This book, Skipping
Toward Gomorrah, has been on my night stand for about 2 weeks. It looks
lonely.
Maybe I should sprinkle salt on it? I’m sure that would cause the raising of an eyebrow for
conservatives who are fingering through my personal items while pretending to
want to buy my home. It would be the
first whammy!, coupled with the Hindu-Buddhist-Muslim-Goddess-Christian altar that is in the
bonus room immediately above the master.
Near it is a framed pastel of my guardian angel and a 4 foot oil of the prophet
Isaiah. Otherwise, I’m sure my realtor would have instructed me to put the
silliness away (so that I don't offend) for the sake of a sell.
I’ll need to return the book, so I thought I would skip church and read a few chapters. Within the first, I’m uneasy and don’t
know why. I like that the author, Dan
Savage, is pounding the social conservatives, and I kind of like the tongue-in-cheek
angle that he’s taking. (And, I
liked him and the things he said in his NPR interview: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=186926890). But then, he summarizes
with a sentence:
There
are millions of ethical, fully moral sinners in America, and I’ve grown sick of
listening to the right wing bitch and moan about them while the left wing
refuses to defend them.
Again, I'm surrounded with my own agreements. I like that he
differentiates between ethics and morals.
Theses words are different but are often used interchangeably in debates. The slight-of-hand switch allows scold mongers to skew the conversation just enough that you're no longer talking about what you were talking about. Savage calls out this tactic:
By successfully framing the debate as virtue versus sin, and not the laws versus your freedoms,
the virtuecrats have succeeded in silencing their political foes...
And, I like that he calls out the left for not defending the American/God-given right to pursue peculiar happinesses. But, I know why I’m gradually letting my fingers loosen from the box car on his runaway train. It's the word ‘sinner.’ Up to this point, this author defends the right of (American) humans to pursue happiness, but then he acquiesces to the enemy’s position that homosexuals and other happiness-seekers are sinners. What happened during the 8-10 pages of defending the right to follow one's own pleasure principle?
By successfully framing the debate as virtue versus sin, and not the laws versus your freedoms,
the virtuecrats have succeeded in silencing their political foes...
And, I like that he calls out the left for not defending the American/God-given right to pursue peculiar happinesses. But, I know why I’m gradually letting my fingers loosen from the box car on his runaway train. It's the word ‘sinner.’ Up to this point, this author defends the right of (American) humans to pursue happiness, but then he acquiesces to the enemy’s position that homosexuals and other happiness-seekers are sinners. What happened during the 8-10 pages of defending the right to follow one's own pleasure principle?
I look back to the
opening sentences:
The
truly revolutionary promise of our nation’s founding document is the freedom to
pursue happiness-with-a-capital-H. Unfortunately, this promise is considered problematic
by some Americans. The very pursuits that make some Americans happy (some very happy indeed) are considered
downright sinful by social conservatives.
The opening
position seems to contradict the concluding one. Did Mr. Savage convince
himself that the “moral scolders” were right, or did he always secretly accept that
homosexual interactions are sinful? If my guy is in flux, I don’t want to depend on
the fire-spitting protestors who stood at the doors of the casino (where the
Baton Rouge PRIDE event occurred yesterday). Those
people were certain in their beliefs even though they were unbelievable.
I might have found my answer at the thinking church. I intended to go because all ages and models of Unitarians came out to support our gay rights march to and up the Capitol steps. But—, I checked the sermon topic—I can’t make it on Father’s Day.
I tried to remove this holiday from my “smart phone” calendar, but it kept coming back! I haven’t spoken to my paternal-DNA donor in about twenty years, and it’s been longer than that since I believed his unbelievable truth.
I tried to remove this holiday from my “smart phone” calendar, but it kept coming back! I haven’t spoken to my paternal-DNA donor in about twenty years, and it’s been longer than that since I believed his unbelievable truth.
“You’re going to
hell,” he had said with delusion.
He was (and
possibly still is) an uber-conservative prison-preacher who has the audience
that he always demanded—a captive one. (That’s a slow-rising joke).
In high school, I
had wanted to be a missionary, but God did all he could to steer me away—save
coming down, wrapping flesh around his holy spirit, and pointing a big fat waving finger, “NO!” So, after funding
couldn’t be allocated for my mission-field training, I opted for a student loan and
landed on a college campus with 20,000 pagans.
“She just needs to
get to the ‘Psychology of Women’, and then all will fall in place,” God must
have said.
I can attribute my
gay awakening to this undergraduate class, and my spiritual awakening to a ‘Bible
As Literature’ class in graduate school.
The latter was conducted in the most conservative part of the south that
I’ve ever perpetuated in. (To give credence to this claim—I’ve lived in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana.) So, I
found it surprising that an atheist who was also a lesbian would replace the local Southern
Baptist preacher and be this university’s chosen professor.
On the first day, she
had us bring a Bible—the only required text.
“Which version,” many of us asked?
“Which version,” many of us asked?
“Whatever you like,”
she said.
So, we all show up
with everything from KJV to The Living Bible versions. The class unanimously agreed that one
guy’s bible was paraphrased by rappers.
The prof would review a book (of the bible) and point to someone to read a verse. Then, she would point to someone else to read
the same verse. And then, she would
point to someone else to read it. The
most amazing revelations would occur when comparisons were made because within the English language the meaning proved to be inconsistent.
“’Man’ wrote this
book,” I finally had to accept.
Biblical scriptures
have been translated from Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and/or Greek, and then carelessly
documented into English, reflecting social prejudices of the 17th
Century. I had learned from a Rabbi
(when I was young) that the word ‘homosexual’ (as it is used today) didn’t
occur in ancient scriptures. Early
communities accepted same-sex couplings except where older men had sex with
young men. This act, rightfully, would have been viewed as pedophilia &/or rape. This caused me to have an "ahh-ha" moment, realizing that the woman who turned around in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was an example of the "salt of the earth" because she had so much compassion for the people who were burning that she couldn't not look back and save her own life.
It was difficult
for me to write the required papers for that class. I offered topical treatments of the subjects
that had little to do with the Bible and more to do with socio-political
struggles that the allegorical figures, in their hypothetical communities, were
presumed to have participated in. Throughout the semester, I tried to process
how all of my pre-college positions had foundations in something so unbelievable.
Knowing that the
words can be so easily replaced with words that appear to be synonymous, I can’t
place my spiritual faith in man and his static words. When I
hear the fire-spitters reference the Bible and claim that I am a sinner, I want
to ask, “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?” I imagine the conversation will go
this way.
“Do you believe in
the Holy Spirit?”
“Of course, I do!”
the spitter would spit.
“Then, you believe
in the spirit of the Law?”
“Of course, I do!”
the spitter would spit and maybe stomp for emphasis.
“How do you believe
in the spirit of the Law and the letter of the Law? These contradict each other.”
At this point the
spitter would spit, quoting Bible verses that defend hatred. In response, I would not offer all of the verses that represent God’s (inspired)
love. With love and logic lost, I’d be
wasting valuable energy on this hate monger. I’d rather channel it toward people
who understand Christian charity.
On my way past the
fire-spitters, I’m in step with a girl who is walking toward the entrance.
“Grab my hand,” she
commands.
It takes me a
minute to understand her words, but I follow her inviting smile.
“Good call,” I say
when we release and reach for the doors of the PRIDE party.
She smiles.
“It’s always
surprising to me that prisoners get care and compassion, and we get that.”
She smiles and
shrugs, heading toward a group of girlfriends who are reaching out for her sweet embrace.
