Got this in:
Dear John,
I am a supporter of gay rights who is growing weary of the battle. In the last 24-hours, my pastor friend has used scripture in public Facebook posts to let me know that I deserve death for supporting gay relationships, and that I will receive the wrath of God for my love and support of my gay friends and family.
I find myself wanting to play the tit-for-tat Bible verse war game with him. But that seems pointless. I am just so tired of focusing so much attention on what consenting loving adults do with their hoo-ha’s. But I feel so strongly about this issue. My pastor friend is making it very hard for me to love him. And not loving is not what I’m about. Thanks for listening. M.
Dear M.,
A pastor publicly told you that you deserve death for supporting gay relationships? If you’d be so kind as to send me that part of your exchange with Rev. No Life For You!, I’d sure appreciate it. It does my heart good to see people of God doing God’s work. And if that doesn’t include wishing death upon anyone who supports LGBTQ folk in their quest to receive every last right accorded to straight people, then my name isn’t Fortineus J. Hockenschnooken.
*sigh.*
I know what you mean about being exhausted with this particular fight. I suffer some of that myself. Sometimes it just feels like you’re wearing roller skates while trying to climb Mt. Stupid.
Which, of course, we’re not. We’ve got on exactly the right gear for this trip—and we’re already so far up the mountain we’re starting to jog to the top. And the opposition, meanwhile, is way behind us, down toward the bottom somewhere–old, tired, unprepared for the hike, their compasses broken, their supporting ropes frayed, forever taking the wrong paths that lead them either lower still, or into the shadows of dark ravines in which they stumble blindly about, tripping over roots, jagged rocks, and each other.
Ugh. What plodding, resource-wasting clods they are.
This won’t at all help, of course, but do pass along to Pastor Deathwish this letter from me:
Dear Pastor:
Hi! You don’t know me. My name’s John Shore.
My friend tells me that you wrote on Facebook that she deserves death for her support of gay relationships. I am hopeful that she misunderstood you.
But if she didn’t, and you really did say that to her, then what in God’s name is the matter with you? How did you ever get a job as a pastor? Were you drunk when you wrote on Facebook that M. deserved to die for her views on the morality of LGBTQ love?
If you were drunk when you wrote that, then … that’s what happened. It’s understandable. People drink and Facebook all the time. You should never do it, for sure. But I’ll bet that M. will understand and forgive you, if you tell her that you were drunk when you Facebooked that she deserved to die.
If you weren’t drunk at the time, and actually mean what you wrote to her, then you are a disgrace to everything Jesus Christ stood for. Then you are a moral abomination, a huge, stinking, festering pocket of rot on the very face of God. To Jesus you are a dank pit of bottomless shame; you are the reason Jesus weeps, because in place of the divine and affirming love that he literally slaughtered himself to prove—the same love you swore an oath to represent and embody—you insert your own base and toxic hatred.
You dare to eclipse the son of God with the full moon of your own fetid ass. You use your moral authority to insist your sputtering farts are the words and thoughts of God.
And you’re so lazy. If you’re passionate enough about LGBTQ people to wish death upon anyone whose opinions of them differs from your own, then be passionate enough to actually learn something about what the Bible does and doesn’t say about homosexuality. There’s now a ton of solid, scholastic, Bible-based information out there making the case for why the Bible does not, in fact, condemn homosexuality. Read any of it. Read some of it, at least. At least try to be a little knowledgeable on the matter. It’s embarrassing when pastors make clear they haven’t learned anything new about God or Christianity since Thumper Seminary or Lickahick School of Divinity, or whatever, gave them a piece of paper declaring them qualified to speak for God.
The reason I know you’ve never done any real studying on the relationship between the Bible and LGBTQ people is because if you had it would be virtually impossible for you to hold the kind of crazily militant position you so ignorantly broadcasted that you do. The singular miracle of education is that it opens people’s minds. Clearly, you have a mind a mule kick couldn’t open.
Dude! You’re better than that! Get some education on this matter. You can do it! You can … read a little bit, reflect, contemplate, listen to God instead of speaking for him.
At the very least you should apologize to M. for what you said to her. That you can certainly do, right? Of course you can. And I’m sure you want to. You can’t be that cretinous. I’m sure you would like to take back the violent words you said to M. I’m sure you’ve already deleted them off Facebook, in fact. If you have, that’s like an apology—but it’s not. If that’s what’s happened, then be sure to do the honorable thing, pastor. Step up and close that gap.
Act like the man of God you’re supposed to be—the man we all want you to be.
And if it ever happens that you’d also like to apologize to all of the gay people whom in the name of God you publicly reviled, I and my blog are at your service. For that purpose this space is yours, whenever you want it.
God’s love to you—of all people.
Your fellow Christian,
John
P.S. Lemme say this in response to the criticism I know is coming my way for not showing to this pastor proper “Christian love.” Over the years I have written a great deal on this issue, both publicly and privately, wherein I led with love, patience, kindness, and forbearance worthy of Glinda the Good Witch on Prozac. About this matter I’ve earned the right, basically, to occasionally vent. If you are of the opinion that what I’ve written here is too harsh, then all I can say is that I wish you could see half the emails I get from young gay people who have been bullied and harassed for being gay that they’re thinking of committing suicide.
![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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For those who have said they would like some resources on how to handle the verses people use to condemn homosexuals and homosexual marriage, may I humbly suggest a series of blog posts I wrote when my husband suggested I do some research on those passages. Feel free to share them as you see fit. http://wordofawoman.com/2012/04/16/homosexuality-and-god-conclusion/
Michelle: I’m wondering if you’ve seen my The Best Case for the Bible NOT Condemning Homosexuality? No particular reason you might have, of course. But you might find it a worthy complement to your own work.
Can’t wait to check it out!
Not only am I in total agreement, I think I’m going to pepper my conversations with the sentence, “Sometimes it just feels like you’re wearing roller skates while trying to climb Mt. Stupid.” It’s perfect.
It is interesting Jesus had nothing to say on the matter. He also never said anything abut abortion or birth control. Last I heard, he was still considered to be the authority on all things Christian.
Dear M,
Speaking as (one of?) the resident sociopath(s?) here on John’s blog, I’d suggest you not worry too much about anything your evil, hate-mongering, judgmental, ready-to-send-to-hell-anyone-who-does-agree-with-him, anti-Jesus, pastor might say.
Dump the dickhead, move on, and don’t look back.
The mere fact that you’re trying to love him is proof that you are a better man, in ALL ways, than your pastor, who in no way deserves your allegiance, friendship, and respect.
If that’s not enough for you, then I’d suggest you you live by the words which have so shaped my life: “Friends are those upon whom you can always depend. Best friends will help you bury the body.”
Not exactly Jesus or Ghandi, but hey, guys like your pastor are kinda asking for it.
Move on, and take your wonderful love elsewhere. Or, give me a quick text … I’d be happy be one of your “best friends” ………… (insert evil laugh)
I’m down with burying the body. I’m a little offended the plural in sociopaths is in parens.
you know how I hate to presume … but welcome to the club!!!
I would have appreciated if you had discussed more what the bible *does* say about homosexuality. I am a Christian for marriage equality on Constitutionality grounds of seperation of church and state, but I’d really love to attack this issue Biblically too. To my friendly reading, the Bible does attack homosexuality, tho not as strongly as all other sins. I know Jesus says nothing about it, and the Old Testament Laws have some condemnation but can be dismissed as obsolete to Christians. But the New Testament does include some condemnation. So how can this issue be approached better by me?
Yikes. I probably shouldn’t have Google-searched the passages before I was fully awake. Even on a relatively egalitarian site, there are a ton where you have to be really paranoid to think allude to homosexuality. Having a close friend in the Bible doesn’t make one gay.
That said, the most-cited ones are in Leviticus and in Paul’s letters. Leviticus addresses defilement law and ritual sacrifice. It’s also a how-to book for a primitive people. Mock the shellfish ban, but the fact is that if you’re living in a nomadic tribe in +/- 400 BC, avoiding bottom feeders was probably a good idea. Similarly, the homosexual temple prostitutes were slaves. And Sodom and Gomorrah doesn’t mention homosexuality (as I recall) despite Sodomites becoming synonymous with homosexuality.
You can kind of extend this out to Paul 500 years later. He’s a PR man. He’s writing letters and traveling all over trying to get this little concept of Christianity to stick. He’s famously intolerant before his conversion, and he never quite loses all of it. He’s writing to protect the community and rally the troops (so to speak.) He himself had persecuted Christians; he knew how easy it was if they showed any weakness. He was the right man for the job *because* he was a calculating and difficult man. You need to keep him in that context, not as the same level as the words in the Gospel.
John’s got an entire book on that topic, as well as dozens of discussion posts here on this site. That’s kind of the point of why this particular one didn’t go into all that depth again.
Hey, Lymis. because
hey Liadan, spend a few hours reading old posts and all will be revealed.
Read this on twitter last week and I think it may be apropos: “Don’t try and win over the haters; you’re not the jackass whisperer.”
Jackass Whisperer – - That is my vote on the funniest post of the day! I’m going to steal that phrase and use it again! Very funny!
Not harsh enough.
Hi…
I am a gay person… living in the world, even in Los Angeles… I have interacted with many people that (1) believe I am evil, (2) believe I am sick, (3) believe I am less than them and (4) believe I am going to hell. Here is how I deal with it…
A. If I have to interact with them… because we work at the same job, which is really the only reason I “have” to deal with anyone… then I put on my professional game face and deal with their bigotry in a professional manner… which is usually non-engagement and re-focusing them back to the task at hand namely ‘work’. Because I am an out, open, loving, funny, smart and decent person… a few christians have come to me in private and told me, that by knowing me, they have changed their minds on gay people. I did this by being an out, open, funny, smart and decent person… I live my life honestly, but I rarely have ever attempted to “change someone’s mind”.
B. If I know them socially… then I simply stop engaging with them. I don’t return emails, phone calls, etc. These individuals seem to need a “one up” relationship with those around them… and they will always put in the “one down” position to protect their egos.
C. When they were family… I stood my ground and challenged their beliefs. Sometimes, I have done this loudly, other times quietly… Lucky for me, my family is from New England and were open to change and to widening their system of belief. Over the years, everyone in my family now sees me as being fully human and loved by god.
Mainly, I no longer engage bigots. Bigotry is based on irrational fears… and I have found that logic rarely succeeds. Most of the people entrenched in it either (1) have a profit motive (if they are a minister), (2) are fear/shame/original sin based, (3) maybe a little mentally unstable, or (4) have vested so much of their sense of self in their version of christianity that they fear removing even one hateful piece… could bring their whole little world crashing down…
I added the part of about original sin… because it occurred to me that while I believe that people are generally good and that life is a precious gift… I now understand that many christians… don’t. They believe that people are generally bad and sinful, that birth is a curse and that human nature is evil and sinful. They have been saved from being “human”…
I don’t believe that I need to be saved… because I don’t believe being “human” is sinful; I see it as a blessing.
Thanks for sharing this, Robert. You are lucky to have family members who are open-minded enough to listen, think and, hopefully, change their minds.
I have a question for you. I have two married older brothers who are fundamentalist Christians. (I never know whether to capitalize the “c” when I’m referring to people like that.) In spite of knowing me my entire life and knowing I am honest, kind, fair and loving, they also believe two things that inform and override all their other knowledge of me. One, they believe I chose to be gay. And two, they believe being gay is a sin. An obscene, disgusting sin. They won’t listen to me, no matter if I speak softly or loudly and they won’t accept any information contrary to what their churches teach them about me. And you. And every other gay person they have never met.
Through a series of weird coincidences, I discovered that in spite of their claims to love me and my husband of almost 22 years now, they also actively support groups and organizations who not only oppose my legal marriage, but also literally oppose my civil rights. And when I processed that for a while something occurred to me. I don’t want people in my life who say they love me while supporting people who hate me. And so, I severed contact. It was logistically pretty easy because I live in Atlanta and they live in Oregon. At first, I was relieved and comfortable with my decision, which was about 18 months ago. At first, they didn’t even seem to notice!
Anyway, here’s my question. Do you think I did the right thing? Is family a “red line” thing where, no matter what, we grit our teeth and stay involved with them?
Thanks.
If family is toxic, you have no choice. I had to do that to my brother who is a Tea Party fanatic, but otherwise wonderful. When he couldn’t leave off my request to stop with politics around me, I had to unfriend him from my Facebook, and hang up the phone when he called. I’m perfectly willing to be friendly and welcoming with him, but when he doesn’t respect me, I shut down.
Its his choice how to interact with me.
One thing I’ve noticed is that very often, it isn’t the gay family member that causes the breakthrough. It’s a coworker, a friend, someone they have an ongoing but slightly removed professional relationship with – someone that they don’t feel they have an obligation to save, and therefore become open to listening to their story.
And you can be that person to someone else’s bigoted family member, partly because if you don’t convince them of anything, you always have the option of ending things and going on about your life. The very fact that you ARE going on about your life is what’s usually the most compelling.
i had to go non-contact on toxic family for other reasons. one of them died before changing and the other became non-toxic and we now have communication. sometimes you have to do something for your own sanity and for your new life, that would otherwise seem awful. but sometimes staying in contact is more awful.
I’ll agree with the above. I have had to distance myself from my father and brother for various reasons, chief among them my mental and physical well-being. It’s no fun, but it’s necessary. They don’t deserve to drain my time and energy just because we have a lot of DNA base pairs in common.
Gordon, I had to dig a little, but I’m linking to what I think is possibly *the best* family disconnect story I’ve ever read, written last year by our favorite resident sociopath, Mike Moore.
http://johnshore.com/2012/10/15/how-bad-is-living-together-before-marriage/comment-page-1/#comment-180095 — from Oct 15, 2012.
If your question is open to everybody, I sincerely think you’ve done the right thing too, and once we really know enough people who treat us with respect and dignity, we won’t easily go back to people that will not. All the best, Jill
I can’t believe I missed this. Must have one of those times I was avoiding my computer during the campaign. Thanks for sharing it, Jill.
That was beautiful, Robert. Thank you for sharing it.
I believe yours are wise words, xo
A bit off the subject but I love that photo you’ve got of the upside down church art. Where is that?
Do a Google Image search for Upside Down Church and you get a bunch of hits.
It’s a photo of American artist Dennis Oppenheim’s 1997 work called Device to Root Out Evil. The photo appears to be when it was displayed in Vancouver.
For more current info:
http://blog.vancouverbiennale.com/tag/device-to-root-out-evil/
John,
Sometimes a good Christian kick in the butt is more valuable than a million honeyed words. Loved it!
John- your response to “the Pastor” was 100% pure awesomeness.
Too bad Pastors, let alone other “christians” act as if Jesus had never walked the earth. The only thing that makes any sense to me what so ever, is that these Religious Folk have a statue in their Prayer Rooms that is supposed to be of Jesus, but just so happens to have their face. On this one issue alone, they have spewed out more poison and vitriol that has set Christianity back to nearly the time of Christ.
Guys like this seem to think that because they got their “tickets” to heaven punched, they can say and do anything they want.
This will be a fight we will have to keep fighting for a very long time. Because at exactly the time you think it is won, they will step it up a notch because they are growing more and more bitter and furious. They are fast becoming the christian version of the Taliban and they believe themselves to be so “with0ut sin,” that they will do whatever it takes to win (Religious Correctness + American Exceptionalism). They are the new crop of Jim Jones and David Koresh.
So very, very sad that every day their hearts grow harder as they contract around the conditions they place on those around them.
I like John’s response to that hateful “pastor”. One can only use tact and “love” for so long before that ends up doing absolutely nothing. Telling someone they deserve death for being kind to the LGBT community is absolutely wrong. It makes it worse if that person is a Pastor/Reverend.
I had someone unfriend me because of my views and the fact that my pro LGBT stuff showed up in her newsfeed. I called her out on being judgmental. We debated and then she blocked me because I was “pushing my views on her.” This person caused me to really evaluate my faith and my views. I now really despise the religious right.
One fundamentalist, unwittingly I’m sure, posted the full names and travel plans of a trans friend and two women less than fully straight on the Chik-fil-A website at the height of the scandal. I kept the resulting exchanges and published her friends’ outrage and my rebuttal (without names, of course.) It was hugely popular.
Fan page, I mean. I spend a lot of time on Facebook.
This is so disheartening…..I’d give my few words to this pastor, but I prefer not to use a colorful vocabulary.
I have just read two articles that have made me very sad. Here we are in the 21st century and we are still dealing the with issues such as skin color and sexual orientation.
I am a white hetrosexual female. I don’t care what the Bible or a society has to say about color or sexual orientation, as long as you are not trying to kill someone, steal from someone or assualt someone, you have the right to live as you choose. I will pray as we advance further into the 21st century that this will become the norm. Letting people live as the choose
“Courage doesn’t always roar.
Sometimes courage is the little voice
at the end of the day that says,
‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’”
– Mary Anne Radmacher
I got this quote off of Facebook from The God Article and I thought M might appreciate it.
Kudos, my brother. Beautifully stated and righteous too. Please allow me to repeat “the full moon of your fetid ass” line…that’s billiant, like you.
Blessings,
Russell
“M”, this is for you. My spirit is concerned for you and wants you to know, as simple as it is, there is not one man or woman qualified on this planet, to stand between you and the God of your faith. The Son of God does not teach anyone or embody with any power the ability or forsight to condemn one of his creations. If love is present, there you will find God. Love the God of your faith with love that is true and he will show you how to love with his love and bless you with his truth that will move your spirit into comfort and confidence in your beliefs. We love you and bless you for your courage.
I guess I’m prejudiced against pastors like this.
Let me explain.
I’m not Gay, or Lesbian, or Bisexual. I am, however, Intersex. Born with a body neither wholly male nor wholly female.
The fact that such people can exist is “against their religion”. Now unlike other such questions, be it on the shape of the Earth, whether the Sun orbits the Earth or vice-versa, whether the Earth was created 6000 years ago, whether lightning is a natural meteorological phenomenon or God’s “Terrible Swift Sword”, this is not just an academic question that doesn’t affect anyone’s day-to-day life, this has resulted in persecution, legislation and regulations that are designed to make life intolerable for such as I.
What’s worse, although most religions have managed to come up with weasel-words about how those born ambiguous are “really” one sex or the other (and should be compulsorily surgically altered accordingly), none that I know of deal with Intersex variations that cause an apparent natural sex change from one sex to the other.
Such variations exist; the best-known ones are 5-alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5ARD) and 17-beta-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase deficiency (17BHSD). Both cause a change from female to male.
See http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html
There are others. 3BHSD can cause a change in either direction – though usually doesn’t. X0/XY can cause a change from male to female.
The fact – and it is a fact – that some people change sex, “God made them that way” if you like, threatens the whole structure of religious belief that many depend on. Evidence that that structure is false must therefore be suppressed. Erased. Eradicated. Exterminated.
“To put it in the starkest terms, you thought that your choice was to die prematurely or to break God’s law. Now I happen to think that you, being as intelligent as you are, quite likely knew that the Church said this was a violation of God’s law. You felt impelled to do it anyway.
…
Now I am going to say something that may seem harsh but remember I am talking to you about objective reality – where the rubber meets the road. It is better to die than to offend God. It would have been better for you to have given your life to stay in obedience to God, than to break His law and to drag along into sin your poor spouse. At some point — along with those who denied Christ under persecution and later felt remorse, you will have to say, “It would have been better for me to have died instead.” That is hard, but really everyone of us should feel that way about every serious sin we have committed. We should prefer the death of our bodies to the death of our souls, shouldn’t we?’
– Catholic Exchange, August 20, 2010
This is not a “one off exception”. We get this *all the time*. Every day there is something – a constitutional amendment in NC to prevent us marrying anyone at all, another one of us tortured to death or shot execution style, a Tennessee state law where part 1 makes discrimination against us legal at state level, and part 2 forbids cities from passing laws that would prohibit discrimination against us, a Philadelphia court decision that as we are not considered “Men, Women or Children”, we are not “Natural Persons” so killing us may be vandalism or cruelty to animals, but is not Homicide…
Every single day of our lives. And always, always “in God’s Holy Name”, either in discussions about legislation, or actually stated specifically in the text.
There are plenty of Christian and other denominations not hung up about sex. There are rather more that are, are uncomfortable even thinking about it, and just wish the evidence that they’re wrong would go away. Many take concrete steps to make sure the world is rid of these perverts, these abominations, these spawn of Satan. After all, they’re a threat to Humanity’s existence.
“(The Church) must also protect man from self-destruction. What is needed is something like a human ecology, correctly understood.
If the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics. What is involved here is faith in the Creator and a readiness to listen to the “language” of creation. To disregard this would be the self-destruction of man himself, and hence the destruction of God’s own work.”
“To carry our reflection further, we must remember that the problem of the environment is complex; one might compare it to a multifaceted prism. Creatures differ from one another and can be protected, or endangered, in different ways, as we know from daily experience. One such attack comes from laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes.”
——-
Things – such as Intersex people – that “strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes” are a threat to Humanity. In the Human Ecology, we’re vermin.
You are certainly not vermin! You are a precious child of God Almighty!
Sadly, it is only too true that many would rather alter reality to fit their beliefs than vice-versa. Perhaps we all would on some level. But when that involves ignoring, or worse, exterminating, fellow human beings, how do our hearts not scream to our minds that our beliefs are clearly WRONG!?
Believe whatever seems most likely true
and do whatever appears most loving to do,
and how could any good God there might be
not be most well-pleased with you?
That anyone in the modern world is so unenlightened as to argue that there is anything wicked in just being just as you are abundantly obviously born to be.
If anything you considered not inferior but superior to most: apart from that fact that, largely due to the prejudices which dominate our culture, you probably don’t know what it’s like to be either a normal man or a normal woman, you should be able to offer insights into gender relations that most of us can only dream of having: I have to accept that I’ll never truly understand what exactly makes the average women tick, and women will usually never quite get why gender-typical men are as the way we are. But I’m guessing you’d be able, especially if you could just go through life exactly as you biologically are made to be, you’d better understand how to relate to each perhaps even than each often knows him- or her-self, because you can see things from a bit more neutral vantage point, as well as relating somewhat perhaps to each.
And if anything you should be thought closer to God: For in the beginning, when God made Man on the Sixth Day, Woman was not yet separated out from his side. And in the end, God will be all in all. And the Beginning and the End are One, Lord Jesus Christ.
People need to read their Bibles:
“‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, “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.’” (Mat. 19:4-6)
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28)
Thank you for sharing this with us, Zoe, about the problems faced by people like yourself. I for one was not aware of the scope of the issue and severity of the prejudice, probably because, as you’ve said, it’s simply largely ignored because it doesn’t fit anywhere into people’s standard paradigms.
Thank you so much for this, Matthew.
You have expressed what I was thinking, but much more articulately than I would have…
Hi Matthew – and thanks for the kind words.
For what it’s worth, I don’t understand men either. I may have looked male, but I knew I was female at age 10, if not before.
When faced with persecution, there are two things one can do. Get all bitter and twisted at the injustice of it all, or look at humanity and say “What fools these mortals be!” and love them anyway. Because of their imperfections, not despite them. So many end up screwing up so badly, yet they try to do the right thing. Ignorance is really the enemy.
It also makes it easier to forgive yourself for being merely human. No-one else knows the scope of my many faults and failings. I do – yet I can live with myself anyway. If I can forgive myself, forgiving others is trivially easy.
Zoe, you’ve sent my husband off into a rant about that Philadelphia ruling and how insane it is. Can you provide more info about that court case?
The reported ruling isn’t so bad – the court transcripts though make it plain that the plaintiff has no standing as they are not considered “natural persons”. The case was dismissed on other grounds though – that being fired for being Intersex (and having been surgically altered shortly after birth) was not sex discrimination, as that only applied to men and women. The court ruled that discrimination for having surgery was legal, leaving the other questions aside in the reported ruling, but very much alive in the transcript.
The summary is available at the Intersex Society of North America site, http://www.isna.org/node/521
It’s had some good effects – South African law was changed as a matter of urgency when they realised their wording was similar.
A good summary is at http://mg.co.za/article/2009-09-19-intersex-and-the-law
“In 1997, as a direct result of medical evidence that I am intersexed, I ceased to be a human being in South African law despite the Bill of Rights. It took 15 months to achieve recognition of my humanity in law. So the effect of being intersexed on one’s civil and human rights is of deep interest and concern to me.
Before 2006, when an obscure judicial amendment — comprising two simple definitions — was signed into law, being found to be intersexed opened up all one’s rights to challenge. But the promulgation of the Judicial Matters Amendment Act of 2005 changed this technically.
Theoretically, this Act guaranteed protection to the intersexed. Two statutory definitions turned the technical trick. The trouble was that the amendment entered the statute book by stealth: its existence and far-reaching implications have evaded attention until now in a context in which the invisibility of the intersexed, bar a handful of notable exceptions, testifies to an entrenched culture of shame, secrecy and stigmatisation.
The amendment was drafted because an American case made it clear to me that the Equality Clause did not protect the intersexed. An American federal court found that the firing of a woman because she was born intersexed did not breach a Pennsylvania equality statute similar to our Equality Clause.
The statute forbade discrimination on grounds of sex. The court argued that “sex”, undefined in the statute, was to be understood in its ordinary dictionary sense. So it referred to the state of being “male and not female” or “female and not male”. The upshot: it didn’t protect the intersexed.
Our Equality Clause rules discrimination on certain listed grounds, including sex, unfair unless and until proved fair, but “sex” was not defined in statute. The dictionary definition of “sex” — male, female and nothing else — therefore governed its interpretation. “Human being” and “[natural] person” are also defined as having a sex in exclusively binary terms. The intersexed, somewhere in between, could thus be argued to be neither human beings nor natural persons.
The potential consequences were terrifying. Intersex was an “analogical ground” of discrimination rather than a listed ground in the Equality Clause. Unlike discrimination on a listed ground, discrimination on an analogical ground is deemed fair until proven unfair. The burden of proof rests on the victims.
In South African law, one needs locus standi, the right to address the court, to mount a legal challenge. Since the intersexed did not fit workaday definitions of “human beings” and “[natural] persons”, arguably they lacked the locus standi to challenge this or any other type of discrimination. It followed that the intersexed, because they were intersexed, had no secure rights — not even to dignity or to life itself.”
Zoe, I found that horrifying to read (how much worse it has to be to live), and I am sorry that so many Christians put rules ahead of people. One thing that struck me from the Catholic Exchange quote was how very easy it is for people to make grand pronouncements about “better to die than sin” when talking about other people’s lives. I don’t hear anyone so glib when it’s their own life.
Exactly! It’s always so much easier to judge someone else’s life than to live our own lives with integrity. That’s why the judging thing is so popular.
If this helps, Matthew 19:12 reads, “For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others–and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
While the meaning of “born eunuch” isn’t defined, the scholarship that I have read on this verse understands that that could be a person who was born Intersex.
The people who say that you are against their religion should possibly consider this verse.
“Listen to God instead of speaking for Him”
I immediately wrote down those words and pinned it on my wall. Such a simple thing that we as Christians need to be doing A LOT more.
Thank you for your continued writing. It’s relevant, it’s comical, it’s well thought out. As a gay guy and a Christian, I thank you on both accounts.
That is good advice. I am going to tape it to my wall right now and perhaps use it to respond to people who continually try to speak for God.
Dear M.
Don’t let discouragement stop you. Understand that there are some mindsets you will not change but keep trying. Don’t stop countering irrationality with rational thought. Remember, there are others reading what you write, others who need the clarity and love and understanding and information you provide. YOU WRITE FOR THEM even if you don’t change that Pastor’s mind. Even Jesus knew that there would be those he could never reach. Here’s an example from my own activist writing.
During the 90′s I was a very active writer in our regional/local newspaper on gay issues (that newspaper was and remains gay friendly). I got the typical dire responses from the area religious conservatives including chapter and verse but, ironically, they always leaf themselves open to scriptural contradiction. They make such easy targets of themselves because they are so incredibly ignorant. In one such event, a pastor of a nearby town criticized me as someone who “smorgasborded” the Bible to suit my own gay agenda….whatever that is (they never do define it. Ever notice that?) So I wrote a rebuking response suggesting that he should stop eating shellfish, do his preaching naked rather than wear vestments of mixed fabric, admonish his wife to serve no more pork dinners and pronounce death upon the next parishioner who confesses to adultery. I then conceded that he knew all about smorgabording the Bible as he was indeed the expert. My letter appeared in the Sunday edition of the newspaper where no doubt many of his parishioners saw it before attending his church service. I never heard a peep from him or anyone about “smorgasbording” the Bible again. And you can bet, I reached MANY readers. Eventually, the area religious criticizers stopped responding to me. It became apparent that I made a difference in the area.
The trick is to respond to them politely but firmly, intelligently and knowledgeably (and an occasional dash of snark can be fun). You CAN throw the Bible right back at them and win the argument. It pretty well shuts them down.
John, you are a brilliant writer.
Yes, I do believe that as Christians we should treat our enemies with love and compassion if at all possible. They need our prayers.
But man, a pastor spewing hate-filled speech like this? He deserves every letter of this powerful message and more. We should pray for his heart to be changed, but we should also fight for justice.
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