Friday, April 22, 2005
Hating Homosexuals: Uniting Churches Since Before I Was Born
The Very Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore, an Anglican minister, gave an address at the annual convention for the Diocese of Pittsburgh on November 1, 2002. This talk was an effort to discredit the conclusions made by nine Anglican theologians who, at the request of the Bishop of New York, contend that homosexuality is not at odds with the scriptures in a paper entitled "Let the reader understand..." Dr. Moore's address "Homosexuality and the Great Commandment" can be found on the web site of the American Anglican Council web site, a conservative affiliation of Episcopal churches.
Personally, I have no problem with religion in general or Christianity in specific. In fact, I'm a practicing Catholic. Some people may find it odd that I would practice a faith that expressly disapproves of my sexuality, but I made my peace with God years ago. Plus, you would have to understand my view on religion. I have faith, and I believe in a loving, all-powerful God, who created life, the universe and everything and who has a personal interest in every creature, man or beast, which was created. Therefore, I feel that God is deserving of my love and my expression of that love through worship. Yet I don't presume to know the mind of God, and I don't have the arrogance to assume that the religion I just happen to be born into is the ONE AND ONLY TRUE FAITH. I sort of think that throughout our history, humanity has been given glimpses of the divine perfection. And then we fuck it all up with our inherent imperfection by codifying it and categorizing it and fighting each other over it. I practice Catholicism because it is what I know and what I am comfortable with. I like its long history and its ceremony. But I respect other people's religion and their right to experience the divine in their own way. In the book Prince Ombra by Roderick MacLeish, his protagonist Bentley Ellicott proclaims that any honest religion, seeking goodness and love, is worship of the true God. And that sums up my feelings. Ultimately, I would have to say that my mother is my working model for faith. Her religious beliefs are real and important and included in every aspect of her life, with her only proselytizing being done through example. She sees her religion as her ongoing and ever-growing relationship with God, not as something to be shoved down other people's throat or used as a vehicle of hate and division.
So back to Dr. Moore and his "Homosexuality and the Great Commandment." Essentially he blusters on with the same tired crap that I've been hearing my whole life, using the Bible and the pulpit as shield, from behind which he attacks out of fear of something different and something that he doesn't understand. Below is my open letter to him, which I e-mailed to
the AAC.
A Response to “Homosexuality & the Great Commandment”
I just read Dr. Peter C. Moore's farce entitled "Homosexuality and the Great Commandment." While this apology for discrimination errs in so many ways, I think the worst problem stems from the fact that Dr. Moore is guilty of the exact same crime that he accuses the authors of "Let the reader understand..." of making; that is, he is cutting and pasting the contents of the Bible to suit his own toxic, subjective point
of view.
As I said I could go on for ages describing the fallacies contained in this hate-speech-disguised-as-theology. (For example, the Bible says that the sin of Sodom was "neglect of the poor," NOT distaste over homosexual rape. Ezekiel 16:49. But then Dr. Moore is only interested in using the Bible as a tool for his purposes.) However, the most nauseating claims in the essay reveal Dr. Moore's pathetic naiveté and his utter lack of empathetic ability. How dare he tell me what my capacity for love is! A gay man or lesbian's love for his or her partner is as grand as ethereal and as divine as any love between a man and a woman. And homosexuals as a group are just as much in favor of and committed to monogamy as heterosexuals. I know how much arrogant heterosexuals like to say that they experience "real love" whereas homosexuals are simply playing at some adolescent infatuation. However, considering all the problems and perversions rampant in heterosexual relationships (Has Dr. Moore ever watched TV or seen a movie or read a book?), this is nothing more than a holier-than-thou fantasy.
Oh, and I thought it was just fabulous when Dr. Moore compares homosexuality to alcoholism! That's a bizarre fabrication I've never had the displeasure of hearing before. It is so easy and convenient for the complacent heterosexual to say that homosexuals should just "give it all up" and live desperate lives of loneliness, isolation and celibacy. What a happy solution! It's simple (and simple-minded) to tell other people to do something that you would never, ever consider doing yourself. (Couldn't Dr. Moore just try not being straight?) It's exactly the same kind of attitude the rich and powerful have towards the poor and disenfranchised. Answers are always "straight"-forward when you don't have to face the consequences of their implementation yourself.
I can't say whether the Church should sanction same-sex marriages. That is an issue it will have to resolve within itself. (I do know, however, that there have been religious blessings of homosexual relationships in the past. Look at Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell.) What I can say is that people who have no idea what they're talking about should keep their mouths shut! Dr. Moore can stay inside of his theological ivory tower and justify his homophobic rhetoric all he wants. But until he has attempted to investigate and witness the real love homosexuals can have for one another, then his arguments are nothing but a fool's rambling, like the braying of an ass.
Personally, I have no problem with religion in general or Christianity in specific. In fact, I'm a practicing Catholic. Some people may find it odd that I would practice a faith that expressly disapproves of my sexuality, but I made my peace with God years ago. Plus, you would have to understand my view on religion. I have faith, and I believe in a loving, all-powerful God, who created life, the universe and everything and who has a personal interest in every creature, man or beast, which was created. Therefore, I feel that God is deserving of my love and my expression of that love through worship. Yet I don't presume to know the mind of God, and I don't have the arrogance to assume that the religion I just happen to be born into is the ONE AND ONLY TRUE FAITH. I sort of think that throughout our history, humanity has been given glimpses of the divine perfection. And then we fuck it all up with our inherent imperfection by codifying it and categorizing it and fighting each other over it. I practice Catholicism because it is what I know and what I am comfortable with. I like its long history and its ceremony. But I respect other people's religion and their right to experience the divine in their own way. In the book Prince Ombra by Roderick MacLeish, his protagonist Bentley Ellicott proclaims that any honest religion, seeking goodness and love, is worship of the true God. And that sums up my feelings. Ultimately, I would have to say that my mother is my working model for faith. Her religious beliefs are real and important and included in every aspect of her life, with her only proselytizing being done through example. She sees her religion as her ongoing and ever-growing relationship with God, not as something to be shoved down other people's throat or used as a vehicle of hate and division.
So back to Dr. Moore and his "Homosexuality and the Great Commandment." Essentially he blusters on with the same tired crap that I've been hearing my whole life, using the Bible and the pulpit as shield, from behind which he attacks out of fear of something different and something that he doesn't understand. Below is my open letter to him, which I e-mailed to
the AAC.
A Response to “Homosexuality & the Great Commandment”
I just read Dr. Peter C. Moore's farce entitled "Homosexuality and the Great Commandment." While this apology for discrimination errs in so many ways, I think the worst problem stems from the fact that Dr. Moore is guilty of the exact same crime that he accuses the authors of "Let the reader understand..." of making; that is, he is cutting and pasting the contents of the Bible to suit his own toxic, subjective point
of view.
As I said I could go on for ages describing the fallacies contained in this hate-speech-disguised-as-theology. (For example, the Bible says that the sin of Sodom was "neglect of the poor," NOT distaste over homosexual rape. Ezekiel 16:49. But then Dr. Moore is only interested in using the Bible as a tool for his purposes.) However, the most nauseating claims in the essay reveal Dr. Moore's pathetic naiveté and his utter lack of empathetic ability. How dare he tell me what my capacity for love is! A gay man or lesbian's love for his or her partner is as grand as ethereal and as divine as any love between a man and a woman. And homosexuals as a group are just as much in favor of and committed to monogamy as heterosexuals. I know how much arrogant heterosexuals like to say that they experience "real love" whereas homosexuals are simply playing at some adolescent infatuation. However, considering all the problems and perversions rampant in heterosexual relationships (Has Dr. Moore ever watched TV or seen a movie or read a book?), this is nothing more than a holier-than-thou fantasy.
Oh, and I thought it was just fabulous when Dr. Moore compares homosexuality to alcoholism! That's a bizarre fabrication I've never had the displeasure of hearing before. It is so easy and convenient for the complacent heterosexual to say that homosexuals should just "give it all up" and live desperate lives of loneliness, isolation and celibacy. What a happy solution! It's simple (and simple-minded) to tell other people to do something that you would never, ever consider doing yourself. (Couldn't Dr. Moore just try not being straight?) It's exactly the same kind of attitude the rich and powerful have towards the poor and disenfranchised. Answers are always "straight"-forward when you don't have to face the consequences of their implementation yourself.
I can't say whether the Church should sanction same-sex marriages. That is an issue it will have to resolve within itself. (I do know, however, that there have been religious blessings of homosexual relationships in the past. Look at Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell.) What I can say is that people who have no idea what they're talking about should keep their mouths shut! Dr. Moore can stay inside of his theological ivory tower and justify his homophobic rhetoric all he wants. But until he has attempted to investigate and witness the real love homosexuals can have for one another, then his arguments are nothing but a fool's rambling, like the braying of an ass.
"Consider the works of God: Who can make straight what He has made crooked?"
—Ecclesiastes 7:13
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Well said on so many levels. I especially liked the part about people standing behind random mandates until they have to recognize the consequences of the such mandates within their own lives: "Answers are always "straight"-forward when you don't have to face the consequences of their implementation yourself"
I'm not religious myself (my family never was, so it just stuck), and I am often just blown away at how people who are supposedly devoting their lives to working towards a personal-- even divine-- relationship with god endeavor to do so by perpetuating fearful unfounded hate. I believe the scriptures say to "Love thy neighbor" and I may be wrong, but I don't believe there's a foot note there that says "...unless they're gay."
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I'm not religious myself (my family never was, so it just stuck), and I am often just blown away at how people who are supposedly devoting their lives to working towards a personal-- even divine-- relationship with god endeavor to do so by perpetuating fearful unfounded hate. I believe the scriptures say to "Love thy neighbor" and I may be wrong, but I don't believe there's a foot note there that says "...unless they're gay."
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