While I agree that not all religious people hate gays, I think we can all agree that many homophobes are religious conservatives. Much of what they say about homosexuality comes from religious texts or is inspired by them. The fight against homophobia is in many ways a fight against religious condescension and hypocrisy.
Homosexuality is a sin.
Religious scriptures talk about a multitude of sins. Eating shellfish, working on Sunday, being rude to your parents, wearing mixed fabric, being a woman who’s no longer virgin on her wedding day, arguing with your parents, and touching dead pigs are just some of the things the Bible says are immoral. According to the scriptures, if you’re a man or a woman who had sex outside the bounds of marriage, you’re a fornicator, and fornicators do not inherit the Kingdom of God. So why does it seem to me that the religious homophobes are singling out homosexuality as if it’s the only sin worth condemning?
The Bible cherry pickers are mum on issues about the corruption in the church and child molestation cases by some of the members of the clergy.
Peter Jones Dela Cruz: “According to the scriptures, if you’re a man or a woman who had sex outside the bounds of marriage, you’re a fornicator, and fornicators do not inherit the Kingdom of God. So why does it seem to me that the religious homophobes are singling out homosexuality as if it’s the only sin worth condemning?”
But honestly who cares about sin these days? We don’t mull over our actions and think about whether we’re sinning or not. You don’t hurt people because you think hurting them is a sin; you don’t hurt them because your rational faculties tell you hurting people cause them distress and pain and leave you with remorse ― unless you’re a psychopath.
The idea of sins is passé; it’s for people who believe a loving God would send them to hell for eternal torment if he doesn’t like them or forgive a serial rapist because he prays to him every day. That is on top of religious texts failing to come up with a sound explanation as to why homosexuality or eating shrimps is wrong. It’s wrong because it says there that it’s wrong? That’s circular reasoning.
In other words, we can’t really use religious scriptures as a basis for how we live because within the scriptures themselves are gross inconsistencies and absurd or irrational admonitions.
God burned down Sodom and Gomorrah.
What did people in those towns do to get such a violent treatment from a loving God? The tale of Sodom and Gomorrah is ridiculous. Lot’s townspeople wanted to force themselves on his visitors, the angels, and then God went berserk. The fundies think the angry Judeo-Christian lord sent fireballs to those sorry towns because of homosexuality. That’s absurd. Wasn’t God angry because the people were depraved, not because they were gay?
Maintaining that God destroyed the two ancient cities because men engaged in homosexual activities is causal reductionism. Another version of this says that homosexuality is one of the sins of Sodom. On the other hand, pro-gay Christians maintain that homosexuality was never explicitly mentioned as a sin of Sodom. This is a problem with cryptic texts that are open to interpretation, because how people interpret the passages depends on their biases. There is no universal guideline to follow in this case.
Also, why did God destroy the whole place instead of killing only the offenders or maybe even sending them a memo first? The Sodom and Gomorrah myth paints a malevolent picture of a deity that is said to be all-loving and forgiving. It creates a terrible inconsistency within the domain of Christian belief.
God created men and women only.
God created two types of reproductive systems for vertebrates according to creationists and fundamentalists (not sure if they’re the same people). Of course, due to quality control issues, 1 in every 1,500 people is born intersex or has an unusual sex chromosome (XXY or XYY). Let’s ask God what went wrong one of these days.
Also, that God created men and women only is not an argument against homosexuality but an argument against gender nonconformity. Gays are men, lesbians are women. It’s an argument that should be addressed to agender, bigender, and genderqueer folks.
I think God by now has realized the internal circuitry he made that governs someone’s gender was too complex that any change in even one of its components could affect one’s view of their gender identity. God hasn’t made software updates yet. It’s been so long. In addition, why didn’t he see this coming?
Peter Jones Dela Cruz: “The Bible cherry pickers are mum on issues about the corruption in the church and child molestation cases by some of the members of the clergy.”
Maybe he likes the gender diversity now. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. Who knows? Respond to this when you have a signed letter from God explaining exactly why he hasn’t changed the gender nonconformers. He’s omnipotent. He should be able to do that, right?
He’s also omniscient, so he must knew one week ago when he started to make everything, that at some point Bruce Jenner was going to come out as Caitlyn Jenner. But God didn’t do anything about it.
God created men for women.
Yeah, right, because God wants humans to breed. But the reality is some men don’t end up with women and some women don’t end up with men. Get over it. God doesn’t seem to give a sh*t anymore nowadays anyway.
God, don’t worry. Nine in 10 people are straight, and most of them get married and have kids. And if you look at the worldwide population trend, you’ll see the straights are doing quite a fantastic job multiplying. No need to ask gays to be straight. Besides, if you, an omnipotent deity, can’t turn them straight, how can they do so themselves?
Pray the gay away.
Lovely! Why pray the gay away? We like being gay. Why would you pray away something that is beautiful? But let us know when you have successfully prayed your migraine or diabetes away.
Generally, religious arguments about homosexuality are naturalistic fallacies and appeals to religion/tradition, fear, and force. You really cannot take them seriously. Besides, if God really hated gay and lesbian people, he would have rained meteorites on Gay Pride Parades or plagued countries where same sex marriages are legal with deadly diseases. Belgium and Portugal seem to be fine.
Of course, the homophobic conservatives do have secular, extra-Biblical arguments against homosexuality. Let’s deal with them on another article.
For Peter Jones T. Dela Cruz, the fight against homophobia is in many ways a fight against religious condescension and hypocrisy.
PHOTOS FROM METRO MANILA PRIDE 2011
