I do (never, of course, do as I do) else you must be punished.
This is the hallmark of American Christian belief.
I fought the whole ‘you can’t be gay and a Christian’ battle for many decades. Finally, after my parents were threatened with physical violence, I stopped trying.
American Christians have lost sight of what Christ meant. Any group who endorse torture – as over two-thirds of conservative American Christians do – is beyond reason.
There will be many more such deaths as that of this poor young man. None of them will lead to a change of heart among American Christians.
Dirk, I believe there is an Americanization of Christianity as well. It has been evolving over time. How could it not? Religion and culture are intimately linked. A link that has married rugged individualism and pull yourself up by your bootstraps Puritainism with free will and salvation by grace THROUGH faith with the economic ideals of the success of “self-made men” through free-market capitalism. The belief that we are participants in our own salvation vs. God being the one doing all the “work” through grace alone. A belief that the harder one tries and the more effort one puts forth is a reliable measure of the earnestness of the individual’s heart and will reap the greater the reward. It is this marriage that has allowed Early American catch phrases like Ben Franklin’s “God helps those who help themselves” to be wrongfully presumed and touted as scripture and has led to a worldview that increases the burden of personal responsibility for one’s failures as well as one’s successes squarely and solely (souly?) on the shoulders of the individual while diminishing the role and influence of society. Sink or swim, it is your own doing. It gives a different, but equally chilling, perspective to “Arbeit macht frei.”
Interestingly, this all coexists within a religious paradigm structured on the idea of outside invisible forces, both good and evil, at work on us, the culture, and the world. With an understanding that places these forces of Good and Evil outside of oneself, one’s psyche is able to put the responsibility for the effects of such forces also outside oneself…..thereby abdicating some responsibility that the same group so easily claimed and results in the converse assumption: What I do affects me and me alone. There exists an entrenched denial about how we influence society and how society influences us. When ego gets involved in this paradigm, it’s easy to see how one arrives at this Americanized Christianity.
At its heart this is about a worldview of where evil and good live – within or outside of us. This is about control and surrender to the power of self as well as what is beyond our power; it is about taking responsibility for both the individual self and seeing how every personal choice and action has a ripple of effect that extends beyond ourself to touch and affect others…..and connects us.
It is this disconnect of the individual from society, in understanding both the positive and negative impacts of individual behavior on the whole, that I believe has contributed to the growing chasm between left and right, both politically and spiritually.
Am I my brother’s keeper? was not just a rhetorical question in Genesis, but was a deeply insightful commentary on the role of the individual in society. I fear a large portion of the faith has lost what Mother Teresa said was so vitally important to the cause of peace: an understanding that we belong to each other.
Well said!
When my husband and I return to freedom in Europe, we go to church and we are Christians.
In America, I do not wish to be known as a Christian. The very word connotes everything Jesus came to set aside. Here, I’m a follower of Christ.
We are very nearly at the point at which such efforts as John is making here are futile. I read the comments in the gay blog-o-sphere about his attempts to express Christ’s love for us. They pretty much all explained that there is no path to reconciliation left.
I have read the comments in the conservative Christian blog-o-sphere on this poor child’s death. At best, they blame him. Most typically, they are happy he is (to their mind) rotting in hell.
I fear it is too late. We gays, lesbians and the transgender face a perfect storm in 2012. If (when) we lose the senate and the presidency, there Republicans will see to it that the supreme court is packed with justices who hate women and us.
This all feels very very much as my German relatives described the late 1920′s as being.
i’m scared, too.
Bravo, Cerynean; well said.
Sincerely,
an ex-Christian now Christ-follower
I’m only back from holiday and just read this post and it just made me cry. I cannot imagine the pain of his mum and dad. And to even contemplate Jamey’s pain is nearly more than I can bear. Poor wee soul! How cruel we are.
I think that politics is framing this discussion not religion. In truth the Bible is clear on two things specific to this discussion: 1. God loves everyone regardless of lifestyle choices. 2. The Gay/Lesbian lifestyle is not a good choice.
Hating someone because they make a choice different than God’s best is wrong. Hurting someone because they make a choice different than God’s best is wrong.
Hating someone because they point out a choice is different than God’s best is wrong. Hurting someone because they point out a choice is different than God’s best is wrong.
It is time we get real about this issues and quit allowing politics to take place of common sense and real religious tolerance.
I appreciate your attempt at tolerance, but it would be worth more if it were based on truth and not ignorance.
What, if anything, do you know about the “gay/lesbian lifestyle?” I mean, I’m not sure, but I don’t think an apartment, two jobs, two cars, three kids, a dog, church on Sunday and a 2-week vacation in the summer at Grandma’s house is particularly objectionable to the Lord, do you?
Oh, wait, that’s not the gay lifestyle? then what did you mean? Did you mean the Hollywood lifestyle? Don’t have to be gay for that. The promiscuous, druggy, drinking, tattoo and leather lifestyle? Don’t have to be gay for that.
What you MEAN is gay sex. and you’re basing “that’s not God’s best” on centuries of prejudice. Don’t quote me “The Verses,” I know them already, we ALL know them already and probably better than you do. They don’t mean what you have been taught they mean. Pray for the Spirit and read more about this before you judge what you do not know.
John’s politics – if any;) – come from his Christianity and not the other way around.
Lance, many dispute your #2 conclusion and the certainty with which you claim it. That is actually the heart of the issue here, if Christianity has been wrong about this claim, we’ve devastated thousands of people. So no, it’s not that simple (though that would be lovely).
I apply your principles to all my lifestyle warnings:
The black lifestyle isn’t a good choice.
The Jewish lifestyle isn’t a good choice.
The women’s lifestyle isn’t a good choice.
The Catholic lifestyle isn’t a good choice.
The immigrant lifestyle isn’t a good choice.
The Gay/Lesbian lifestyle isn’t a good choice.
The Asian lifestyle isn’t a good choice.
The disabled lifestyle isn’t a good choice.
Yes, indeed, that all works about the same. And I feel extra-special holy for having brought it to your attention.
Yes. This.
You’re lumping a bunch of different issues together here. Technically, the word “lifestyle” would seem to imply you’re talking about behaviors. I suppose each of the categories you listed has cultural norms associated with them, but Catholicism, Judaism (the religion), immigration, and homosexual practice involve choice and behavior, whereas being black, ethnically Jewish or Asian, a woman, disabled, or having a gay/lesbian orientation are traits that don’t imply any specific behavior (other than stereotypical cultural-type things.)
So one could actually make claims about Judaism, Catholicism, immigration, or homosexual practice, and it’s in a different category than the other issues. Throwing them all out in one list confuses the issue.
If your point was that Lance was already confusing the issue by ambiguously saying “gay/lesbian lifestyle,” then I agree with you. I just wish people would speak more precisely – Lance being almost as much at fault as you (although I could read between the lines and figure out that by “lifestyle” he meant behavior). Maybe that’s just me, though, being that I’m an academic in a technical discipline where precision matters.
Being gay isn’t a choice, Neo. I agree that Lance is probably making that presumption, however, realize that it makes his life much easier if he sees it that way. If he has to admit that it’s not a choice, then it means that God made someone that way… then the hard questions begin.
Asking someone to repent for being gay is like asking you to repent for having the color of skin that you do and telling you that God loves you, but God hates the color of your skin….. and you will go to hell if you don’t repent for having the color of skin that you do. It is both impossible to execute and impossibly cruel.
It is time we get real about this issues and quit allowing politics to take place of common sense>>>
Lance, it’s actually conservative Christianity that’s allowed politics to replace the pure, unfiltered experience of Jesus as it relates to gay men and women. It’s this group that’s demanding that the GLBT community should not be able to legally marry because of what God says. That right there? A pure injection of “God” into the politics of the legal and social contract of marriage. Those who are “anti-gay lifestyle” suggest that there’s some mysterious “gay agenda” where gay men and women want to shut Christianity down and throw Christians in jail for not wearing a pin that says “Gay is OK!”.
From what we can tell, gay men and women want nothing more than to just live their lives enjoying the same rights that those of us who are straight get to enjoy. The only reason why they are thinking about us or talking to us about it is because *we* as Conservative Christians have lobbyists representing “Family Values” advocating all sorts of things against gay rights. This is cause and effect – we are causing the problems and they are reacting. We’re not quite the center of the victim universe that we like to think we are. I suspect a lot of gay men and women would love to have absolutely nothing to do with the Christian community, they just have to because we’re hurting them with our theology.
What DR said.
You have a way of using words like a scalpel, Dr, cutting to the heart of the issue. Almost as good as John. Eloquent and concise. Thank you for being.
The Bible isn’t the least bit clear on the idea that the gay and lesbian lifestyle is not a good choice – nor can it be, because being gay or lesbian isn’t a choice in the first place, nor is it true that there is a single gay or lesbian lifestyle.
All that the Bible has about “the gay and lesbian lifestyle” is a group of out-of-context quotes that are either complete mistranslations or part of a larger set of holiness codes that have been otherwise discredited.
If you want to say that the Bible condemns gang rape, hatred of strangers, religious prostitution, child rape, or the worship of idols, you won’t get a lot of argument.
If you want to say that gay people don’t get a pass on lying, or on stealing, or on promiscuity, or anything else that applies equally to straight people, then you can make that claim. But just because there is a consensus about what people think the Bible says, or how what it actually says “obviously” applies to people today doesn’t make it so.
People point to the story of Sodom, as though a mob demanding the right to gang rape some angels has anything to do with the gay couple next door hosting a brunch or joining the PTA. People point to Paul, as though God punishing people for their idolatry and immorality automatically applies to the lesbian teens who want to go the the prom. People point to the death penalty in Leviticus but conveniently ignore everything else in Leviticus.
Not, the Bible is not “clear” about it at all. What is is clear is that people will be judged and condemned or saved based on how they treated their downtrodden neighbors. Are most Christians prepared to have their salvation judged on how they treated the gay people among them? “I was sick, hungry, and in prison…. what you did not do for these, you did not do for Me.”
If being gay was a choice then he would have chosen to be straight a long time ago! Don’t you ever take this into consideration? Gay people are hated by everyone! So why would they choose that? Why would they choose to be bullied into scuicide?! It makes to sence to say that even though all of the world bashes them but yet they still choose it. Chistianity is wrong about gays, we have translated the Bible wrong about the subject for decades, probally even centries! You have no choice to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex. Humans have no choice who to love! Even if you don’t want to be attracted to such person. So why all of a sudden gays choose to be attracted to, and fall in love with the same sex? You answer that question. In what universe do people choose to be attracted to someone? YouTube.com/gaychristiannetwork
The idea of people chosing to be gay is so nonsensical that it only makes sense if the person who says that is closeted and in denial.
After all, straight people know perfectly well they could not choose to be gay. Are you straight? Right now, choose to be gay. Let me know when you’ve done it. I’ll wait.
“After all, straight people know perfectly well they could not choose to be gay. Are you straight? Right now, choose to be gay. Let me know when you’ve done it. I’ll wait.”
SOOOO gonna use that now with people who think being gay is a choice!! Brilliant!
I think it’s not just the Christians. Other religion too forbid being gay or lesbian or homosexual. What makes you think you have the right to change your sex gender? Are you saying God is blind and is to blame for bringing onto this world with a wrong sex gender?? Be content with yourself and people will respect you for it.
mostly the big 3: Jews, Christians and Muslims. others are now beginning to do so that did not originally do so.
Is God to blame for making some people born with birth defects? Should we not do surgery to fix those either?
Cat,
We Christians have an answer better than surgery. We can pray.
If we just pray, God guarantees that He’ll repair all birth defects. And if it isn’t happening, then we must not have faith. Keep praying.
That is, after all, the approach that the church has. “Gosh, has it been decades and you still aren’t attracted to the opposite sex? Don’t blame God; clearly he wanted you to be single or he wouldn’t have made you gay. Otherwise, guess you aren’t praying hard enough. Now please go because I don’t want you around the children.”
I was so tempted to quit reading your comment half way. Glad i persevered thru the last paragraph. I was about getting ready to pounce.
Oh, well, then.
Since all the neighbors have joined the Nazi party, I guess we should, too.
Conservative Christians lost any claim to standing for ἀγάπη the day survey results revealed over 2/3 stood for torture.
It doesn’t matter one bit what ‘all’ the others are doing. What counts is what you do.
“It doesn’t matter one bit what ‘all’ the others are doing. What counts is what you do.”
THIS, really, should be on a bumper-sticker!
I dunno… Elijah always went with what everyone else was doing. So did Jesus. God really respects conformity – especially religious conformity.
Oh, Timothy.
Your sense of humor is wonderful.
So sad that we are discussing the same problems after all these years.
Not only has nothing changed, but it has gotten much worse in America.
I figure the conservative Christians know they only have to win the 2012 elections and we have lost everything for decades to come.
********Not only has nothing changed, but it has gotten much worse in America.*******
Such hyperbolic generalizations are not helpful. Of course much has changed and that “worse” you are referring to is, hopefully, not an actual “worse”, but the death rattle of a dinosaur.
Are you to say that God didn’t bring someone into the world precisely as they are because part of that soul’s journey is to become who they are on the inside? Who are you to claim to know the mind of God?
What can we do to stop things like this from happening?
You stand up and shout about it. In church. In real life. Not just on the Internet.
I am not currently attending a church. I just moved away from home to attend college. I have been attending the Baptist Collegiate Ministry here, but I’m a coward I guess. I’m scare of bringing the issue up. Ive gotten into many discussions with some of my Christian friends about this issue. I want to do more, but my fear gets in the way…
Find a church where you are not afraid to talk abut it. A church where you are afraid to talk is not your church.
So true.
Ah… Thank you. For some reason, I have never thought about it that way. I will do my best.
Next time your minster rants on about homosexuals, stand, shout your outrage, symbolically shake the dust from your feet, and walk out suggesting everyone familiarize themselves with Romans 13:10. Then maybe stand at the nave door, turn and look silently back and just stand there, not saying word, letting them squirm. Then walk out.
That sounds wonderfully dramatic!
I”m fairly certain that I don’t believe in sinful souls, but I think Brian W has a point there about intolerance. (I have no idea where the earlier comment makes any sense.) Intolerance doesn’t emanate from religion, it emanates from people who fail to live up to the ideals of that religion.
The trouble comes in the institutionalization of that intolerance, enshrined in communities that might otherwise truly practice loving their fellow neighbor.
The trouble comes in through ignorance, which spreads as a distrust of information is mistakenly viewed as strength of faith.
The trouble comes in when we would rather hurt others than admit the possibility that we have erred.
And perhaps an unwillingness to admit error is the definition of a sinful soul.
Thank you. Yes, this.
Yes, I agree.
Yes God did create everyone in his image,GAYS STRAIGHTS AND LESBIANS AND TRANSGENDERS as well.
Pedophiles too?
Wow.
Brian, you just put pedophiles in the same gay men and women. What a sick, repulsive comment. Truly. It’s sick, this comment makes me sick to my stomach.
Next time you whine about people being “mean” to you, remember what you just said to probably thousands of gay Christians who are reading this. This is such an act of aggression toward the GLBT community, I’m stunned that you’d say this. Part of me was holding out that you were somewhere inside of you, a nice guy who is just very, very insecure and confused but this erases any chance of anyone seeing you like that. And you did this to yourself.
No I’m not putting pedophiles in with gay men and woman. Mike commented that God created people gay and I asked if God created pedophiles. Just asking a simple question. I do not think LGBT people are evil and they are no more or no less a sinner than myself, nor do I claim that gays can not be truly used greatly by God and can be fine Christian people.
I don’t believe you. This is not a “simple question”, you just caught in perhaps, revealing something about yourself that you may not have wanted others to see. There would be no purpose in your question, other than to draw the correlation that being gay is as sinful as pedophilia. You’re carefully worded response doesn’t negate your original question. You busted yourself, Brian, it doesn’t matter how many words you try to weave around what you just did.
If I’m wrong, then explain the reason why you asked the question and the point you were trying to make.
I’m not trying to make a point, I’m trying to learn. For example God creates people with ADD, multiple personality disorder, pyromania, kleptomania and a whole range of other issues. Because they were created that way, does it make it normal? That is the question that probably deep down most Christians (and non “pro-gay” non-religious people) grapple with, honestly, concerning homosexuity. If it is truly a biological (i.e.
genetic / hormonal) is it normal or abnormal. I, for example, have abnormal eye-sight (extremely near-sighted) and as such there are certain jobs I would not be qualified for. I really do want to learn, I have ordered some of the books recommended by others, I have read much more on the web sites others recommended too. Be patient I have over 30 years of “disinformation” I have to unlearn and/or critically analyze more thoroughly.
OK. Thanks for explaining. I’m sorry I jumped down your throat, I will take your word for it, I’ll try to be more patient (people who worked with me were very patient) and I’ll try to react with less anger, I applaud you for sticking around and asking honest questions.
All of the things that you’ve pointed out – pyromania for example, kleptomania – all of these things humans seem to be “born” with also lead to behavioral fruit that is damaging – sinful behavior. Pyromania sets fires and destroys property and takes lives. Kleptomania leads people to steal. These are things we may be born with as a result of original sin, it seems likely.
The difference of being “born” gay is that being gay doesn’t lead to sinful behavior (let’s just stay away from the definition of gay sex as being sinful). If you note the examples of the gay people on this forum, they for the most part have loving, committed partners who stabilize their lives. Many are Christian. The orientation that they are born with doesn’t lead to damage. It’s a myth that’s been widely accepted that there’s some kind of specific sexual promiscuity, we as straight people are having just as many problems with using sex in ways that damage us too. Sex that is sheerly rooted out of lust and greed and power is a universal issue.
Does that make sense?
Firstly: ADD doesn’t belong among any of the others that you listed.
Secondly: Mental illnesses are diverse, usually resulting from a combination of nurture and nature, environment and chemistry and DNA, or are a manifestation of another contributing health issue or can be situational or idiopathic. Many types are born out of the mind’s (albeit often unhealthy) coping mechanisms for dealing with unresolved internal pain and conflict. In avoiding confrontation and directly dealing with the pain of our reality, an alternative reality is created in our mind under which we live. When this unreality becomes too cumbersome, it interferes with life.
Thirdly: At their heart, the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ Greatest Commandment deal with putting God and others before ourselves. Sin is about selfishness…..and the harm that comes from our selfishness. Wherever sin is mentioned one can usually replace it with “ego” or the concept of ego: self-centeredness. And wherever God or the Divine is mentioned one can usually replace it with “love” or the concept of “compassion” – selfless, unconditional love.
People fall in love with people. Within that concept, whether heterosexual or homosexual, there is not sin. There is not selfishness. There is no harm to the other.
Lastly: I take issue with the phrase “God creates people with….” Let’s neither blame nor give God direct credit for what ails us. God does not create people with cancer, nor does God allow people to get cancer. Cancer happens. God does not create people with depression nor allow people to get depression. Depression happens… because we are human.
Because of our humanity/sin/ego/selfishness bad things happen. God is not the author of our pain and suffering no matter the type of pain and suffering.
I referenced this quote earlier elsewhere on this thread from Mother Teresa: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
Dr and Brian….it seems to me that much of the reason for all this issue conflict goes all the way back to the possibly erroneous idea that God created everyone as they are. For heaven’s sake, examine that premise. Of course, a loving ANTHROPOMORPHIC god would not create mistakes. Only by thinking of God as a Cosmic disinterested creative force like that which destroys whole galaxies in super novas could one believe that God creates mistakes, then makes changes, like the dinosaurs maybe. But mistakes exist, so what does that say about that notion of what God does and does not create ? This and similar discussions are everywhere riddled with this repeating tape running thru Christian minds. We come to these religious/social discussions from an erroneous premise. COULD GOD’S METHOD OF CREATION BE EVOLUTION? Simply to ask the question presents us with a different perspective on human life.
Brian: qualifying these kinds of conditional variants as normal or abnormal serves (for this conversation, at least) no purpose. Our relevant consideration about any given innate/God-given condition is to what degree it necessarily compromises quality of life: how big a challenge is it to overcome; what kind of obstacles does it present to an enjoyable or fulfilling life experience. If you have ADD, schizophrenia, one lung, bad kidneys, etc., etc., you’ve got yourself a challenge. You can win over that challenge, of course. But you’re going into the game (often literally, insofar as this conversation goes) handicapped.
Being gay isn’t a handicap, at all-–outside of the one of having other people think it is. All the other kinds of conditions to which we’ve referred are actual, real, objective problems: people with bad hearts don’t get to run and play (as much) ; people in wheelchairs do have deal with all the places they can’t access; the blind are living without an extremely valuable asset. Those are real problems. Being gay, in and of itself, isn’t any kind of problem in any way at all. All the problems associated with being gay come from outside the gay person: they all come from other people believing being gay is wrong or evil. There’s nothing wrong with being the smallest in the litter: the smallest … I don’t know … lion cub, or whatever, is perfectly happy and sound. The problem comes when, because of its size, it starts being denied food, or … left out for the hawks to get, or whatever.
There’s nothing wrong with being gay–beyond that it rouses in so many people all kinds of hostility and anger. Then it’s a problem. But not before. Not in and of itself.
DR and John,
With a moist eye, thank-you both for answers with substance that I can deeply muse on.
Listen, you’ve stayed in these conversations like a champ. I know you’ve been yelled at, you’ve been called names and a lot of us have lost our temper with you. That you’re still here trying to figure this out is so encouraging, Brian. You’re an important part of our community here. I know you’re trying the best you can, we all are. Much love to you. Let’s keep working it out together, this is really hard stuff (and I’m learning from you too).
Yes, I agree with DR. Thank you for your patience with us and your willingness to stick it out.
I care very much about you, Brian, your happiness, and your well-being. I have been driven to frustration; this is true. But always, I come back to truly caring about you.
oh, and I’m in a hurry chasing a baby. But I’m sorry I blew up yesterday. Or whenever it was. I’ve had no sleep for almost 3 nights now. I should not type on mania and sleep deprivation.
Keep on keepin’ on.
It’s ok, Brian. It really is so long as you come to understanding of yourself and what is really happening in your heart and mind. Note, I did not say “so long as you come to agreement with us”. Getting you to agree with us is not our goal. The goal for John and all of us (may I presume?), is to get someone like you to THINK about what is on that tape that has been looping so long thru your mind and the pain that has been causing, not only to gays and lesbians, but to society and to yourself, and indeed, to your faith.
Welcome to the beginning of a stronger, more loving Faith, Brian.
Well… being gay does make it impossible to conceive children with one’s preferred partner. Apart from that, I agree with everything you said.
I can follow Brian’s point about pedophiles, and he has a point mainly because many of us here defending homosexuality have been sloppy in our arguments. Homosexuality is not a sin not just because it’s not a choice but also because IT DOESN’T HURT ANYONE. I used to be a CASA working with abused children. I have met many pedophiles who, as far as I could tell, wished sincerely not to be attracted to children. I don’t believe they were “born that way,” but at some point in their lives, they gained a fixation they could not overcome. They did have a choice not to ACT on their attraction – but as fundies are fond of pointing out, gay people also have that choice. So what’s wrong with the fundie argument that homosexuals should live in celibacy?
Well, the difference is that unlike pedophilia, gay sex between consenting adults doesn’t hurt anyone. It makes the participants happy. Even more importantly, living without love makes people unhappy. Jesus was absolutely clear that when there is a conflict between ceremonial law and human happiness, the human happiness takes precedent. He made no other point so often and so clearly as he made this one: the laws of God are the laws of a loving father. They are an operating manual for how to be a human being. When specific circumstances make observing those laws harm people, the people are more important than the law. If a man – or even a sheep – needs saved on the Sabbath, that’s more important than keeping the Sabbath. If a man is hungry and wants to pluck corn to eat on the Sabbath, that’s more important than keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And Jesus extends this to all law – all the law and all the prophets, he says, can be derived from the two great laws, to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Any time someone tells you something is God’s law and it contradicts one of those laws, that person is telling you about man’s law, not God’s law.
Well put.
I have always felt that the major weakness of the conservative Christian argument that pedophilia and homosexual behavior are one in the same is the question of consent.
A child is not capable of reasoned consent. Thus, any sexual handling with a child, even when that child has said ‘OK’ is still an act of violation. The child – or boxturtle, dog or napkin (or was it paper towel?) is incapable of consenting.
Of course, as is always the case with conservative Christians, there is a second level to their lies here. Medical science has long since established that nearly all pedophiles are heterosexual men.
So, to be consistent, would you also argue that consensual premarital (straight) sex is OK? If so, that’s another area where you would tend to disagree with most conservative Christians.
(Full disclosure: I’m bi, but have concluded that sex is only appropriate in heterosexual marriage. I already believe that homosexual relationships can be loving, committed, and non-dysfunctional, and would love to believe they are God-honoring, but reading both sides of the scholarly debate has not allowed me to come to that conclusion. That leads to all sorts of difficult issues when it comes to people not attracted to their own sex. The short version is that I believe they’re called to give and receive love in exclusively non-sexual ways in the context of Christian community, but a lot of Christian communities have a long way to go to do a good job of that. I have the same belief about heterosexuals who for whatever reason don’t find Christian marriage partners.)
Neo,
I confess to being curious. How can someone disciplined in the real sciences (oops, I mean ‘trained in the natural sciences) come to such a conclusion as ‘sex is only appropriate in heterosexual marriage?’
Dirk,
It comes almost directly from believing that the Bible is authoritative when properly understood. Studying arguments from both sides, I’ve found the arguments for sex only in marriage to be more persuasive than the “as long as it’s consensual and doesn’t harm anyone” ones.
What part of my being in a technical discipline (I didn’t say “science” – there are other technical disciplines like mathematics, statistics, computer science, and engineering that are closely related to the sciences but that I wouldn’t directly classify as “natural sciences” like chemistry, biology, and physics) makes you think I couldn’t come to such a conclusion?
Is it a question of how I am a Christian in the first place, given my education? I don’t actually believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, and the scientific findings, properly interpreted, really conflict. But that gets into all sorts of issues that would be hijacking this thread to discuss in depth. (I’m not your typical “fundamentalist” in a lot of ways – for example, I’ve looked at enough of the evidence to conclude that the universe is pretty clearly billions of years old, not thousands.) And of course the whole “why be a Christian in the first place” is a big question that I could summarize my answer to here, but that would itself be a big post and wouldn’t address everything.
Or is it the issue of homosexuality in the animal kingdom? The thing is, I don’t think animal sexual behavior should be normative for people. Many species are not monogamous, but I believe people are to be monogamous. There even exist species where the female kills the male after mating – we would never consider that behavior acceptable for a human woman. So we have to look somewhere other than animal behavior to determine what is moral for people, and my understanding comes from what I understand about the Bible.
I will point out that when the question changes from “what is moral” to “what should the government enforce,” my philosophy is much more in line with the “no-harm principle.” I don’t think the government should be the sexual morality police, and I believe that meaningful religious freedom means freedom for people that I disagree with, including denominations that celebrate same-sex marriages.
Neo (sorry but postings have gotten so nested that I can’t reply under your post) – my feelings on premarital sex are mixed, and still evolving. The issue is not, however, whether it’s “wrong” in some theoretical way, but whether it harms, or is likely to harm, the people who participate in it. And the answer is, well, yeah, a lot of the time it does. But a lot of the time marriages go bad too. And a lot of premarital sex is joyful and, as far as I can see, blessed.
The laws of the Bible were written before any reliable means of birth control. What the Bible says and what Jesus said about premarital sex can’t be divorced from reproduction. And casual reproduction is not a good thing. It’s impossible to know what Jesus would have said about sexual conduct in the era of the pill.
Allie and Neo, from Biblical scholarship and historical study there’s actually a school of thought on this that believes the laws about adultery had much to do with cultural Jewish law regarding property, contractual agreements, and inheritance. So, adultery (cheating on one’s spouse) did all of these things: broke a contract, defiled another man’s property, and, in the era before DNA testing and birth control, put inheritance validity at risk. Jewish law said that men only had a financial obligation to their legitimate children. Illegitimate ones – not so much (see Ishmael). So, if your wife cheated on you, there was no way to tell if the resulting pregnancy was really your child or the other man’s. Stoning adulterous women solved the problem of being unsure of the paternity of your children and the resulting possibility of having to divide one’s property among children that weren’t really yours. Thus also the importance of marrying a virgin. Morals? or money? You be the judge. Nowhere, that I am aware of, does it say in scripture that the man had to be a virgin at marriage.
the nesting thing again – I’m actually responding to Allie, Neo, and Christy on reproductive morals.
The thing about heterosex, marital or otherwise, is this: No matter how careful you are, pill, condoms, rhythm, withdrawal, avoiding intercourse, NOTHING is 100% at preventing pregnancy. So never sleep with anybody you wouldn’t want to spend the rest of your life with. whether you marry them or not, if you co-parent children, that’s a permanent commitment. At least, best case, it should be.
Where love and not just property and inheritance law comes into it is, if there’s no legally enforceable commitment between people who sleep together, you run the risk of damaging any children you do have. Emotionally, socially, financially. That commitment before the community slows you down enough to think before disrupting the lives of small people who don’t understand why Daddy doesn’t live here anymore. I don’t know what research shows about the effects of divorce on kids, but I know from personal experience it ain’t pretty, and it’s lasting. Not judging people who choose divorce; it might be the least possible evil. Just saying, there’s more than legalese going on with this.
Where this applies to LGBT, by the way, is that if you have kids, and you have a committed partner, and then break up, doesn’t matter whose kids they are, it hurts.
Brian,
There is a strong scientific argument to be made for the existence of male homosexuality across all high-level mammals.
It has been shown in independent, peer-reviewed, properly documented and properly repeated studies that those lions/wolves/dolphins/humans who have more of their offspring live to the age of reproduction also have gay relations on hand.
The same relationship, by the by, which is found holds true for families with a grandmother around.
All your comparisons are to genetic defects. There are only three types of genetic variation from the norm. Those variations which do not increase survival of the species (not the individual, the species). Those which have no effect on survival of the species. Those which lead to a higher survival rate of the species.
And that’s the one and only set of criteria which Mother Nature applies.
We gays advance the survival of the species, thus we are permitted to continue to be born into each generation.
Your previous comments lead me to believe your knowledge of genetics is limited, if not, in fact, constrained by the misapprehensions of the 19th century.
Gay men do not pass on the ‘gay gene’ (nor is there any one single such gene, goodness, we just recently had to throw out the entire ‘certain knowledge’ of the double-recessive blue eyed ‘gene’).
The ability to have a gay male child is determined through a complex series of interactions which play out in some, but not all women. For those women capable of having gay sons, there is a statistically relevant and demonstrably higher rate of their heterosexual offspring attaining reproductive age.
Period.
I’m overjoyed that you are open to learning.
Given the appalling death of Jamey Rodemeyer (buried today by the very church which actively agitated and agitates towards our torture), I think all conservative Christians need to stop and look at the blood on their hands. They may pretend it isn’t there, but God knows. As he notes the falling of a sparrow, ‘even’ us gays and lesbians and the transgender matter to Him.
There will be a reckoning at the end.
I saw on MSNBC this morning that even now, even in Jamey’s death, the bullies at his school persist in their appallingly hateful verbal outrages. His sister was driven home in tears from a dance by those who were expressing that it was good he was dead.
One can only look on in dismayed wonder.
Pure evil. Those bullies need to be expelled.
Point one. Normal is an imaginary line, a mathematic word for average. It’s by definition ABNORMAL for humans to be gay. Anything that only affects 10% of a population is not the norm for that population. Bear with me guys, I’m bi, so I’m supposedly more abnormal than any of you at 1%, except the transgendered. But just because something is rare does not make it unnatural or dysfunctional. It doesn’t make it wrong. Diamonds are rare too. And there is only one Christ. Jesus was NOT normal.
DR’s handled point two, that sexual orientation, unlike the rest of these things, is not a disorder. Being born gay is more like being born short, or blond, or a twin. can be good or bad, depending.
Physical disorders? like being born blind, or with one short leg? So what? It’s just a body. You rise to the challenge, we help each other, we work around it. But if you’d been taught all your life that having six fingers on one hand meant that Satan was your father and your mother was a witch, (which was believed in the Dark Ages, mind you) you’d think THAT was abomination, too, but we know better now.
Inborn, organic mental disorders like schizophrenia (not dissociative personality, which is acquired) I think really just need to have spaces made for them in our culture where they can contribute without shame or fear. it’s not crazy to hear voices, it’s crazy to tell the doctor you hear voices:) What makes them so awful is that people don’t understand them, they get scared and isolated. Aboriginal peoples, for example, quite often turned their madmen and idiots into priests or shamans, and the entire tribe would care for them, and take inspiration from their apparently nonsensical behavior. We could let bipolar people work for 2 weeks straight and then sleep for a week, for example:) (hint, hint).
Point 3: Most human disorders, physical, mental, emotional, come from a POSITIVE trait in the wrong place and time, or one that has been warped or broken into something dangerous and harmful. Cancer is growth and healing gone wild, fire really is beautiful to watch, and ADD is a very useful condition to have if you are a hunter-gatherer looking for dinner or standing watch over your tribe at night. You never miss a noise or a wiggle in the grass. Not so much in public school or corporate America.
Point 4: did God make them that way?
God made the WORLD. People included. He made mosquitoes, viruses, plagues, famines, physical diseases and suffering and disasters of all kinds. But when we love and are loved, when we are not AFRAID, when we trust in God and take care of each other, pain is just pain and death is just death, and disasters are something you grieve a while for and then get over. It happens, we don’t like it, it isn’t fun, but it’s not evil, and it’s not soul-destroying.
But when you are talking about emotional disorders like multiple personality, where a person has suffered so much horror and emotional suffering that they have to create different personalities to deal with it all, or kleptomania, where the person is stealing to deal with inner emotional pain, or pyromania, where they are destroying outward things, or teen suicides or cutting behavior, or alcoholism or gambling, it’s rarely due to a single act of God. Genes may contribute, but when people are abused or neglected or trained to worthlessness, it’s somebody’s free will imposed on somebody else’s. or somebody misusing their own free will on themselves. or somebody not helping when they could.
and God didn’t make them that way.
Well put.
By the way, even the Americans are finally beginning to admit that the ’1%’ nonsense is totally wrong.
There is a wide variation in the assessment of how many of us are not heterosexual and not bisexual. Real scientists currently place the number at not lower than 7% and not higher than 11%.
That extraordinarily weak social studies project out of California placed the number at 4%, but, as with all non-hard sciences, that’s just a piece of literature research.
Do our numbers matter? To mother nature, obviously. Now that it has been established that children born into families with gay males have a higher survival rate than those born into exclusively heterosexual families, I think it is time for the conservative Christians to accept that we are a positive piece of nature.
Then again, they reject global warming, a round earth, the heliocentric view of the universe and actually ‘know’ the earth is less than 5,000 years old.
Sigh.
Thanks. I was actually quoting the last number I saw YOU use – my personal experience gives me different numbers. And I’ve lived in two countries and eight states, seventeen different schools and I’ve lost track of the towns, so my sample is a little broader than most people’s.
The biggest problem in the research is self-reporting. We have no idea how many are unreported because they’re in denial or in the closet.
I call “BS” on all your questions. I’ve looked at the wording you use. I hope I am wrong.
“non “pro-gay””, “it originates from a sinful heart”, equating pedophilia with homosexuality, the “celibate pedophile”.
I truly hope I am wrong. But I call BS. And I do not do that lightly.
Then search your heart and mind and figure out why you asked that question when you asked that question. If God made man, God made all men. Pedophilia is a mental illness that causes an adult to VICTIMIZE a child for power and control. It is not an orientation, it is not a state of being. Your true colors keep showing, Brian.
Ok what about a celibate pedophile? A person with a sexual attraction to kids, but they don’t act on it, are they still a pedophile? If so, did God make them that way?
What is the purpose of you bringing up pedophilia in a conversation about homosexuality?
A pedophile is a rapist. A “celibate” pedophile is one whose mind no longer wants to commit violent acts with children using sexuality and pedophilia has no scientific cure. They can only be kept from children.
It is still, at its heart, about power and not about sex.
Precisely. I don’t see Brian or any of the other conservative Christians here arguing that heterosexual men are debased.
And yet, nearly all pedophiles and virtually all those who rape women are heterosexual men.
The lies of the conservative Christians get more and more outrageous with each passing month. They know that they are losing the battle, their days of raping, beating, torturing, murdering us are numbered.
Unless, of course, we lose the presidency and senate to them in 2012. Then, they will see to it that the supreme court is packed with more Scalias. Can you say Nazi Germany redux? Sure you can.
Yes, pedophiles too, though the pedophilia is not part of God’s character.
Pedophilia is a form of rape. Rape is not about sex, it’s about power. In rape, sex is used as a weapon. The most common form of pedophilia is adult male against female child. The next most common form is adult male against male child. The least common forms are adult females against male or female children.
To associate rape (whether the rape of children or the rape of adults) with the GLBT community is slanderous and libelous (depending upon whether you are speaking or writing.) GLBT’s are no more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals. You would do well to educate yourself on this issue rather than sticking with your stereotypes and prejudices.
Amen and amen.
Diana speaks the truth. As a medical professional, I affirm her assessment.
Brian, please consider reading the books I listed elsewhere on this thread: “How to Love” and “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart” by Gordon Livingston and “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck or other mainstream books about the essence of healthy communication and relationships.
Brian, here http://johnshore.com/2011/09/20/christians-and-the-blood-of-jamey-rodemeyer/comment-page-2/#comment-93407, you said: “What a person says or writes is a reflection of their heart,”
Yes, you are correct.
The FBI has kept careful records on pedophiles. The records were collected in the certainty that they would show that gays are pedophile, the FBI was not at all pleased to find out that the exact opposite situation holds.
Averaged against share of the population, here are the safest and least safe people with whom to leave a vulnerable child:
-German Shepard or similar ‘family’ breed
Lesbian Woman
Gay Man
Straight Woman
(The variance among these four is almost negligible and any stranger belonging to these groups may literally be trusted not to hurt a child).
Then at a rate several hundreds of times greater than all the above, together:
Straight Men.
And still, that percentage is a tremendously small number of the entire population of straight men.
Now, the Catholic church tried hard to pretend that all those child raping priests were also gay men. Finally, their own commission demanded that this lie no longer be repeated.
It speaks volumes that so many Catholics in America still perpetuate the lie.
Brian, comparing us to pedophiles is not only insulting, it is to bear false witness.
Now, to your question. Did God create the pedophile? Yes, He did. Did He will the pedophile to rape? No, He did not.
Which you very well know. I suspect this was the beginning of one of your straw-man arguments in which you try to say my near 30 year marriage of love, loyalty, trust, monogamy, commitment and being true is trash and vile while Newt Gingerich’s dumping cancer ridden wives on their death beds left and right is a good thing.
I think with a possible rare exception, people aren’t born pedophilic. I think they are very early twisted that way. That’s true pedophiles; people who are attracted to children because they have not themselves matured enough, because adult relationships are terrifying to them, because they can only be attracted to someone who can’t have any power over them. Someone they can control. The sin is in whoever twisted them that way in the first place…but they’re broken. yes, a celibate pedophile is without sin, but he’s probably also suicidal.
I do distinguish between true pedophiles and people who are attracted to legal children who are physically adult. That’s a cultural distinction. It’s actually biologically healthy to be attracted to persons who have just come out of puberty. We don’t do it in this country and time, and it isn’t LEGAL, but it’s not pedophilia.
Yes. I agree.
And like conservative Christians do anything to protect kids from pedophiles, aside from massive victim-blaming and ignoring of the problem. Like pedophiles aren’t more comfortable in church than people who CONSENSUALLY have relationships with those of their own gender.
This is where the “all sin is equal” thing is really gross and not elevates good things to some massive moral crisis, but also dismisses real crimes as not that bad.
I do not want to be anywhere near your god or the people he accepts into heaven.
And sorry for plugging my own blog, but I don’t feel like retyping the same argument. http://somaticstrength.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/dear-christians-your-god-needs-to-get-his-priorities-straight/
Honestly, no one could blame you for not wanting to get near someone who would actually equate being gay with pedophiles, any reasonable person would run the opposite direction (including me).
I’m sorry we’ve not made our voice louder and we’ve not shut down those who make that suggestion. With exception of John and a few others, we’ve not countered that in a public, expansive and vocal way that would assure you that it’s something that comes from very fearful people encased in their own emotional and character issues. We’ve allow ourselves to be run over by this and we’re paying the price for that now.
I’m so sorry you had to read that.
I just find it incredibly disgusting of Christians who pull comparison of pedophiles and being gay when all it is is to have some “gotcha” moment, considering that as a group, conservative Christianity in no way takes a stand against it, and is actually quite willing to overlook it and let victims lives be destroyed for the sake of being able to keep their child molesting rapist friends.
You have to remember, somaticstrength, the overwhelming majority of American conservative Christians actively support torture.
Why should they blink at raping, beating, murdering us gays when they think torture is a good thing?
Dirk, do you have evidence for that claim? The overwhelming majority of conservative Christians I know don’t support torture. And the churches I’ve been a part of do tend to take measures to avoid molestation – for example, adding windows to doors and such.
The vast majority of conservative Christians I know also would also oppose raping, beating, or murdering gays.
Are you saying my experience has really been that atypical, despite having gone to a Christian college and been to churches of several different denominations in different regions of the US?
I’m certainly not saying that people are perfect or have the appropriate attitude towards gays, but the claims you’re making are precisely the same form of slander that some of the more public anti-gay figures make towards gay people.
“A whopping 62% of white evangelical Protestants think that torture is justified in most or many circumstances.”
Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/progressiverevival/2009/05/mainline-protestants-americas.html#ixzz1ZAFn57CU
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1210/torture-opinion-religious-differences
Adding windows to doors is a nice touch. So are federal background checks on anyone coming in contact with children, including and especially volunteers. But awareness and information and a “I know how molestation works and am telling all my friends about the signs and symptoms to look for” warning label is the best defense against child abuse in churches.
Neo, those with a “God the stern judge/retributive justice/hell and damnation” view of religion are also more likely to support capital punishment and corporal punishment. The two go fit and fiddle.
This disparate view of God is what distinguishes liberal from conservative religion and shapes not only our faith but our worldview – our politics: Grace vs. Punishment, Restorative vs. Punitive, Unconditional vs. Conditional love, God the long-suffering, forgiving, compassionate parent vs. God the wrathful, the vengeful, the jealous, the punisher. This, along with the idea of merit: Good people deserve to be treated well and bad people do not. Thus the Pat Robertson’s of the world who see natural disasters as punishment for bad behavior.
“President Of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Says Death Penalty Is About Affirming The Sanctity Of Life”
Read more:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/23/327627/bapist-president-death-penalty-about-life/
Mohler scares the cr@p out of me.
Christy,
Thanks for the reply. I hadn’t seen that Pew research study. I have to admit, I’m surprised those numbers are as large as they are. I guess that’s because torture isn’t a topic that has been discussed extensively in the Christian communities I’ve been a part of. I would assume that most people see it as a necessary evil in response to injustice (such as terrorism, which is when I’ve heard the issue brought up in political discussions), rather than something that is itself good. I suppose you could say that this view “supports torture,” so in that sense, I stand corrected. However, I’m not sure that Dirk’s claims in particular were fair. He claimed an “*overwhelming majority* *actively* support torture,” which I don’t believe to be true. Furthermore, his views about how conservative Christians want to treat gay people might apply to some, but not to most conservative Christians I know, especially the younger generation.
Interesting thoughts on our view of God. I tend to think that seeing God as only one or the other misses things – He is both perfectly just (which means punishing sin) and perfectly merciful. He’s certainly given me grace I don’t deserve and shown Himself to be a loving father. I think a view of God as a taskmaster who loves conditionally leads to a horribly weak and insecure faith – I’ve talked to many people who have dealt with that themselves. On the other hand, I do believe the Old Testament to be the Word of God (although incomplete without the understanding brought by the New Testament), and there is a lot of discussion of God’s wrath towards injustice, and jealousy for the nation of Israel. These are hard to balance, but I don’t think that giving up on one aspect of God or the other is the solution.
I don’t believe in the merit idea – the Bible is pretty clear that there are no good people, just sinners saved by grace.
Contextually, Neo, torture isn’t an everyday topic of conversation around here either. It was, however, a huge topic during the Bush administration as its policies regarding the treatment of detainees and non-enemy combatants (so named to purposefully avoid granting them POW status which would have permitted them greater human and legal rights under the Geneva Convention, the UCMJ, the Rules of War, and the Army Field Manual) during the Iraq and Afghan Wars.
It was notable that, at the time, those who were most outspoken against “enhanced interrogation techniques,” extraordinary rendition, and indefinite imprisonment were more left-leaning while those who were most outspoken in favor of it or who didn’t mind so much or didn’t see what the big deal was were more right-leaning within the religious community (and without). The more frequently one went to church and identified as a white Evangelical Christian (ie: Conservative Christians) the more likely they would be to be in favor of these policies including physical torture. The Left, both politically and religiously, were quick to point out that it seemed painfully obvious that this flew in the face of the teachings of Jesus, and, seeing as it was endorsed by the highest office in the land, by a President who had built a coalition of support for his election and for the war from the Religious Right by using familiar idioms like “wonder working power” and “crusade” and “evil-doers” in a not so subtle attempt to connect with his base and because that is simply who he is, was horribly inconsistent from the self-proclaimed “Pro-life Party.”
The topic may have died down in the ensuing years around the water cooler, but with the recent release of Dick Cheney’s and Donald Rumsfeld’s memoirs **cough: revisionist history** and their recalcitrant unrepentant positions on prisoner treatment (which more and more evidence is pointing toward gross injustice and macabre, inhumane cruelty) and for which neither of them claims regret (though Cheney did recently say that he felt “embarrassed for his country” when America’s credit rating was downgraded following the debt ceiling debate, but on issues of torture – not so much. Which only reinforced the Left’s position that too many people in this country care more about money than people) the issue has recently resurfaced.
When those who have been paying attention to and connecting the dots over a period of decades combine this with the recent GOP public debate debacles of audiences cheering for the death penalty, the death of an uninsured man, and booing for an active duty gay soldier, and everything else we talk about here on John Shore’s page……these are not viewed as individual isolated incidents, but as a pervasive mindset among a certain group of people……who happen to overlap with those who claim to be among the most religiously observant and claim to hold the capital T Truth on the only one right way to understanding Jesus and connecting with God. And those of us who are observing all this and follow Christ are unwilling to stand by silently any longer and allow them to have their cake and eat it too: claiming Jesus as their own but not acting like him. It is what author Robin R. Meyers calls: Saving Jesus from the Church.
So is believing victims. So is not deciding that “forgiveness” means that you’re just going to ignore everything they’ve ever done. So is not keeping your children in the dark so that they’re perfectly ignorant enough to never be able to tell anyone what’s happening to them. So is not raising boys to think that they have a right any girl no matter what she wears or whether they think that’s causing them to “stumble.” So is realizing that this is a huge crime and that it is a huge part of Christian culture and if it’s that wide, asking yourself, “What am I doing to contribute to it?” which of course, I doubt any Christian would. Because it’s always “those other” Christians. So is not requiring a victim to repentant. So is not having a culture that makes a victim think she should repent or else god will never heal her (me). So is never saying to a victim that god allows these things for “growth and teaching.” So is never telling your daughter that she’s not allowed in the house with your son because she’ll make *him* uncomfortable with her inability to “let it go.”
Most Christians I know are the biggest group of rape-enabling, victim-silencing and victim-blaming that it has ever been my displeasure to have been in the presence of, all the while they decry being gay because “OMG sexual sin.” They do not help victims, they do not care, except for caring about their precious rapist friends feelings.
Somaticstrength, I can tell you know this first hand…..as do I. It is a crime. It is precisely the taboo nature of the topic of sex in the church which leads to the abuses and coverups of which you speak and too many have experienced. From Artemesia Genteleschi to Susanna and the Elders to Tina Anderson to my 13 year old friend and 8 yo relatives….patriarchal and paternalistic authoritarian institutions protect their own: men with power at the expense of the weak. We survivors must tell our stories so the truth is known.
This One’s for the Girls
http://leap-of-fate.com/?p=2420
I tell my story on my blog. But it can be disheartening because silence isn’t just about not being able to talk. It’s also about not having anyone who listens; and I know a few people listen. And that’s how the church perpetuates silence; not just in making it so survivors can’t talk, but also by not listening when they do.
This is my story: http://somaticstrength.wordpress.com/my-story/
So telling. So familiar. So desperately wrong and despondently sad.
I believe you, and I don’t know you and that is what hurts the most.
There is a helpful book for daughters whose mothers weren’t there when they needed them: “Motherless Daughters” by Hope Edelman.
The avoidance of dealing with suffering leads to so much more suffering and makes us miss out on encountering the wisdom that is waiting on the other side. It takes courage to face it head on. May we all find that courage. Blessings to you ss.
Wow, some good thoughts on dealing with the issue of abuse here. I have to admit that I only know of one acquaintance who I know has been involved in child molestation. It seemed like his situation was handled well from what I could tell (professional help was certainly involved), but I wasn’t close enough to the situation to know or do much, and I didn’t know any of the victims at all.
I do agree that people need to learn to respond more effectively, and talking about it is no doubt the way to do it. I think that not talking about the gay issue (from the perspective of actual non-heterosexual people) has really contributed to the sorry state of how that is handled, and I’m trying to do what I can to help break the silence there – talking about my own bisexual feelings with a growing group of friends and acquaintances, bringing people’s attention to resources on issues about anti-gay bullying, suicide, etc. (Things like http://slaggetyslagg.blogspot.com/2009/07/hopefully-well-crafted-sentences.html and http://disputedmutability.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/my-day-of-silence-2009-post-a-year-and-a-month-late/).
So I’d like to see more people talking about other important issues like sexual abuse, and breaking the horrible silence there. Thanks so much to both of you for being vulnerable and sharing about your own experiences! The way a lot of the people you’re talking about have protected their own power, and ignored the victims, is clearly not Christian and grieves me. I hope that more people such as yourselves talking about it brings about a cultural change, where people can deal with these things in a redemptive way.
Christy,
True. I do think it’s worth pointing out, though, that a growing number of theologically conservative Christians, particularly among the younger generation, are separating from the right-wing Republican politics of their parents. When I speak of evangelical or “conservative” Christians, I’m thinking of people who believe the Bible to be authoritative, believe in a literal virgin birth and Resurrection, the necessity of the sacrifice of Jesus for our salvation, etc. Not all such people vote Republican, and even those who do don’t necessarily agree with things like torture of prisoners.
Some of this may be from my perspective as a younger person (graduated from college a couple years ago). I have noticed that older generations of Christians seem more likely to be aligned to Republican politics.
Sorry, that got attached to the wrong post. My bad.
I think you’re right about this.
Tolerance does not include tolerating intolerance as that would negate tolerance to begin with.
Viewing gay people as inherently bad does lead to hate crimes against gays and to gays being bullied to the point of suicide in schools.
Homophobia comes from religion. A bigoted religious position is still bigoted.
It doesn’t come from religion, it originates from a sinful heart
It would be worthwhile endeavor to spend some time pursuing that train of thought further.
Brian, you know better. I KNOW you know better. Admit it.
I hope my sister is seeing all this. I may never know because she won’t communicate with me anymore about anything substantive because I challenge her rote religious prattle with more knowledge of her religion than she has.
After centuries of having the social power, they aren’t accustomed to being challenged and now resort to playing the victim and feeling persecuted simply because we are finally talking back instead of meekly bowing to their righteousness. Worse yet, we are talking back with knowledge, the bane of blind faith that can’t abide scrutiny.
Soulmentor, I was with a friend las night who insightfully said this:
When we grew up in a house filled with shaming, as adults we respond to any suggestion or input as criticism…..no matter how it is presented. And we respond by getting defensive and feeling attacked and criticized. It feels like the paradigm we grew up with, reinforcing the “We aren’t good” lie.
I see this in my own situation. Those of us who have gone through a crisis that required us to re-examine what was true about our past and confront it and rip off the false veneer of what we thought it was (our rearing) and see it for what it really was: pain, abuse, toxic environment, absent unconditional love, dysfunctional, wrought with unhealthy people/thinking/communication and how that influenced our incorrect self-concept of worthlessness and shame, know that the lies we were told about us as children and the lies we believed about ourselves as adults aren’t true. And we’ve grieved that. And some have even progressed enough to let go…..and move forward and make emotional and spiritual progress…..to get unstuck……of living in blindness about what is true and what is not about ourselves and about others. Yet, so many have not yet had the courage to peel back the veneer of their lives. And I understand; it is a painful process and hard, difficult work. But when you do and you face the truth……this truth does set you free.
I asked my therapist friend once how, as a therapist, she didn’t feel overwhelmed by recognizing the suffering and the need of so many people who could benefit from therapy. She said, “It’s difficult to see people choose to stay in their pain. But I can’t help them if they aren’t ready.”
Love to you and all that you and so many others have been through…..and love to those who still aren’t ready…..may they one day awaken.
Soulmentor, That’s ironic! After ten years of listening to MY sister’s self-righteous, I’m finally speaking out and she’s crying ‘foul’. I know exactly how you feel.
Here is a relevant part of an email I sent to her after my above comment:
“I know you aren’t wanting this or talking to me about it anymore, but I want you to see this cause I don’t know your thinking anymore…..unless it hasn’t changed. http://johnshore.com/2011/09/20/christians-and-the-blood-of-jamey-rodemeyer/comment-page-1/#comment-92201 This man says what I’ve been trying to get across and so much better than me. He is what is becoming known as a Progressive Christian. I regard it as the Spirit of God working among us.
And by the way, I think of yesterday and the repeal of DADT in the same way. Today, America feels better. ”
Her response was an obvious cop-out and gave me my answer:
“I really have not been going to many websites that people send me because I seem to pick up so many viruses, so I avoid them if possible. My thinking has not changed.”
Why do I suspect she has not problem going to “Christian” web sites? I guess God zaps the viruses before she gets there. So she is clearly making no attempt at intellectual honesty. She apparently has adopted my mother’s response to my similar efforts with her when I offered to learn and share with her. “There is nothing to learn and share”, my mother told me in a letter. She died never giving herself a chance to suspect I might not actually be going to hell.
Sorry, John. I’ve failed to get her to your site, but I know you totally understand. “You can lead a horse to water……..”
There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT see.
Ugh, that must be frustrating. All you can do is keep trying and hope for grace to bonk her on the head. Worked for Paul, and he was a nasty one.
Although it’s more than likely an excuse, re: your sister’s virus problem, a little program called NoScript prevents most viruses that you might get from visiting websites. All it does it turn off java scripts and let you turn on just the ones you want as you need them.
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