In late 2004, I received the “Dear President Bush” version of the email letter you can see at Snopes.com—which is a site you should all check out when you get one of those annoying email forwards.
The email gives you a chuckle, but it did surface a question I’ve had bouncing around in my head since I started hearing Conservatives coming out of the woodwork denouncing Gay marriage not as an issue of Civil Rights and equality but of Biblically-based morality. Snopes summarizes the Dear President Bush letter as asking the question “if homosexuality is wrong because it goes against God’s law as outlined in the Bible, why aren’t any number of activities now viewed as innocuous but once regarded as unacceptable also offenses against God’s law?”
I’d ask the question a different way: How is using the Bible “today” to denounce Gay Marriage any different than using the Bible “yesterday” to defend Slavery?
I’ll admit to not having done an exhaustive amount of research on the issue, but it seems there are a lot of parallels between the two. And the parallels do not speak well of the “anti-marriage” camp. In the mid- and late-19th century, Southern churches preached that slavery was condoned by the Bible and, in fact, slave-owners were helping the heathen slave to find salvation by “gettin’ them some religion” on the plantations. (Nevermind that the slaves often co-opted religious music—gospel music and spirituals, anyone?—to the more political/practical quest for freedom and survival against the de-humanizing conditions.) Today we’ve got Red State churches preaching that Gay Marriage is an affront to God’s will and allowing it would end the sanctity of marriage as we know it (despite the fact that the Red States have a higher divorce rate than Blue States with their more “enlightened” or “liberal” view of Gay Marriage).
I wasn’t around—thank God (and I mean that un-ironically)—when Slavery (in this country) was the norm and was being challenged in a somewhat similar fashion to the way restrictions against Gay Marriage, while currently the norm, are also being challenged. In typical 20/20 hind-sight, it seems morally obvious that the institution of slavery would end. But history is written by the victors and the North won that lil’ Civil War. That, not a change in the Bible, is what seemed to change this nation’s moral compass. Which is to say society changed, and its interpretations of the Bible changed. It seems we find ourselves in the middle of another such inflection point, non? An inflection point where—like with slavery, like with women’s right to a certain extent—we as a society decide whether to enfranchise another group as we strive to “love our neighbors as ourselves” rather than using whatever excuses (including, primarily it seems, religious-based ones) our societal homophobia demands to oppress a group?
I understand the concern that re-interpreting the Bible leads to a worry that we’re pursuing a morally convenient Christianity. But that hearkens back to the original question… How is the issue of slavery different from the issue of homosexuality (and various other issues) when it comes to the Bible? Why is it okay to overlook passages in the Old and New Testaments about slavery and not okay to overlook passages condemning homosexuality?
I think the question has weighed particularly heavily on me in my own faith journey because I can be off-put by groups of people espousing one thing and acting in a way I find unreconcilable with that espousal. Christianity’s Golden Rule, after all, is to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus taught inclusion and made a habit of reaching out to the “socially undesirable.” How, then, can his followers spit such vitriole at a group of people just asking to have the same rights as everyone else?
I just don’t get it…
Monday | January 10, 2005 at 12:24 am
Here’s another question to ponder… If conservatives are so worried about the sanctity of marriage, why are they not working as hard to stop all the divorce that goes on in the U.S.? Seems to me (and Amy) that heterosexuals are not very good guardians of marriage and its sanctity.
It is an issue of equality.
For more fun, I have included the text from one of my favorite scenes from The West Wing, season two, episode three, “The Midterms.” The text can also be found at http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ajs300m/westwing.txt. In this scene, President Bartlet challenges a conservative radio host named Dr. Jacobs.
Bartlet: “Forgive, Dr. Jacobs, are you an M.D.?”
Jacobs: “A Ph.D.”
Bartlett: “A Ph.D.?”
Jacobs: “Yes, sir.”
Bartlet: “In psychology?”
Jacobs: “No, sir.”
Bartlet: “Theology?”
Jacobs: “No.”
Bartlet: “Social work?”
Jacobs: “I have a Ph.D. in English Literature.”
Bartlett: “I’m asking because on your show people call in for advice and you go by the name Dr. Jacobs on your show, and I didn’t know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced training in psychology, theology, or health care.”
Jacobs: “I don’t believe they are confused. No, sir.”
Bartlet: “Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.”
Jacobs: “I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does.”
Barltet: “Yes it does. Leviticus…”
Jacobs: “18:22.”
Bartlet: “Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple questions while I had you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would be a good price for her be? While you are thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? Here’s one that’s really important because we have a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean; Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the ignorant tight-ass club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.”
Amy and I had fun reading more from the first Biblical reference from that scene. We read all of Leviticus, chapter 18. Lots of sexual no-no’s. But Amy quickly noticed that they are all directed towards men. While Leviticus DOES state a man should “not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable,” the cahpter does NOT prohibit a woman to “lie” with another woman (unless that woman is your neighbor’s wife or daughter-in-law or some other specifically named woman in the chapter). So, at least lesibianism is not against the Bible.
Seriously… our government (and its citizens) should have a better reason than “the Bible says so” in order to discriminate against committed gay couples.
What harm befalls society by letting gay people marry one another? Can they do worse than the heterosexuals have at marriage?
Monday | January 10, 2005 at 12:49 am
You hit the proverbial (though, perhaps not Proverbial—I haven’t read the entire Book) nail on the head with your question about what harm befalls society.
I have never once heard an actual downside to allowing (should we not actually be encouraging) this equity. The only downsides seem to me to be rooted in homophobia masquerading as religious conviction. Neither of which seem a good reason to discriminate.
…And to those for whom it is actually a religious conviction (and I don’t think it is that many people—I just think people are more comfortable pointing at the more socially acceptable Bible than admitting in polite company that they are homophobic) that is where my question about when is it okay to re-interpret portions of the Bible and when is it not okay.
It’s a real question. I’ve never heard the religious argument discussed (defended?) from that angle…
I’m curious what Dan Ellsworth, M. Div., thinks about all this. I’m kicking myself since I had a note to bring this up while back in Michigan since I thought it would be interesting/instructive. Probably one of my favorite conversations with dad around a family campfire was about life on other planets. And dad’s analysis that a particular passage in Luke discussing “sheep of another flock” leaves the Biblical opening to E.T. being real.
Anyway, I gotta balance my checkbook.
Monday | January 10, 2005 at 12:51 am
One little thing at a time: I have to interpret the Old Testament through the New Testament. I think you could make a case for the New Testament not challenging slavery (Philemon; and maybe a “neither slave nor free” passage), as even Jesus’ words did not challenge the Roman occupation (”Render unto Caesar …”, and the “second mile” reference), but that the New Testament positively supports slavery has yet to be supported to me — and likewise do not know the Bible thoroughly enough to be sure about this.
By the way, Matt, I commend you for your moral earnestness and mental acuity. I believe homosexuals are badly treated in this country, and being a Christian does not make me want a theocratic society, especially since the loudest voices are likely to be the ones “representing” God for purposes of lawmaking and public policy. As a nation, we have retreated from a respectful pluralism, and I am concerned by that not only as an American but also as a Christian. I think our faith would lose its soul trying to be the de facto Constitution. So I look for a separation of public policy and church policy, a stand likely to alienate the constituencies I’m most concerned to help. I wasn’t planning on running for public office; were you?
Monday | January 10, 2005 at 1:10 am
Oh, [expletive], I forgot to put M. Div. in my first missive. Anyway, the “moral earnestness and mental acuity” award needs to go to John Mark Ellsworth (my third son, the educator, always the educator), too. I wouldn’t deny it to David, but with this speeded-up Army call-up, I don’t think we can request his services on this matter.
If I become deeply involved here in this question, a very prominent feature of my involvement will be distinctions — between public policy and church policy, between Old Testament and New Testament, between desire and action, between church marriage and civil marriage (or union; I have not determined whether to join the semantic wars), between claimed literalism and actual literalism, between not challenging something and approving of it — and others I haven’t thought of yet.
OK, I *have* thought of one other distinction — between faith as a set of rules and faith as a working relationship with God. I don’t have God in a box, nor trust those who do.
There are some belief-and-practice packages presented as packages (by their proponents and opponents) that I think need a good unpacking, and one true question considered at a time.
This subject clearly got fast action. I thought I was writing the first comment, and it turns out to be the third. I don’t know whether this will be the fourth or not.
Monday | January 10, 2005 at 1:17 am
Hmm, checkbook not getting far.
Nope, no public office campaigns in my future. Though perhaps in your youngests’?
More I just get frustrated.
I like the church policy/public policy distinction and, indeed, it is where I net out on abortion—I don’t believe in it and would counsel anyone asking me against it if at all possible, but think it is more an issue of conscience to be informed by your personal beliefs and religious convictions and not through legislation. The pain point for me is that I don’t understand how the majority of the Church’s teachings can be rationalized with the exclusionary policy.
Point taken on the distinction of the New Testament’s not being explicitly FOR slavery while not explicitly speaking out against. Some interesting reading can be found at: http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl2.htm
Anyway, for real, I have to get some stuff done and to bed. All this and enjoying a good book I really would rather be reading right now.
Monday | January 10, 2005 at 1:19 am
It was. I forgot — these morally earnest (&c.) sons are also working men, and for evening discussions I have an unfair advantage. I just wanted to consider a matter of title: If a doctorate in physiology is enough for Dr. Laura to be called “Doctor”, does my Master of Divinity degree entitle me to be called Master? Or shall I be content with Mister?
Uh . . . I *think* that was the Comic Relief. G’night, all.
Tuesday | January 11, 2005 at 8:02 pm
I was delighted with your entry regarding the “real question”. I have often felt that “many belief systems pick and choose their way through Biblical teachings in determining what is right and what is wrong”.
My philosophy is simply put: God is love; He created all of us; we should not consider those who are not “like us” as inferior to us and we should all have equal rights. (Science has now proven that gays have physical differences in their make-up) Who are we to judge them? I believe they should have just as much right as heterosexuals to be in a committed relationship and be able to share property, health benefits, etc.