[Vision2020] Homosexuality

[Joan Opyr]

Michael writes:

"Hmmmm.  Well, I don’t think we really talk about sex as much as you 
imply here.  However, let’s assume for the sake of argument that we do 
in fact talk about it a lot, perhaps even more than the other parts of 
the Wasp Leg.  This seems potentially appropriate for two reasons.  
First, sex is truly amazing; it is a large part of reality. It makes up 
more of our thinking and willing than I think we are sometimes willing 
to admit (I speak for us men anyways).  It is a foundational part of 
society; without sex, it is hard to know what the world would really be 
like.  Likewise, it is a fundamental area in Christian Theology.  Sex 
is holy and reveals the nature of the Trinity and the nature of 
redemption itself.  The experience of, images of, metaphors of sex are 
ways of getting deeper in Ultimate Reality.  The pleasure and ritual of 
sex are somehow an ultimate expression of love and affection."

The first hurdle: I don't believe in the Trinity.  As I mentioned, I'm 
a practicing Jew.  I believe in one God in one piece, not a 
three-in-one, triune god.  I agree that sex can be amazing (and also, 
alas, amazingly dull), but it does not, for me, reveal the Trinitarian 
nature of the divine.  I also don't agree that the "pleasure and ritual 
of sex" are an "ultimate expression of love and affection."  I'm not 
willing to accord my G-spot that much significance.  Sex is sex, and 
theology is theology; or, as Freud put it, sometimes a cigar is just a 
cigar.

Michael continues:

"Secondly, because sex is so potent and all around us, this is where we 
need so much protection.  Paul tells singles to get married and start 
having sex in order to protect themselves.  He tells marriage people to 
continue pleasing one another sexually so that they will be protected.  
Suppression of the right kind of sex doesn’t eradicate sex, it just 
provides means for the wrong kind of sex. So I think Christians talk a 
lot about both the beauty and danger of sex; warnings and 
accountability are very important.  As Solomon told his son: “For the 
lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech. 
But in the end she is bitter as wormwood.” In fact the entire book of 
Proverbs can be seen as a father using the potency of sex as a way of 
contrasting foolishness from wisdom.  Wisdom is to be grabbed on the 
smooth bottom while you can get it; foolishness is a prostitute to 
fear."

That is not exactly what Paul tells singles.  He tells them that it is 
better to marry than to burn, meaning that it's best to be celibate as 
he is and Jesus was.  Paul and Solomon are not in accord, and I would 
not quote them in the same context.  Solomon, like David before him, 
was an enthusiastically sexual man.  Solomon was a true ladies man; the 
James Bond of the ancient Hebrew world.  Paul, in stark contrast, takes 
a very grudging approach to sex -- do it if you must, you weak things, 
but if you have the willpower, you really should eschew the physical 
and spend your energies instead on contemplation of kingdom come.

I wrote:

Just to stick with the stories of the Bible, what were the ill effects 
of homosexuality in comparison to those of wrath or avarice, pride or 
envy?  What led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?  The better 
Biblical translators would argue that it was inhospitality.  And what 
was the first sin, the sin that led to the fall?  Eating the fruit of 
the tree of knowledge.  Adam eating the fruit Eve offered.  After 
that?  Cain killing Abel.  When does homosexuality -- or, to be more 
acurate, acts of homosexual behavior -- come into the story of the 
fall?  When are they first condemned in the Bible?  Leviticus, I 
believe, and then only in the context of a wide-ranging list of kosher 
"thou shalt nots."

And Michael responded:

"There are thousands of ways to sin; bestiality is not listed in 
Genesis either, but that does not mean it wouldn’t have been wrong or a 
perversion of the goodness of creation.  Likewise, the Lord’s design, 
as Jesus points out, was one man and one woman.  This is pretty clear 
in the Genesis creation account.  Like I’ve already noted however, the 
nature of redemptive history does not mean we will find ‘condemnation’ 
as some unchanging code from the fall to the recreation of all things. 
Also, if a certain behavior was assumed wrong or was not prevalent, 
then we may not expect to find it in a list of moral laws.  In the ten 
commandments for example, only adultery is listed.  But I think a 
natural reading would cause us to understand homosexuality and 
fornication as assumed in this command, not neglected by it. 
Hospitality?....."

I'm not talking about lists of sin.  Ever listened to Maria McKee and 
Lone Justice?  "You know so many ways to be wicked, but you don't know 
one little thing about life."  I think you know, Michael, that I'm not 
suggesting that if something isn't forbidden in Genesis, it isn't 
therefore a sin.  My mother never told me that sex with a donkey was 
wrong; somehow, I just knew.  And, yes, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah 
was inhospitality to strangers; it was not anal sex.  This is not 
controversial stuff among Biblical translators and scholars.  If you 
think I'm pulling this rabbit from a hat, then I fear you don't fully 
understand the importance of hospitality in nomadic culture.  I'm not 
talking about offering tea and cakes to your friends, or lifting your 
pinky while sipping from a china cup.  I meant that those you shelter 
in your home become part of your family.  You are responsible for their 
safety and well-being.  The residents of Sodom and Gomorrah violated 
the first principle of hospitality; they asked Lot to send the 
strangers out to them so that they might "know" them.  We can argue 
about the translation of know in this context, if you like, but Lot's 
response was certainly clear -- he offered the city his daughters 
instead.  (Yuck.)  Later, as you know, Lot himself incestuously abused 
those daughters, and the daughters are blamed for this, so as you might 
imagine, I don't think much of the God who features in this particular 
story.  (The Old Testament is not full of God, in my opinion, but full 
of gods.  There is no one, settled notion of God in the Old Testament.  
What we witness in those scriptures is a people, the Jews, working out 
what kind of God it is they want to worship.)

Now, ten commandments?  Come on.  Try more than six hundred 
commandments.  That ten commandments stuff is strictly Cecil B. 
DeMille.

Michael again:

"Well said. I really think you would enjoy many of Doug Wilson’s 
sermons."

I've listened to several of Doug's sermons -- the ones available 
online, anyway.  I didn't enjoy them.  I'd much rather watch old 
re-runs of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  That Crow T. Robot -- now 
he's funny!

Finally, Michael says:

"Also, I should note that given the new rise in a public and legal 
acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual marriage, which would have 
been an amazing thought to just about anybody in our western culture 50 
years ago, it should not be surprising that this is a ‘hot issue’ right 
now.  Certainly, Christians did not give much thought to homosexuality 
a 100 years ago."

This is not the case, but I think I'll let my partner, who has a PhD in 
Victorian Literature, deal with this.  In the meantime, I'll just admit 
here and now that I've read more than my fair share of Victorian porn, 
and let me assure you, they had an excellent understanding of 
homosexuality.  So, too, did earlier popular writers.  Ever read Moll 
Flanders?  Or Fanny Hill?  And medieval literature knew a thing or six 
about homosexuality -- the Decameron is little more than a bag of dirty 
stories.  Really good dirty stories, but dirty stories nonetheless.  If 
you want to go back further, to the Rome of Jesus' or Paul's day, 
you'll find that homosexuality was commonplace.  It was marriage 
between one man and one woman, marriage for the sake of heterosexual 
love, that was unusual.

Might I recommend a little "I, Claudius?"

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com
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