The standard evangelical trope that says Christians are persecuted in this country is not only silly, but also offensive to the millions of religious practitioners the world over who are actually persecuted for their beliefs.
(Let alone to the American men and women who get to listen to Larry the Cable guy call them ragheads and towelheads while the whole audience laughs.)
It's so hard to be a Christian! When we tell people they are evil sinners who will suffer eternal torment, people say we're being mean! And that's mean!
It's always weird to read something like this that has the same vocabulary and cadence of someone who's making a valid point.
And that's mean!
"After all, it's just Truth! Also, your shirt is really unflattering."
Yeah, if your religion compels you to be a jerk...Christ: what an asshole.
Remember, if you tell the Muslims that their religion is evil, they might make mean-girl faces at you.
Honestly, I didn't read this guy as fixated on how he's oppressed at all. He looks to me like someone wrestling with a real moral dilemma that his belief system has imposed on him. Not only that, it is not hard to put yourself in his situation. Think of a behavior that you believe is immoral, but people nonetheless have a right to engage in--like stand on stage and call other people ragheads. It is wrong, but you can't use coercive measures to stop it. Now imagine your religion calls on you to love Larry the Cable guy. How can you separate his identity from his actions?
Christ was both loving and firm
You did nothing with that, Labs? Are you ill?
People who think their religion requires them to be assholes should by all means act on that belief.
It makes religion-shopping so much easier for the rest of us.
I am having issues in the classroom with this right now. Most of both of my classes are strictly religious in some sense, but only two or so in each of them are getting all pissy about the fact that I might mention homosexuality without condemning it. The bulk of my classes are cool about it because I say, "You're welcome to have as little actual gay sex as you want, but it's not reasonable to act as if gay sex has never happened. It's a part of reality." And if they feel the need to make faces or condemn it out loud, I just resort to, "Well, you didn't get huffy when we were talking about genocide or rape, so you've lost your opportunity to be all morally superior about sex."
What I've always wanted to say when they say, "I don't hate gay people; I just hate gay sex" is "Maybe you were doing it wrong." But I'd prefer not to get fired.
OTOH, I also have a student who gets violently angry every time we read a Renaissance poem that mentions any Christian concept or trope (even if it's to negate it), because I'm an evil Christianist who apparently hates Judaism and Islam, since I'm not teaching any Anglophone poetry of the Renaissance that uses Jewish or Islamic ideas as its basis. Uhhhh...
Rob, you troll, nice attempt, but not convincing. Here's a thought: many reasonable people understand that there are various issues about which it's best to keep quiet. In particular, as the probability that your interlocutor has at least thought about the point you'd make about one of these issues approaches one, it becomes smarter and smarter to keep the mouth shut. "Oh really? Abortion stops a beating heart? I'd never thought of that!"
4 is correct. When I read Sullivan's correspondent say that he must condemn homosexuality to remain true to his principle of Biblical inerrancy, I want to ask him whether he's opposed to slavery. Which the Bible really doesn't condemn at all.
Or if he takes Revelation so seriously, howsabout this:
3And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
4These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
5And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.
NO SEX WITH WOMEN, YO!
In particular, as the probability that your interlocutor has at least thought about the point you'd make about one of these issues approaches one, it becomes smarter and smarter to keep the mouth shut.
That seems pretty unconvincing. War protesters fall where, then?
I don't believe anyone on this blog has ever kept their mouth shut about issues that are important to them for the sake of propriety. Polite people don't frequent this place.
16: Rob, out of a sense of propriety, I haven't said anything about my core belief that all the women commenters here should oil themselves up and dance for me.
Though now that it's out there...
16: It's not for propriety; it's for effectiveness. (Making the argument from the Christian side.) There's a direct conflict between saving souls and spouting your damn mouth off; evangelism only works if people don't think you're an asshole.
I'm with Rob. The full e-mail is very sympathetic. I don't agree with the religious premise, but I admire the way he's grappling with the issues.
Meh. If you really and truly believe someone is doing something for which he will BURN IN HELL FOREVER, it seems in most ways like a decent thing to do to point that out to him, in case maybe he is unaware. I mean, if I saw you walking towards a hidden cliff I'd be inclined to say something. Even if you protested that was the direction you really wanted to go, I might push back a bit to emphasize "OKAY BUT THAT'S A CLIFF; YOU'LL FALL AND DIE". If you insist on walking ahead, well, I guess there's nothing I can do, but I'd feel bad not having warned you.
But that's too artificial an example. More realistically, if I saw a friend really burning himself out with drugs, I'd try to talk to him about it. I'd expect him to shrug me off, perhaps with hostility, but I'd at least want to let him know I was concerned about him and that from my perspective it looked like he was in trouble and please know I'm happy to help. And, you know, he just might gratefully accept.
That seems not very different at all from the attitude described in this letter. Of course, the comparison is premised on the idea that someone is genuinely convinced that you're on a path towards BURNING IN HELL FOREVER, but there are a not insignificant number of people who hold that belief with strong conviction. And when one shares this conviction, most of the time the sharer is rebuffed or ignored, but every now and again someone breaks down and repents and all that. Random reinforcement is a powerful motivator. And again, we're talking about ETERNAL SOULS; the stakes are high. It's not hard to refashion Pascal's wager to cover evangelism.
In reality, I admit this comparison also probably gives too much credit to a lot of evangelists. Many seem far more interested in their own moral superiority, and far too delighted in exercising their judgment, to make me believe they are acting primarily out of concern for others' mortal souls. But, in theory, it's unstandable.
This may be an easier position for me since I'm comparatively rarely the target of their evangelism.
There's a direct conflict between saving souls and spouting your damn mouth off; evangelism only works if people don't think you're an asshole.
This guy isn't spouting his mouth off. He's keeping his views private, save this e-mail and a conversation with his sister, until his friend can trust that the friendship is independent of his opinion of homosexuality.
The full email does come off better than the excerpt. However, it still boils down to "my religion demands I be an asshole and I don't want to be an asshole!" Easy answer: Biblical inerrancy isn't for you.
I've been talking with students a lot about this sort of thing this semester, and one of the things that has really struck me is how inadequate the standard American protestant ways of dealing with the dilemma are. I have students say "love the in/hate the sinner." I also hear a lot of "you can be angry with someone and still love them." I tell students, if you are angry at someone and hate the things they do, how much love is left in your emotional life? The letter writer seems to sense how inadequate these rationalizations are.
I've written and deleted three or four draft comments and have decided I can't post any of them because people like this make me so angry that I lose all ability to think.
I cannot condemn the guy for wrestling with this issue.
Hopefully, it will make him re-think his concepts about homosexuality.
This exposure was what almost prevented that Virginia Amendment from passing. People started realizing how it impacted their friends and relatives.
Right, imagine I'm the gay dude in question. "I believe your lifestyle is morally wrong" says the emailer. "Great," I reply, "we could either talk in depth about why I find the view completely uncompelling, or we could agree to disagree. But fair warning: I get to say things about your religion that you won't like, and since you opened this can of worms I'm within my rights to hold you intellectually accountable for the views you hold that, by your lights, justify you being a dick. " Just as I don't tell people that I think various commitments they have are idiotic (I mean, if they ask, fine, but to walk up to friends and start with the counterexamples...so irritating) I would hope that my interlocutors would pay me similar respect.
I've ridiculed protesters on many occasions, Tim, and on similar grounds, but I think it's pretty clear that the point of the activity is different.
I have students say "love the in/hate the sinner." (I assume that's really "love the sinner, hate the sin.")
To which you reply: "Spare the rod, spoil the boy."
Y'know, it's nice that people are willing to respect the writer for struggling but when their friend has come out of the closet and is awaiting a reaction - a reaction vitally important to them or they wouldn't have come out in the first place - it is time to shit or get off the fucking pot. Struggle? In my view the author is doing a damned fucking fine job of making this be about them rather than their friend. I hope their friend gets the message and makes some other friends.
28: That's totally not what happens in the full e-mail.
23: I was referring to the "my moral imperative to speak the truth" bit. That's a key premise to his argument, but an unfounded one. He says that some day he has to tell his friend he condemns his behavior; why?
22 should say in theiry it's *understandable*, not unstandable, although that was a funny typo.
Leaving the content of the e-mail aside, I'm very strongly in heebie's camp. This is a very familiar dilemma to me. Not about evangelizing for a religion, but the grief and pain of wrestling with how to preserve a friendship with someone who is doing things (apparently willfully) with their life that you think are severely harmful and morally objectionable.
OK, so I'm bad at restraint.
Yglesias makes this point a lot: being wrong because your principles demand it is often worse than just being wrong in some ad hoc way. Maybe interpersonally we should be sympathetic to this guy and help him on the path to tolerance, but as a matter of political discourse, he's a bigot.
Rob's analogy (banned) is misleading because the dilemma he describes arises from condemning something condemnable--unlike the dilemma of the Christian.
There are sins and there are abominations. I think that if homosexuality were reclassified as a sin like alcohol and tobacco, rather than as an abomination, everyone could be relatively happy. But the conservative churches have get a lot of their energy from an intense hatred of violations of sex and gender rules.
I don't object to a church with strict rules about sexual behavior and expels violators, any more than I object to a church which opposes drug, alcohol and tobacco use and expels users. But the churches want much more than that.
Heebie, we disagree about how close 28 and the full email are. I mean, if the emailer thought the gay friend might-- unlike pretty much everyone in America-- have remained blissfully ignorant of the Goods News of the gospel of Jesus Christ, sure, there might be some point. But I get the sense that gay people who are nervous about coming out are already painfully aware that a lot of people hate gays and find teh gay sexx morally problematic.
What good would it do? Make the guy consider celibacy?
36: It's because you're gay. Sorry, big guy, but repressed sex-related emotion is all ours.
I agree with 28. I also agree with Robust McManly that maybe these people cannot be friends any more.
This topic is similar to the abortion topic. I've been around people are strongly against abortion. When they say something, I almost always mention my involvement in the abortion world. They either deal with it or they don't. Sometimes people look at me in disgusted and never talk with me again.
Yglesias makes this point a lot: being wrong because your principles demand it is often worse than just being wrong in some ad hoc way. Maybe interpersonally we should be sympathetic to this guy and help him on the path to tolerance, but as a matter of political discourse, he's a bigot.
Which he appears to have explicitly accepted. It seems he's looking for the interpersonal whatever.
from the full e-mail, the Christian whiner says: But I cannot keep from standing on the ground to which my morals are attached. And so, on some distant day, once my friend has realized I still love and care for him, I will also have to tell him what my religious beliefs dictate concerning homosexual behavior.
Yeah, fine. That and two dollars 40 cents will get him a coffee at Starbucks.
Someday, Christians like that will understand that their own deluded, tortured conviction that people who have sex ARE SINNING is something that they should beg their god to forgive them for.
From my experience in the Christian community, I'd say they don't really think homosexual sex is an abomination. They think being an "out" gay person is an abomination, because it displays pride in one's sin. If you're someone who compulsively, tragically, can't stop sticking it into boys, you can be forgiven. But if you wear a rainbow T-shirt and talk about how much you love your gay partner, you're reveling in your sin.
Why should I respect somebody for struggling with the question whether or not they should tell their gay friend their gayness makes them evil?
You cannot just separate the content and form of morality like that, where if you wrestle with a moral question, no matter how stupid or reprehensible it is, it automatically makes you a better person.
Hating gays is wrong, whether or not you do so from a deep religious belief.
Beside which, Jesus never said word one about that (all the anti-gay unpleasantness in the NT is work of that closet case Paul), AND hung around with twelve other men.
You know, in theory I'm kind of with Heebie and Brock -- if you see someone you care about doing something that you genuinely believe is dangerous and harmful to them, but you know they'll be offended and hurt if you dissuade them, you've got a real problem, and one I can sympathize with. This gets much more sympathetic if you're thinking about someone with a drug problem, as has been mentioned above.
In practice, though, unless the guy who wrote the email is going through similar soul-searching over every friend of his engaging in premarital heterosexual sex, failing to honor his father and mother, bearing false witness against his neighbor, not doing unto others as he would have others do unto him, and so on, he's an asshole who can shut the hell up. If other people's sinful lives are only something he gets tortured about when the specific sin is buttfucking, it's not about the religion, it's about social control.
I feel like there's something about passive-aggressive consensus at work in this letter--as if people can hold opposing beliefs and still be bestest friends forever. That, to me, eviscerates the beliefs, turning them into something like a hobby. "My hobby is marxism; your hobby is picketing clinics--how delightful and whimsical that we are close friends!"
Sometimes you have to choose. Put your friend first, or put your religion first. You're almost certainly going to lose one or the other, but friendship and religion are demanding, or at least they ought to be.
39 - I think the timing of the conversation about the "I think homosexuality is wrong" conversation makes a big difference. Specifically, that he's not intending to have this conversation until some distant day. To me, that says that he's not trying to dictate his friend's lifestyle.
Also, it's much easier for me to listen/talk/be friends with someone whose views are repugnant if they've invested serious time in showing me that they are capable of listening and discussing, rather than having their heart set on prosyletizing.
I want to agree with 47, but I'm also acutely aware that if I always did that, it would virtually eliminate friendship from my life. I mean, if I had a litmus test that every person I was close to did not violate the five or six core beliefs of my moral philosophy, I'd be darn near friendless.
I sort of want to draw a distinction between drug abuse and being gay. That sounds snide, and I don't mean it that way, but the underlying point is: there are matters of ideological disagreement that I think reasonable people just have to accept. Yeah, we know, evangelicals don't like gay sex. Everyone has heard that one before. It seems so arrogant to me that Mr Emailer would think, ah, but I have some moral insight that might help this situation! No, you really don't; if you want to get something off your chest by noting your moral disapproval, do it in a pro-forma way then STFU about it.
12: I don't think Rob was trolling, I think he makes a good observation about the moral dilemma.
An obnoxious little evangelical myself once, I can remember experiencing a similar "moral dilemma" long ago. "But my church keeps saying how these vile homosexuals are an abomination, but then I actually met a few who seem awfully nice, but my church says they are going to burn in hell for their wanton lust, but when the ones I've met talk about their relationships it sounds very sweet and affectionate and no different from the sweetness and affection all the heteros I know are looking for, but but but the Bible...!"
Okay, so the excerpt in the post doesn't offer great hope for a happy ending what with the bit about "But if 'bigotry' is the price to pay, then I will have to pay it." And I suspect the more often this guy is labelled a bigot, the firmer his convictions will grow. I like to hope thought that the discomfort of the moral dilemma and the tension between his "convictions" and his friendship might be an opportunity for him to reevaluate his convictions. Especially since a couple friends of mine outed themselves not too long ago to their entire family of hard-core evangelical Christians and I can easily imagine any number of them having written this letter.
I've ridiculed protesters on many occasions, Tim, and on similar grounds, but I think it's pretty clear that the point of the activity is different.
I have to say that I'm not seeing this at all, Labs. Sometimes (by which I mean "never") you convince people by means of reasoned argument, sometimes by bullying, etc. Some of the protesters are there because they feel their moral commitments demand that they do at least that, whether it be useful or not. Didn't someone just say similar in the "ogged is depressed about the state of America" thread?
I have recently cut someone out of my life because they were a Krauthammer admirer. I just didn't want either to argue with him, or to gance around the problem and quit talking about politics. It was my choice, not his. Much earlier I allowed a friendship to lapse because the guy was a working neocon involved in Latin American policy during the dirty wars. That was mutual, I think.
The Christian guy is facing that kind of choice, and so is his gay friend. The Christian's belief seems wrong and disproportionate to me, and if he doesn't change it I don't see that the friendship should be kept alive. I think that it's clear that he's in the "abomination" camp, rather than in the "like smoking" camp.
Concievably his gay friend can change his mind about his church's doctrine by reporting personal knowledge and experience, but people cling to doctrine very fiercely.
I agree with 8. The letter writer is wrong, but his response to what is, for his faith, a genuine moral dilemma is to be genuinely morally puzzled. Seems to be better than automatically condemning his friend.
The answer may be, like 47, that he has to walk away from one or the other. Or, he could, y'know, just stop reading a document steeped in metaphor literally. Fucking evangelicals.
I agree with LB that he is less sympathetic if he is is very selective in his moral outrage.
For me, I am willing to be compassionate about people struggling with these problems because I assume that many of them have never knowingly been around gay people. In many regards, gay people are like those crazy Islamofacists, the blacks waiting to burn and rape white women, or those Commie's hiding away waiting to take over our country. People are scared of the boogie man that they do not know.
As time goes by and more and more people are out, then I will become less sympathetic. The process is slower than I want, but, the bottom line is that things are changing.
I sort of want to draw a distinction between drug abuse and being gay. That sounds snide, and I don't mean it that way, but the underlying point is: there are matters of ideological disagreement that I think reasonable people just have to accept.
The thing is, that takes as a premise that evangelical guy is just wrong, and sexual sin is no big thing. Now, that's what I believe myself, but if you take that as a premise, then you're not so much indicting evangelical guy as a bigot, but as bothering sensible people with his nonsense at all. This seems overstated.
I'll call him a bigot because I (based on other people I'm familiar with) don't believe he has any problem with most other kinds of sin that should, theologically, be just as big a deal. But if that were off the table -- the same guy were getting all wrecked about parent-non-honorers too -- I don't think I'd be able to condemn him as a bad person for getting hysterical about trying to save people from eternal damnation. As a matter of personal taste, I'd want him to shut up and leave me alone, but I couldn't morally disapprove of his actions.
I identify with 50. Not in quite so extreme a setting. But when you're surrounded by people with nutjob religious beliefs, the principle "only be friends with people who have values you agree with" becomes sort of a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
However, here's where I'm like the e-mailer: Everyone in my life knows my position on abortion/gay rights/etc. (I get an inkling that someone disagrees with me when they start tactfully avoiding those conversations, or when a third party tells me that I've said something to piss them off.)
Jesus, what a fucking dick. Sorry, I have no sympathy for this person at all, because he apparently lacks the critical capacity to analyze the moral worth of a system of cosmic justice that would sentence his friend to an eternity of infinite torment for loving the wrong gender. When I started making friends with the hellbound, and started feeling bad about the fact that my religion required me to believe they were going to roast in the lake of fire forever, I started wondering whether it was my religion that was fucked up for sending so many nice people to hell. This guy's instinct, apparently, is to tear his shirt and go "woe is me" at the notion that people might think he's an asshole for acting like an asshole.
For me, I am willing to be compassionate about people struggling with these problems because I assume that many of them have never knowingly been around gay people.
I think that horse is out of the barn. Fifteen, twenty years ago maybe, but even in small town America I'm pretty sure most people know at least some gay people.
52: For my high school evangelical friends, the thinking moment was when one of them got pregnant and had a baby. Suddenly years and years of 'only nasty girls and boys have sex' ran up against 'now one of our friends needs our help.' The person in front of them outweighed all the moralizing.
50: The thing is, it's the strength of the contradiction that's at work. Here, the writer has to make a choice--he can't be true to both his beliefs and his friend. There are certainly beliefs one can hold where one can be true to the belief and still like people who believe other things.
It's sometimes that one has to choose, not always--the trick is being able to figure out when.
It would be helpful to use an example, but banned!
Are illustrations analogies? It would seem that to equate the two would be itself a banned analogy.
That seems pretty unconvincing. War protesters fall where, then?
C'mon, Tim. It's a moral certainty that any gay person in this country knows that a fair number of Christians and indeed of pretty much all Abrahamic adherents think they're doing wrong. It's also a moral certainty that most people don't know squat about what's actually happening Over There.
64: Although I see that Emerson used examples. Lousy Emerson.
62 is just wrong. I know lots of people in small town America who not only don't know, but aren't aware of ever even having had a conversation with, a gay person.
65: Doesn't all language operate by analogy and metaphor? Unfogged itself is banned!
50: whose fault is it if your five or six core beliefs are inconsistent?
47: another thing that bugs me about this sort of statement is saying: my friend who I love dearly is doing x, my interpretation of my religious text says x is unacceptable ... therefore the only possibility is that my friend is wrong? If you are unwilling to look at your theology critically in this situation, why should your friend have any sympathy for your difficulty with it? This has probably been said earlier.
59: no, this is wrong.
I'm not taking it as a premise that the evangelical is wrong. I'm taking it as a premise that the dispute between happy out gay people and they're-a-burnin' evangelicals is one that, for practical purposes, is a difference in forms of life or in whirl of organism or some other Wittgenstein metaphor: it's a conflict of radically different ways of seeing things. On one hand, yes, I think the evangelical is wrong; on the other, I recognize a difference between the evangelical's way of seeing things and straightforward claims of the "there's a cat on the mat" variety.
Granted, there's an interesting puzzle how to reconcile commitment to one's own stances with an awareness that reasonable people disagree, but such is our condition.
68: Willful ignorance is bliss I guess. The vast majority of them are wrong (meaning they have spoken with gay people, probably several, they just don't know it).
"[My gay friend] admitted that I was the first, straight American male he'd come out to"
Wow. Bad luck there! I hope he's better at picking boyfriends.
68: Eh, maybe I'm overgeneralizing from smalltown upstate NY.
I think that horse is out of the barn. Fifteen, twenty years ago maybe, but even in small town America I'm pretty sure most people know at least some gay people.
No, not necessarily. Or they don't know any gay people on anything like a friendly basis, or well enough to detect that gay people are quite similar to straight people.
It's also a moral certainty that most people don't know squat about what's actually happening Over There.
But seeing some woman with red paint on her hands perform a Mumenschantz routine in front of the Sec. of State is going to change some of their minds? Doubt it. Bet Condi still feels the same.
As Frowner says, sometimes you have to pick.
40: You people just take take take.
I find their "distant day" talk smacks too much of lying in wait. The emailer is going to let their friend feel comfort and acceptance and then flip that around on them with a little sermon when their guard is long-since down. They aren't going to do it by accident, either; the author is planning it out now. If that isn't calculated emotional manipulation then I don't know what is. In what I'm sure is a coincidence, so are most other strategies of evangelism in all religions that evangelize. I can't be arsed to make happy talk about that sort of stupid shit.
The one creditable thing that the letter-writer is doing, though, seems to be to treat the "homosexuals go to hell" belief as a real belief rather than a source of libidinal pleasure. The force of the belief, as has been observed above, lies in how fun it is to talk about sex but have it be all sanctioned and at the same time feel superior to bad Others. It doesn't need to function as an arguement, which is why appeals to the actual content of the Bible don't work against it.
But this fellow is at least not getting a kick out of it. He does seem to be getting a kick out of ZOMG The Mental Agony, but at least he's taking a step in the right direction.
Probably a few well-thought-out challenges to his faith would convert him.
I think that horse is out of the barn. Fifteen, twenty years ago maybe, but even in small town America I'm pretty sure most people know at least some gay people.
Maybe in New York, but not in suburbia. Not in Virginia.
I now live in the city (richmond). Probably 25 percent of my neighbors are gay couples.
When I lived in the county in suburbia, I had no gay neighbors. None. Zero. It was all married couples.
Fifteen, twenty years ago maybe, but even in small town America I'm pretty sure most people know at least some gay people.
There is still some ground to cover between knowing some gay people ("that weird little Smith boy who ran off to city and died his hair blonde and hangs out with fags") and living amongst openly gay people who otherwise resemble the rest of the community. There's an awful lot of red America where the latter has not yet been achieved (though it's true that the last 15 years have seen some notable progress in that direction).
I'm going to stake out an optimistic position and say that the writer of the e-mail might actually come around to questioning his religious convictions. Wrestling with the dilemma before him is a positive first step.
In the meantime, I say hate the bigotry, love the bigot. In much the same way that the writer wants to be a witness to his friend of the saving grace of Jesus, his friend can be a witness to the normality and acceptability of homosexuality.
Sorry, I have no sympathy for this person at all, because he apparently lacks the critical capacity to analyze the moral worth of a system of cosmic justice that would sentence his friend to an eternity of infinite torment for loving the wrong gender.
I don't know that, based on this one email, it's really fair to assume this guy lacks the critical capacity. Seems to me more like this is the first time that he's really been confronted with a need/desire to analyze the issue -- it has suddenly become real to him rather than vague, general moralizing because now there's a face and a friend attached to the issue. People unthinkingly fall into some hard-core convictions for alot of reasons, and there is a certain feeling of comfort in feeling secure in a set of beliefs -- it's kind of emotionally scary to have to let go of that deeply held certainty and start thinking.
Yeah, this was the level of 'knowing some gay people' I meant. I've got small-town family with very, very retrograde beliefs on homosexuality, but they're aware of gay people having lived in their town.
In the meantime, I say hate the bigotry, love the bigot. In much the same way that the writer wants to be a witness to his friend of the saving grace of Jesus, his friend can be a witness to the normality and acceptability of homosexuality.
Absolutely.
I think that many people have blinders about homosexuality. This is true for homosexuals and straight people. Homosexuals look around and say "Look!! We are EVERYWHERE!!" For the majority of straight people, they see a couple of examples of flamboyant homosexuals and do not see any one else.
Why? Because many homosexual couples are mind-numbingly boring just like many straight couples. They work. They eat. They sleep.
77: See, this is why people have to pick. I can't be having with people who insult my GLBT friends, no matter why they do it. (And who insult me, too, for all that I pass as a straight lady these days.)
I can't spend my emotional energy--when I meet such people in real life--making nice to them. The penalty for being a homophobic fundie is that you are utterly deprived of all the appealing qualities of Frownerdom. You want the sparkling wit, the flawless cauliflower curry, the meticulous taste in shoes and accessories? Then you can't be a big homophobe. Sorry.
50: whose fault is it if your five or six core beliefs are inconsistent?
Sorry, I'm not following you.
Yeah, this was the level of 'knowing some gay people' I meant. I've got small-town family with very, very retrograde beliefs on homosexuality, but they're aware of gay people having lived in their town.
But if all they know is that the gay person in their town moved away because he was a weirdo, then that doesn't tell them anything. They knew gay people were weirdos already.
On a related note, I recently had settlement conference in a custody case where the wife was expressing strong concern that husband (straight) was bringing the child around people with "alternative lifestyles."
Those people might molest her child. "How can I be certain that they won't?!??!"she asked quivering.
Her lawyer's eyes got big and she quickly tried to retract that statement.
I don't have very good gaydar, but it goes off pretty often around here in Lake Wobegon. I don't know whether it's closet gays, gays in denial, or just repressed guys who are better-groomed and more polite than the norm. There seems to be a kind of dynamic in repressed communities where the gay boy is the nicest, best-behaved one because he doesn't sneak off with girls or get drunk and vandalize things. One of the weird things about the gay Boy Scout thing is that when I was a Boy Scout, scouts weren't supposed to be heterosexual either.
There is a young gay couple living in the most conservative, churchiest country area around here. I'm pretty sure that they're not out with their neighbors; essentially they're commuters to a neighboring town.
I find their "distant day" talk smacks too much of lying in wait. The emailer is going to let their friend feel comfort and acceptance and then flip that around on them with a little sermon when their guard is long-since down. They aren't going to do it by accident, either; the author is planning it out now.
This is probably true, in general. I'm reading this particular guy a little bit charitably, for reasons of 81, etc. I feel like he's grappling with the issues, which is the first step of growth and change.
83 and earlier LB: I can say with confidence that while my mother enjoyed Will and Grace and Queer Eye and found them both delightfully scandalous, that she knows no openly gay people, because she would have called me. She has her suspicions about the reference librarian, but the idea of a close friend being gay is for her about as realistic as a waitress in NYC owning a gigantic apartment: something that only happens on TV. Gay people are acceptable in pop culture, but there's a difference between that and everyone knowing someone who is gay.
But if all they know is that the gay person in their town moved away because he was a weirdo, then that doesn't tell them anything. They knew gay people were weirdos already.
My point exactly. The exposure of Red America to "normal" gays is still a work in progress, accomplished on the accretive strength of those who have the courage to come out even where it is especially inauspicious to do so. Like the friend in the e-mail.
In 91, there should be a couple of 'openly's in there. My mom surely knows gay people, but she wouldn't recognize them as gay because they're not out and plus, aren't they all like Queer Eye and Jack?
Change is sloowwwly happening. My rural little school just had its first Lesbian and Gay Student Reunion. There were apparently a lot of donors bitching to the president. I love our president so much. She listens yet stands her ground. I've got a lot of appreciation at the moment for how effective her style is, and how diplomacy can bring about change.
Pretty OT: Read the post title and immediately thought, FL wrote this post. Fun to see/guess at the poster personality from a few words in post titles.
Another vote for obliviousness in the presence of what those of us with broader experience recognize as probably gay people. I can easily divide my own family that way.
And that very obliviousness is instructive about other elephant-in-the room issues, about the war and abortion.
Divide my own family into those who know/suspect and don't care and those to whom it doesn't occur and why on earth would anybody tell them?
how to speak the truth in love,
How to pull the plank out of your own fucking eye, more like.
I would love to be there when they pulled the plank out of their eye; I would volunteer to put it back in at speed.
I say hate the bigotry, love the bigot.
I say it's spinach and I say to hell with it. Bigots aren't very much fun, anyway, usually. Treating them with simple civility when it is absolutely necessary is enough. There's no reason to extend more than that to them.
I have some anecdata in this regard from a cousin of mine who came out in my conservative, rural hometown a few years ago. He and his partner both epitomize the unthreatening gay: straight looking, conventional tastes, bourgeois lifestyle, etc. I'm certain that learning that my cousin is gay has moderated the opinions of at least some of my family and neighbors. There are also some who cling to a "hate the sin, love the sinner" stance, but even they tend to be more circumspect about preaching their hellfire visions now that the implication is "Your son/brother/cousin/friend is going to hell."
My own sense is that this is a social problem solving itself; would that they all could, in the space of a few years, make people more-and-more comfortable so that people everywhere become aware of their existence and normality. The letter in the post is an incident in a process that is going well and quickly considering.
Bigots aren't very much fun, anyway, usually. Treating them with simple civility when it is absolutely necessary is enough. There's no reason to extend more than that to them.
Public opinion research shows that bigoted attitudes are on the decline. It's mostly a generational thing, but even in older age cohorts there has been a measurable improvement in people's attitudes.
That tells me that many of these people are reachable, and to write them off as unreformable bigots with whom one should share no more than civilities is counterproductive.
We are an gay rights somewhere approximate to where the South was on race in 1963: the liberals are openly on our side, but there is still a large population of potential converts who have inherited their bigotry and don't know any different. Once we are down to the hardcore of irredeemable haters (analog race in the 1980s), then I might be more sympathetic to a policy of non-dialogue.
You people have not spent nearly enough time around fundies. It's not "growth" going on in the letter-writer's mind, it's a reinforcing of dogma. He's not really interested in understanding his friend, or in picking apart why his religion tells him that being gay is wrong. He's only interested in reasserting the same old narrative he's been taught all of his life, complete with the usual cast of villains (the media that "increasingly defines our truth as hate" and "equates tolerance with promotion"), so that he can dismiss this brief brush with a contradictory world view in time to be a total bastard to his friend - presumably in the hopes that his friend will check himself into some Dobson-run degayification camp.
My own sense is that this is a social problem solving itself;
I wouldn't say it's solving itself. It's taken a ton of effort from a ton of people. But I would say that forward motion is being made.
Comment 100 is totally unfair to spinach.
4: I can't figure out what passage in Revelation he could possibly be referring to, which, he claims, states that "those who practice homosexual behavior will not be allowed into heaven."
I'm guessing he has it mixed up with 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.
I don't know how you could confuse Revelation with 1 Corinthians, which makes me suspect that he's not a very serious student of the Bible for one who thinks it's inerrant.
104: Against this, the letter writer confided in an openly gay columnist. It's got to be more complicated than that.
Also, I tire of the rhetorical move that sniff 'You must not know any Xs', especially when it follows the very strange 'I am so morally pure that I have purged all of my friendships and acquaintances of those who disagree with me', which only leads me to conclude that people go around slumming in churches with people they hate in their spare time as a sort of hobby.
I agree with stras about the critical capacity thing. Although, maybe this letter is the start of change, and if it is, great. I just refuse to continue to be soft on smart, careful-thinking people just because "it's my religion!" Last time I was home, I got in like 3 different arguments with my dad about homosexuality and gay marriage. My dad is a Catholic, but a kind of new-agey one, is comfortable with alternative spirituality, very tolerant of other religions, doesn't believe in hell, etc. The fact that he's been able to think critically about his religion, and stray from it in certain regards, but won't when it comes to gays, infuriates me to no end.
If you are an independent thinker, being skeptical of your own religion while continuing to be spiritual, but don't manage to come to the conclusion that condemning homosexuality is wrong, then I don't know what to tell you.
I think Revealation = revealed religious truth as expressed in the bible generally, not the single book Revelations.
I grew up Mormon and still have some close, believing Mormon friends. When I came out to them, I would have ended the friendship if they had said anything about my sinfulness. Luckily, they didn't. One broke off contact himself because I was gay, and I figure that's probably for the best. The others have either let me know explicitly that they think the Mormon position on homosexuality is wrong or they just don't bring it up at all but show all the caring for me as an individual that is appropriate for old friends.
Family I give more slack to because I'm stuck with them. And I had some long conversations with friends soon after coming out in which I tried to educate and help them think through the issues, because many of them just hadn't confronted gay issues in more than a perfunctory way. But if someone really thinks in this day and age that their religious beliefs compel them to warn me I'm going to face God's wrath on Judgment Day, fuck 'em.
You people have not spent nearly enough time around fundies.
False. And, having spent plenty (too much?) time amongst fundies, I can report that fundies like most groups are not some monolithic entity but are, in fact, a collective of individuals. Some of whom, as KR observes above, are in fact reachable.
108: It really doesn't. So he reads Sullivan; so what? Submitting some anecdata of my own, I know quite a few hard-right fundamentalist born-agains who have had gay and non-Christian friends and acquaintances. It never got them to challenge their basic beliefs, it never got them to re-examine their basic assumptions about the world. They just clucked their tongues at what a shame it was that such nice people were obviously going to hell.
111 to 107; 'Revealation' s/b 'Revelation.
which makes me suspect that he's not a very serious student of the Bible for one who thinks it's inerrant
The two do tend to be somewhat negatively correlated, in my experience.
More generally, the equation of gay sex = going to hell is an oversimplification even by the standards of fundamentalists, which makes me wonder how well this guy even understands his own faith. Your basic protestant Christian doctrine is that any repentant sinner who accepts Jesus into his heart will be saved, no matter what grievous sins he has committed. Presumably there is still time for the gay friend to repent and beg God's foregiveness.
114: It speaks against the hypothesis that he's planning to ship his friend off to Dobson re-education camp (unlike his wife.)
Another datum for arguing about how reachable this guy is: he claims to be in favor of gay marriage.
I am contracted to work for the global headquarters of a church - and I am an atheist. I am somehow justifying this by saying to myself, "It's only data that I am asked to manage. It's a business like any other." It also helps that the church I work for is fairly liberal, and on my third day here I was talking (positively) about anal sex with a co-worker. My direct co-workers are very liberal and funny. This helps.
So despite all the disgust I have for people like the emailer, I'm kind of doing the same thing in reverse here - and yet, I can be OK with it because the tolerance for gays and pro-choice issues and such is THERE. If I had been offered a job, say, at Lifeway (during my 5 month long unemployment spell), I can definitively say I would not have taken it.
But can people be only "sort-of" evangelical? Or "sort-of" against gays and lesbians?
That tells me that many of these people are reachable, and to write them off as unreformable bigots with whom one should share no more than civilities is counterproductive.
As with the Good Book, interpretations vary.
The thing I am unable to understand is: if people decide they REALLY want to subscribe to ancient documents, why don't they choose other writings about love? Like Plato's Symposium, for example?
If they're convinced that age gives texts increased validity, then there are others out there to choose from.
When I read Evangelical Christian bullshit, I always have Erich Fromm's 'Escape from Freedom' flash before my eyes. And then I shiver.
And once again, I'll submit my complaint that liberals are being asked to reach out to the right, not to the left - and this time, not to socially liberal libertarians, but to the kind of far-right religious crazy who thinks of homosexuality as an abomination and of abortion as a crime against humanity greater than the Holocaust.
If you are an independent thinker, being skeptical of your own religion while continuing to be spiritual, but don't manage to come to the conclusion that condemning homosexuality is wrong, then I don't know what to tell you.
I share your frustration. However, when has your dad been forced to confront this issue in anything other than a hypothetical manner?
It wasnt even until 1973 that homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). And that was a controversal decision.
Science and religion told our parents that homosexuals were mentally ill.
Presumably there is still time for the gay friend to repent and beg God's foregiveness.
Yes, but only if he gives up the gay sex. Hence the degayification camp. Seriously, we think that shit is insane and immoral; fundamentalists in general think that's a reasonable version of repentance, similar to an alcoholic going to AA.
I have students say "love the in/hate the sinner."
Dude, you're teaching Larry Craig?
And one way to make progress happening is not to treat aggressive passive bigotry as "wrestling with a moral dilemma".
The Netherlands became such a gay friendly country because we were unwilling to treat bigots with respect, to the point of, yes, persecuting certain Christians for their beliefs, where their beliefs were bigoted. Some of them even got jailed.
Yes, that meant that here you were not free to express some beliefs, but it also meant no gay kids got beaten to death.
If they're convinced that age gives texts increased validity, then there are others out there to choose from.
I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with anyone, ever deciding to become an evangelical Christian.
As with the Good Book, interpretations vary.
OK, confession time. I am a reformed bigot. I grew up imbibing the ways of the culture that raised me, and the thought of homosexuality viscerally disgusted me up to the time I started college.
I can remember distinctly as a freshman in college listening to a speaker denounce Robert Bork (hey, I was a liberal even then), and applauding as he pointed out that Bork's retrograde ideas on racial equality, gender equality, etc. Then I was struck dumb as the speaker spoke of Bork's bigotry against gays and lesbians. I didn't clap, and I was somewhat astounded that the people around me were clapping. It had never occured to me, a good liberal raised in a New Deal household by a prison social worker, that homophobia was in the same category as racism and sexism.
So college did to me what Pat Robertson fears it does to good christian children: it exposed me to deviant lifestyles and made me accepting of them.
Clearly, I was low-hanging fruit for the tolerance movement. But there are other reachable people out there.
111: Maybe, but the name of the book is "Revelation", not "Revelations".
78 is very close to some of the things Slacktivist has been talking about lately: homosexuality is a sin, and it's one that you can be confident that "those like us" aren't going to own up to, so it's a comfortable way to express your moral superiority to non- and bad-Christians without having to do anything like, say, examine Matthew 5:40 in the context of being a modern American.
Science and religion told our parents that homosexuals were mentally ill
Hard to remember how recently, sometimes.
The anecdote IA told last week about her dad's belief the scale of homosexuality was due to psychiatry
Most people didn't have to think about it at all, and there were dozens of ways of categorizing behaviors we would think of a gay in a moment.
What is the thing that will be obvious to our children that we can't see?
Yes, but only if he gives up the gay sex.
Not true. As long as he hates himself for his urges and repents after every act of penetration, he is still a candidate for salvation under the applicable rules. That's why a guy like Hagee gets off the hook so easy.
129: Huh, shows how much I know. Straight to hell!
What is the thing that will be obvious to our children that we can't see?
I'm pretty sure I'll be worshipped as a god.
I'm pretty sure I'll be worshipped as a god.
And yet, ironically, pictures of your ass will be banned as idolatry.
At least he's wrestling, metaphorically. I spent last night listening to protesters shout down David Horowitz on the basis that someone so clearly fascistic shouldn't be allowed to speak on a university campus, and then explaining to me, loudly and after he abandoned the speech, the one has a moral obligation to shut down such speech.
135: Depends on the denomination. Some may even wear little images of heebie ass on chains around their neck.
And yet, ironically, pictures of your ass will be banned as idolatry.
Actually, they are very God-like. Many worship them. Many claim to have seen them. But, nobody really has.
That tells me that many of these people are reachable, and to write them off as unreformable bigots with whom one should share no more than civilities is counterproductive.
I used "bigot" purposefully. It's a different story, maybe, if the person in question has never met a gay person or merely feels uncomfortable or a little squiked around them. By all means then, pursue whatever social relations interest and circumstances lead you to. But I don't see much point in trying to "love" people who hate you, for whatever reason, or to make them love you. In cases like these, simple civility seems to satisfy the demands of morality and civil peace.
128: But we're not talking about New Deal Democrats here. We're talking about Jesus Camp people. If you're far enough into the evangelical tank that you feel compelled to sit down with your gay friend and tell him why he needs to stop being gay because it's against God's will and it'll get him sent to hell, you're a little far beyond "visceral disgust" of homosexuality. Once you believe that homosexuality isn't merely icky, but a sin that someone must be converted from, you're part of a social movement. Those aren't the kind of people we can reach.
Many claim to have seen them.
I've heard that people in small rural towns have preserved bowls of oatmeal that seemed to have my ass -print embedded in it.
Off to teach!
Not true. As long as he hates himself for his urges and repents after every act of penetration, he is still a candidate for salvation under the applicable rules.
This is not true for protestantism at all. Most versions of protestantism - and certainly most versions of evangelical protestantism - would look at a case like that and doubt that the person in question had ever really become "saved," hence the born-again's unique sense of paranoia.
I think Revealation = revealed religious truth as expressed in the bible generally, not the single book Revelations.
The book is called Revelation, not Revelations (though that's a terribly common error). And since he capitalized it, I'm betting he's referring to the book. Per my comment 13, he doesn't even know the book that well.
which makes me suspect that he's not a very serious student of the Bible for one who thinks it's inerrant
You can't be both. The Bible contradicts itself endlessly.
the very strange 'I am so morally pure that I have purged all of my friendships and acquaintances of those who disagree with me',
Cala, I don't know whether this was directed at me, but I wish to clarify that for the purposes of Unfogged "I am not friends with people who disagree with me" and "you don't know any Xs" are separate arguements. I don't think anyone has said that they believe both.
And my point was not that one cannot have friends who hold different beliefs generally but that there are some beliefs where it becomes very difficult to be true to the belief and still to have the friend, and that in those situations, compromise trivializes both belief and friendship.
To use an illustration, which LB says isn't the same as an analogy: I used to be friends with this activist guy. As it turned out, he raped his girlfriend. I'm not friends with him anymore. Staying friends with him sends the message to that girl and to my friends-who-are-friends-with-that-girl that my concern with the emotional wellbeing of a college-educated left-wing rapist is such that I don't care about the discomfort it causes these other people. I would be in effect putting him first. Frankly, there is real distress caused when your friends are good friends with people who hate your lifestyle/believe you're going to hell/ have seriously injured you/etc. That's part of where the choice comes in. My friends aren't just my friends in a vacuum; they're part of my community.
Additionally--and I won't illustrate here--I've seen very good results when people with crap beliefs and practices get frozen out. That's how communities set norms, and good people have to set good norms in their communities. The norm in my community, for example, is that you simply are not entitled to tell people that they're going to hell for their sexual practices. If you do that, you won't get invited to parties, and slowly, inexorably you'll be shunned.
I don't think arguement changes people's minds, actually. Time, reflection and consequences do, but actual debate only rarely.
liberals are being asked to reach out to the right, not to the left
Not all anti-gay Christians are politically right wing. There are the black pentecostal congregations, for example, which, though slightly more republican than other African Americans, are still overwhelmingly Democrats. And even among white evangelicals you have 20% or so who were Kerry voters, which translates into millions of individuals.
My point is that it is defeatist and ultimately counterproductive to assume that no good can come of an evangelical confronting his conflicting feelings about homosexuality.
the thing that will be obvious to our children
Eating meat all the time and living on debt.
119: only "sort of"
Yes. There are people who are willing to take a step back from the "revealed word," place it in a historical context and adjust their own beliefs so that they better align with the world around them. I can see how that earns them criticism from both sides but I'm much more willing to respect them for having beliefs that evolve can be adjusted in light of new evidence and a willingness to live an intellectual and socially conscious faith than I am for sticking blindly to doctrine. I can also see how that's viewed as only being "sort of" true to the organization to which they belong but I think it's far more valuable to themselves and to society that they be true to their first-hand experience. It's those people - not me and my Godless liberalism and that's why I'll waste no breath praising half-hearted "struggles" that consist of little more than justifications for continued bigotry - who will bring those faiths in line with the rest of society and make them relevant again if it's ever going to happen. Members of those religions are going to have to live those ideals and not let anyone else in their faith speak bigotedly on their behalf if they want to make that happen. As such, by speaking positively of buttfucking with your co-workers you are, in some small but real way - and I am completely serious - encouraging that religion to become a better place for its members and a better actor in the world.
The norm in my community, for example, is that you simply are not entitled to tell people that they're going to hell for their sexual practices. If you do that, you won't get invited to parties, and slowly, inexorably you'll be shunned.
The trouble is that your community is exceptional in that regard. In most parts of the country, the tolerant position is at best a bare majority, if not minority of the population. Hence the need for outreach and dialogue. If you were a liberal on race in the south in 1963, you were in the same position: to refuse to truck with bigots would mean an unrealistic monastic purity. A generation later, you can put racists in that box, because the only racists left are bitter-enders. We're far from that point with tolerance of gays.
Once you believe that homosexuality isn't merely icky, but a sin that someone must be converted from, you're part of a social movement. Those aren't the kind of people we can reach.
Again, false. I once was lost and now am found, my friend, was blind but now I see. You wouldn't have reached me by lecturing me about how bigoted I was, though. That I'll grant. Basically cool, totally normal people being openly, boringly gay in my presence helped. And ultimately I had to want to stop drinking the kool-aid in order to sober up.
146: Something like 80-90% of black churchgoers are voting Democratic anyway. We don't have to reach out to them. We're clearly talking about white evangelicals here. Do you really mean to tell me that liberals should be reaching out to people who listen to Focus on the Family every day?
Depends on the denomination. Some may even wear little images of heebie ass on chains around their neck.
This same denomination may develop a cult of veneration of Jammies, the most highly favored husband of Heebie, who (as the Gospel according to ogged proclaims) looked upon the ass of Heebie.
150: Yeah, and so was I, but I didn't stop being a right-wing nut because some kind-hearted squishy moderate liberal "reached out" to me. I met non-Christian friends, and I went to college. The left didn't convert me at the height of my Jesus binge, and it couldn't have if it wanted to. It got me once I'd fallen off the wagon. Missionaries don't look to convert devout worshipers, they look for agnostics.
Do you really mean to tell me that liberals should be reaching out to people who listen to Focus on the Family every day?
I'm not strategizing about how to elect Democrats . That's the other thread. I'm talking about whether a decent respect for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters requires us to limit dialogue with Christians to cold civility, as has been suggested above. My argument is that, as long as there are flies that can be caught with honey, leave the vinegar out of it.
149: But the issue is that people change because they, er, really want to change. Hard-core Focus On The Family types aren't the issue here.
This is a real issue to me. At the bookstore where I volunteer, there's this homophobic prat from Iowa who makes these unbelievable "oooh, I'm too HIP to be actually homophobic" gay jokes. He makes like he's being ironic, but really, if you're constantly making "ironic" gay jokes (and he's very straight indeed) there's something else going on.
The "culture" at our stupid goddamn collective is that hipster irony trumps all. He's not getting frozen out. He's getting giggles from everyone except a handful of people. He has no incentive to change. Honestly, I'm the one who's changed, in that I don't go to meetings anymore because I can't stand him.
If everyone in the collective stood firm and said "don't be an annoying ironic hipster jerk", he'd change. He'd learn. But now he has no incentive at all.
by speaking positively of buttfucking with your co-workers
Buttfucking co-workers is discouraged at my place of employment.
The left didn't convert me at the height of my Jesus binge, and it couldn't have if it wanted to. It got me once I'd fallen off the wagon.
Stras has the zeal of the converted, only in reverse!
I didn't stop being a right-wing nut because some kind-hearted squishy moderate liberal "reached out" to me.
No, not that exactly, I agree. But it made a huge impression on me when the GLBT group on campus invited the Christian group on campus to help with the activities for AIDS Awareness week -- I was truly touched by the openness and tolerance shown. The Christian group responded extremely badly, which also made a huge impression on me. And it helped still more that the leadership of Christian group was pushing a message of "Oh shut the fuck up and do as you're told like a good woman would." The fact, though, that the GLBT group was clearly communicating "Hey, we're not writing you off, you silly little bigot," made a good bit of difference.
156: You're working for the wrong church, my friend.
if you're constantly making "ironic" gay jokes (and he's very straight indeed) there's something else going on.
And yet you're still here.
My argument is that, as long as there are flies that can be caught with honey, leave the vinegar out of it.
But there are no flies to be caught here. Look, what is even to be gained at all by "reaching out" to right-wing social conservatives? I don't even know what "reaching out" means in this context, since you seem to have ruled out electoral politics. Is this just sitting around a coffee table with James Dobson and Gary Bauer and showing that we're all pleasantly bipartisan enough to eat our cookies while engaging in small talk?
Appearing to respect the bigoted opinions of bigoted people is patently offensive, and it doesn't accomplish anything but alienate the people they're bigoted towards. If we were talking about a bunch of racists instead of a bunch of homophobes, and some people were saying "no, come on, the racists still agree with us on a couple issues, and it's not like they all want to bring back Jim Crow, let's reach out to them," most people would find that pretty disgusting.
160: you don't come here for the ironic hipster jokes, do you?
There are a fair number of socially conservative Democrats -- especially Catholic New Deal types. They're the anti-Libertarians, socially conservative and economically liberal. (Though they're not as authoritarian or militaristic as the WWIII Pinochet libertarians we have now).
161: Maybe this is a bit like the class discussion, where we really need more precise definitions.
Surely there is a way to be stragetically open so that people who are looking for support in changing their beliefs will be able to do so.
That's not the same as being really matey with people, or having infinite patience when someone's trotting out offensive beliefs.
But it might be useful to figure out just where the line is.
158: But iirc, you were raised Catholic and were an Evangelical in college because you were already something of a seeker. So you were "in play" almost by definition. This is relevant to your point about fundies not being monolithic: even a small group of them will have different backgrounds and motives as a rule.
I'm talking about whether a decent respect for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters requires us to limit dialogue with Christians to cold civility
A) There's nothing "cold" about civility. B) While I don't think that heterosexuals should feel that they must "limit their dialogue with Christians" in any fashion, asking non-heterosexuals to engage with people who think they are going to hell on a deeper level than civility is supererogatory.
On the person-to-person, everyday life level, that is. Obviously, if we're talking about organizing and political action, different styles of communication are desirable. That's called diplomacy.
I don't even know what "reaching out" means in this context, since you seem to have ruled out electoral politics.
"Reaching out" was your phrase, not mine. I was responding to those who thought the e-mail writer was an irredeemable tool and that the two should break off their friendship. I am taking the optimistic line that a guy who will go as far as to wrestle with conflicting beliefs may one day go further an resolve the conflict in the direction of tolerance.
Somehow this got interpreted at "liberals should troll for votes among right-wingers" or "liberal should flatter fundamentalists with obsequious displays of open-mindedness".
If we were talking about a bunch of racists instead of a bunch of homophobes, and some people were saying "no, come on, the racists still agree with us on a couple issues, and it's not like they all want to bring back Jim Crow, let's reach out to them," most people would find that pretty disgusting.
For the umteenth time, there will come a time when we can shun homophobes the same as we do racists today. That time will come when the homophobes are reduced to the iredeemable bitter-enders, which is manifestly not the case today.
Okay, 158 is a good example of an organization-level, PR move that could be called "reaching out" that's perfectly smart and that I could totally endorse. What bothers me is vague calls for some sort of dialogue between left and right that isn't going to have any readily apparent productive end.
"Pinochet libertarians" is good.
What annoys about the letter is that idea that strongly held moral or religious beliefs are worthy of deference & respect regardless of their content. If I think your strong religious beliefs are actually wrong, & immoral, then no, they're not going to impress me much.
There was some of this after Paul Wellstone died--the idea that if we respected Wellstone as a politician of conviction, we should equally respect Jesse Helms as one. Sorry, no; content matters.
OTOH, I don't think there's anything wrong with arguing to someone why you think that a particularly teaching of their religion is immoral, rather than simply not speaking to them or calling them a bigot. Whether there's any chance of such an argument succeeding, just depends.
I am taking the optimistic line that a guy who will go as far as to wrestle with conflicting beliefs may one day go further an resolve the conflict in the direction of tolerance.
This is loopy, mostly for reasons I bitched about above. The letter-writer isn't writing about his gay friend at all; he's writing about himself and about how his beliefs are being wrongly portrayed as "bigotry" by the evil, evil media.
For the umteenth time, there will come a time when we can shun homophobes the same as we do racists today.
And unless we start shunning them now, the day when everyone shuns them is never going to come.
As such, by speaking positively of buttfucking with your co-workers
Robusto! What's even more perfect is that I was illustrating with your speedbump/roadblock analogy.
Also, in the cafeteria, overheard the same day: "That Jesus Camp movie was terrifying."
169 reminds me of what Susan Sontag said in that infamous New Yorker 9/11 piece about courage being a neutral virtue. Holding beliefs strongly and sincerely -- even more so.
86: Oh, that was just a lame joke about the inability to find anyone holding *all* of your five-six core beliefs being a structural, not practical problem. It probably wasn't worth the typing.
Pace stras, it is occasionally known to happen that evangelicals peel away from the fold when they realize that their belief system enjoins them to shun basic parts of the identity of friends and family. (Usually some additional push helps, like realizing the local pastor's teachings about God make no sense or that the leadership of the movement is a bunch of morally bankrupt frauds.) This is very much the story of many ex-evangelicals later to be found on the left.
This is very much the story of many ex-evangelicals later to be found on the left.
Including me. See 61.
Who we seem to have a lot of around here.
Unfogged is the new religion. Or cult.
Who we seem to have a lot of around here.
I tend to take this as a default (my own projection, of course); I'm always surprised by people who had liberal religious or even irreligious upbringings.
When does the spaceship arrive to take us away to Alpha Oggedauri?
Unfogged is the new religion. Or cult.
Centered around the worship of Heebie's ass.
Stras has the zeal of the converted, only in reverse!
Dammit. Pretend that I strikethroughed 182 in reverse. Or just pretend I didn't post it.
I don't see the problem with saying that I've got limited time and I'm not going to spend it `reaching out' where I feel there is little to be gained.
Doesn't mean I hate someone for their beliefs, or that I don't think they are reachable. Just means I'm probably not going to try and reach them. I'll be perfectly civil, and I'm not going to pre-judge them. On the other hand, anyone who comes up with homophobic (or racist or whatever) bullshit in my social circles I hope is going to get called on it. If they persist, I'm perfectly happy to tear them apart in front of everyone; not because I think it will change their minds, but because I think it's important for everyone else there to understand that this is not ok. It might very well do someone else good, even if it doesn't make any difference to the individual. I mostly manage to keep myself to this, even in social situations where I'm definitely in the minority and it makes things uncomfortable, but I understand when it can be hard sometimes.
184: At why Knecht's optimistic line should seem so loopy.
I'm not exhorting any of you to do any reaching out.
I merely objected to the hasty conclusion that no good could come of the situation portrayed by Sullivan. I am decidedly glass half full on this, because I have seen exactly this tension among members of my own extended family, and I have seen the tension resolve to the abandonment of dogma and the embrace of tolerance. This doesn't happen every time, but when it does, it's a one-way ratchet.
The poor evangelical Christian gets no fucking sympathy from me until he starts talking about how hard it is for him to deal with his shrimp-eating friends.
Shrimp (and other prohibited foods) got a specific exemption in Acts 10:9-15.
You know, it would be much more socially valuable and progressive to work with this guy's desire to genuinely love other human beings than to work against his disapproval of homosexuality. Loving others is a much more radical and far-left principle than homophilia, or whatever the opposite of homosexuality is.
Also, I get uncomfortable when I hear people talk about other peoples' thought patterns or ideologies as fundamentally immoral. I think that's a level of judgementalism that clashes with the principle of freedom of thought. I think we should reserve immorality for actions. (I'm basically agreeing with LB in 59 here, I think).
So, I don't think it's immoral for this guy to disapprove of homosexuality. The question is when one of his actions -- such as speaking up about his disapproval -- becomes immoral. Since I also believe in freedom of speech, I'd also hold a very high bar for calling his attempts to communicate his beliefs "immoral" (as opposed to, say, impolite or classless). But there are definitely forms of communication -- inciting other people to commit injustice, for example -- that are immoral.
whoops -- should have been "homophilia, or whatever the opposite of homophobia is".
My typo rate has been increasing.
186: In the specific case of the letter-writer it seems loopy. People in these situations tend to react either by questioning their beliefs ("Joe is gay, so maybe being gay isn't so bad") or by reaffirming them ("Man, it sucks that Joe's going to hell"). The letter-writer isn't really trying to understand why his friend is gay, or reexamining his beliefs about why being gay is wrong. He's planning on lecturing his friend about how he thinks homosexuality is immoral ("I will also have to tell him what my religious beliefs dictate concerning homosexual behavior"). His greatest preoccupation is the media, which has irresponsibly "defined our truth as hate." This isn't someone who's opening up, it's someone who wants to hold onto his bigoted view of the world without having to admit he's a bigot. And so he's written into Andrew Sullivan, that grand squishy mediator of muddled faith and politics, to absolve him of his bigotry.
You know, it would be much more socially valuable and progressive to work with this guy's desire to genuinely love other human beings than to work against his disapproval of homosexuality.
And what evidence do we have of his "desire to genuinely love other human beings"? And once again, please talk specifics. Since we're not actually talking about forming The Coalition of Unfogged Commenters Plus That One Homophove Who Wrote Into Andrew Sullivan The Other Day, I'm assuming you're actually talking about working with conservative evangelical Christians to do... what?
I think that's a level of judgementalism that clashes with the principle of freedom of thought.
That seems somewhat empty. Surely there are paths of thought that we've explored fully enough to believe that people still following them are (a) likely to be doing so for bad reasons, or (b) likely to do bad things as a result, whatever their intentions.
I suppose I don't understand what's important about this: "So, I don't think it's immoral for this guy to disapprove of homosexuality." What's the end effect of deciding that (a) he's wrong and his beliefs may well have bad effects, and should be combated, but (b) he's not immoral?
192: the argument is that disapproval >> judgementalism >> negates the openness required for genuine love. Which for this guy, may be the case. But is it the case all the time? We have no problem with the notion that it is possible to be disapproving and loving when a behavior is harmful. Say homosexuality is not harmful. Sometimes drug use isn't harmful either. Would you say that someone could not love another and at the same time disapprove of their (non-harmful) drug use? Or is it just that homosexuality is so constitutive of what the other person is that you can't disapprove of it and love them at the same time?
194: calling something immoral would seem to make it a moral duty for you to eliminate it (the immoral thing). I think that slides all too easily into control of speech or thought. Even if we say, oh, there will be an exception for immoral thoughts.
And what evidence do we have of his "desire to genuinely love other human beings"?
He has a desire to be Christian, and Christ certainly talked a lot about love. Maybe he doesn't *genuinely* desire to have Christ-like love, but he says he does, so work with that.
I'm assuming you're actually talking about working with conservative evangelical Christians to do... what?
I'm too lazy to work with anybody. I'm just talking about how to communicate with and think about other people we share the society with.
calling something immoral would seem to make it a moral duty for you to eliminate it (the immoral thing).
We may just have radically different understandings of either "immoral" or what's required as a response to immorality. At a minimum, we could use "immoral" in both cases and say only action can be restricted; I think that's the standard argument.
OT: Bush is right now taking an aerial tour of the very much ongoing San Diego wildfires, which has forced a stop to all aerial firefighting work while he's in the air (and probably until AF1 leaves). The readers of the SD Union Trib's fire blog are not amused (although some of them think liberals are worse than fires).
He has a desire to be Christian, and Christ certainly talked a lot about love.
George Bush talks a lot about freedom, too. Sometimes words don't mean shit.
I'm too lazy to work with anybody. I'm just talking about how to communicate with and think about other people we share the society with.
So you're proposing, what... a Grand Tea Party of Bipartisan Coziness with our chums down at the Family Research Council?
I think that even writing to Sullivan about this shows a promising degree of confusion; my guess, though, is that if the writer ever does come to full acceptance, it won't be anything we might do: it will be that some dickhead in his church says something vile about gays and he suddenly thinks "But that's my friend you're talking about".
It's much more obvious when someone else says something unacceptable that you yourself half-believe that it is in fact unacceptable.
Obviously, anyone who can suppose that the Bible is inerrant has an awful lot of unexamined beliefs.
I usually disagree with whatever strasmangelo jones says, because he usually phrases it in the form of a contemptuous attack on someone else, but 193 is actually right. This letter-writer specifically says that he feels bound to "imitate Christ's example" not just to love, but to "bring division and pit brother against brother". I have no idea how he feels that this could be in any way compatible with staying friends with any homosexual whatsoever, or "loving" any homosexual as he would "love" someone who wasn't a sinner destined for hellfire.
So, he is actually principled in insisting that Christ wants him to be the enemy of some people, despite those people's seemingly not deserving this treatment. An interesting point of view. Most people ignore that except when it's convenient.
197: a totally valid point! I think I was musing on some other issues raised upthread and it wasn't so relevant to your post.
we could use "immoral" in both cases and say only action can be restricted; I think that's the standard argument.
you really don't think that things slide very easily from harshly moralistic condemnation of a particular point of view to equally harsh condemnation of anyone who gives the slightest evidence of holding that point of view? It can stifle speech and thought. I suppose this is the "PC" point in a way, but I'm trying to keep it free of the noxious conservative way it was used originally...now of course conservatives are pulling exactly the same moves in their attempts to control speech.
So you're proposing, what... a Grand Tea Party of Bipartisan Coziness with our chums down at the Family Research Council?
oh come on, Stras.
Love is the most radical political position there is. Dennis Kucinich agrees with me on this.
200: Here's an inspiring comment:
"Bush go home. San Diego has shown through our volunteers, donations, and neighbors helping each other that we can take care of ourselves. The federal government is way too slow and ineffective. We dont need your moldy FEMA trailers."
Wow, Bush has really succeeded in eliminating people's hope that government can help them. Bush = Government = Incompetent. It's already been a couple years since the Republican magazines announced that Bush is unpopular because unlike other Republicans, he is a big-government liberal. He really took one for the team to support the larger movement.
It can stifle speech and thought.
Sure, sometimes. That's called "winning."
San Diego has shown through our volunteers, donations, and neighbors helping each other that we can take care of ourselves are a lot richer than New Orleans
207: OK, so you don't believe that freedom of thought or expression is very important as an end in itself. That's a consistent position. I'm just saying that I do.
OT: A friend recently acknowledged to me that she had an alcohol problem years ago that was serious enough to require treatment. Recently, she announced that she thought that she had conquered the factors that sent her out of control before and thought it would be okay to have a beer. I talked her down, but then she went home and had a beer with another friend instead. She took that as evidence that she could now handle it. She's mentioned having a few here and there since. This week, she's missed work twice with migraines, which she tells me she has long had. Am I being paranoid to be fearing the worst?
This week, she's missed work twice with migraines, which she tells me she has long had. Am I being paranoid to be fearing the worst?
No.
210: Sadly, that's not paranoid, it's the mostly likely outcome.
so you don't believe that freedom of thought or expression is very important as an end in itself
1. I don't think "freedom of thought or expression" means anything very specific. At a minimum, I personally don't understand whatever mechanisms are at work sufficiently well to do more than have a rough association between the phrase and a certain collection of behaviors.
2. No one's suggesting physical constraints on thought or govt. sanction of expression. Whatever "freedom of thought and expression" means, it doesn't seem to necessarily imply that we should withhold moral judgment of those thoughts or expressions.
Any suggestions on what one does to "reach out"? (She's neither gay nor a fundamentalist. Not even a gay fundamentalist.)
All this talk of "reaching out" is misguided. We should speak only of "reaching around."
145: No, not directed at you, just a general apostrophe.
I had assumed we weren't talking about party politics, but about the letter writer, and like Knecht, I think where the letter writer ends up is up in the air. The writer's been fed a lot of lines about the media and society and gays and an absolute line of bullshit that equates Christianity with war, humping the leg of the Republican party, homophobia, and being anti-abortion except when its their kids. He might overcome it.
The left should not really court the Dobson crowd because it won't work and who wants those nuts in the party anyway.
just a general apostrophe
Cala's trying to usurp my position.
When were you promoted to General Apostrophe?
215, of course, was posted before the term came up with response to dealing with an alcoholic friend. This person probably does not need a hand job.
"the cost of abandoning my principles is incalculable": read as "the psychological cost", this makes a lot of sense, and engenders sympathy at most for the person's pain, but not for his position.
Any suggestions on what one does to "reach out"?
In my experience, there's not much you can do and any effort you make will be greatly resented.
This person probably does not need a hand job.
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."
Are you really going to deny the son of God a hand job?
I always thought of the calabat as being shaped more generally like a baseball bat. I'm pretty fixated on the phallic imagery, though.
In my experience, there's not much you can do and any effort you make will be greatly resented.
Agreed. Obviously, this depends on how close you are to the person, but I might be inclined to call the treatment facility for recommendations on how to handle it.
They cannot give you any information about them, but you can give the person's number to the counselor and the counselor can always give general recommendations on how to handle people who are slipping.
(Spending time with the person is sometimes the only thing to do)
221: This is why secular liberals need to learn our scripture. Because you can sit there and tell me to wank Jesus, and I can't think of a damn thing to rebut that. I'll get the holy anointing lube.
222: Fairly new friend, so tough to gauge the closeness. She's confided quite a bit lately, so I guess at least reasonably close.
Not close enough to have any idea what treatment facility was involved.
thus drops the presidential veil. Someone should probably edit that.
Then, I would call a substance abuse professional and ask what to do.
Otherwise, I would suggest spending time with her.
Yeah, an edit would be appreciated.
People with substance abuse issues regularly slip. The question is how far down they fall.
Be there to show her that you care. You are trying to help her not fall very far.
226: The only possibly helpful thing I can think of is that if she told you about the alcohol problem at right around the same time she told you she was thinking of starting drinking again, she may actually want you to noodge some -- she sounds like she's setting you up to make you worry about her. (That sounds negative, I mean something more in the 'cry for help' area.)
Maybe asking about the migranes -- do they happen more when she's under stress? Is there stuff going on in her life that's making her stressed? Is there anything you can do to help? -- just to project that you're listening and interested and willing to help if she needs anything? And then if she brings up the drinking, you can talk about how most people who successfully quit a substance abuse problem have at least some relapses, it's totally to be expected (I think this is true, but I'd probably say it even if it weren't) and the only thing to do is whatever worked for her last time, and pick herself up and start the process again.
But this only works if she really is looking for help from you, which she sounds like she might be, but it's certainly not clear that she is.
231: slipping with denial is a pretty good sign the fall is likely to be a nasty one. Slipping with overwhelming remorse the next day is a good sign.
There's really no chance it's just migraines, I suppose? I fear the possibility of leaping to the wrong conclusion and pissing her off by saying something.
Of course there's a chance it's just migraines. Everyone's playing the odds here, but nothing's certain.
In my experience, there's not much you can do and any effort you make will be greatly resented.
Also my experience. And I have a fair bit of experience with people very close to me (family members, that is).
If you call a treatment facility, they will probably advise you to intervene, or even to "stage" an "intervention." I strongly recommend that you not even think about doing this.
Since this friend has already had treatment for alcohol abuse, she obviously knows how to get herself to a treatment facility. It's up to her to do that, if and when she decides that this is what she wants to do.
LB -- can you redact 227. Not sure this needs to be presidential, but I'd prefer if it were.
Oh, whoops, I'm right on it. I read 227 as a question to Ford, not a slippage of the veil, and thought 228 was referring to something someone else had already fixed.
234: It's really pretty likely that it's not migraines --- but no harm in playing along like LB suggests. If you show concern, it's an opening for this friend. It doesn't sound like you know this person well enough to really push (or know the groundwork)
Oh, and LB: did you see the problem with 227/228? Could you edit it?
Presidential anonymity restored.
secular liberals need to learn our scripture
You really won't believe how useful it is to be able to quote the Bible off the top of your head. I re-read it every few years just to keep that ability well-honed.
whups, and crosspost. I should have been more clear, anyway.
My only experience with anything like this is with a friend who had problems with depression, and to make a long story short, getting her the help she needed was not only exhausting, but it ended the friendship.
So, my sympathies. A good start might be, if you're inclined to help, is to try to hang out with her more; grab coffee, dinner, something that gives her the opportunity to open up if she needs it. But remember that you're not the therapist, at most just the means to getting to a therapist and that come-to-jesus salvation moments only happen on very special episodes of lame sitcoms.
And someone else beat me to it.
241: alternatively, you can make shit up out of the more obscure parts. Only 1 in 10 will catch you at it, I'd guess. Good skill to pick out the one.
226- I think Apo is right. My suggestion is just to be her friend without judgment. If she believes you care about her regardless of her illness, maybe she'll ask for help. Then it is critical to suggest professional help on her own. You can't fix it.
You really won't believe how useful it is to be able to quote the Bible off the top of your head. I re-read it every few years just to keep that ability well-honed.
Or if one prefers one-upmanship, just to cite verses.
"Well, I think Luke 16:6 more or less covers it."
If you call a treatment facility, they will probably advise you to intervene, or even to "stage" an "intervention." I strongly recommend that you not even think about doing this.
Why is that?
I mean, I could in theory think of a number of reasons, but I'm curious about yours.
You mean for lubing the sinner, Ned?
Exactly. Psalms 92:10 is even more apropos.
248: In my case, the friend for whom we staged the intervention described it as 'I felt raped.' I am glad we did it; it got her help and blahblahhappily ever after, but it was very, very hard on me, such that I think I could only summon up the energy if I were actually related (and therefore stuck with) to the person.
250: That sounds a bit like half measures.
alternatively, you can make shit up out of the more obscure parts.
True, but you need to know a fair bit of the text to get the tone and style right. Same as faking Shakespeare or anything else.
Your best bet is to memorize a small number of passages with vague meaning, and just confidently cite one of them as if it were germane to the issue at hand.
254: Oh definitely, you'd need to read it anyway. But that's worth doing if for no other reason that understanding all the literary references you run into. Just pick a decently lyrical translation and it's a good read, too, at least in parts.
it was very, very hard on me, such that I think I could only summon up the energy if I were actually related (and therefore stuck with) to the person.
That's a big part of it. Now just think of what it would have done to you if it didn't work.
Thanks, everyone. It would suck to kill a friendship, but it would suck worse to watch a friend self destruct.
"Ouch, honey, you need to use more lube when you do that."
"But the Bible says to cut back."
I once told my sister to kick ass on a theology exam 'Balaam-style' and she laughed so hard she remembered why she puts up with her evil liberal big sis.
And so he's written into Andrew Sullivan, that grand squishy mediator of muddled faith and politics, to absolve him of his bigotry.
I'm riding Stras' wavelength today. This guy writing to a public gay figure is sinister. Looking for validation and he wins no matter what. Either Sullivan sympathizes with him and his bigotry is accepted. Or Sullivan calls him a bigot and is worthy of contempt.
Balaam-style
How goodly are your bats, o Cala.
261: Can't he be both being a shithead in writing that letter, and yet be showing signs of being the kind of shithead that has some hope of getting better? I want to be on everyone's side of this one -- yes, there's no reason to associate with bigots if it makes you unhappy; yes, shunning bigots is a positive force for good; yes, this guy sounds like a bigot; but, within the bigoted framework he's working in, he doesn't sound gratuitously mean; but, all sorts of people are bigots like that and get better upon sufficient exposure to people behaving reasonably; but, being meaner than necessary to him and his ilk may decrease the chance they'll get better. The answer probably comes down to shun, but don't be unnecessarily abusive about it, or something.
What, you don't think Sullivan gets letters like these all the time? Or at least a hell of a lot more frequently than he publishes them? And that most of the time he ignores them, and maybe some of the time he writes back a brief reply saying "Gay people exist. Deal with it, asshole."
And shunning works great against people who want your attention; friends or members of your co-op or (especially) your students. Against people who can respond with "enh, fuck you, and not only that, but why don't we have a vote about whether gay marriage should be illegal, and see how that works out", it's at best ineffective. At creating social change, of course. It's great at making yourself feel better.
261- That's reasonable. Give a person the benefit of the doubt and if they're still just a bigot, nothing lost. But what about his writing a public gay guy? Why not someone who's not Christian and not openly gay. Or someone who knows him well?
Oh, I think you're dead right that he's gaming Sullivan, exactly as you describe. But just because the letter's a set-up -- any response is a win for him -- doesn't mean that he's unreachable. I don't know how you reach someone like that, but a fair number of them do seem to recover on their own.
I don't know how you reach someone like that,
I prefer a 6 iron.
It is slightly misleading to say that the bigot in question is a bigot rather than that he has become a bigot: he was not born that way. The man goes to church every sunday and once or twice a month he will hear precisely how homosexuality constitutes an abomination. This exposition is presented as a matter of faith, ultimately not susceptible to argument. That Evangelicals resort to a good deal of biblical cherry-picking to market their product is not the bigot's fault. The ability to compose the email in question, in good faith or otherwise, shows a capacity for moral reasoning that might land him in a better church, if there were one. Unless he wants to don his overshield and join the Unitarians, he may be out of luck.
I will also have to tell him what my religious beliefs dictate concerning homosexual behavior. To stay silent would be to live as morally compromised a lie as those who choose not to come out of the closet.
This is SO true. Not telling people that they are morally wrong when they haven't fucking asked is EXACTLY like hiding the most important relationship(s) in your life, listening to strangers talk about how disgusting you are without protest, and lying to your friends about what you're doing after work, why you don't want them to set you up on dates, and knowing that these same so-called friends think that your life is an abomination.
The homphobe's dilemma here is one that I've run across in my own life in this form: My parents are serious-minded Catholics, and our relationship is open enough that they know that I'm a comitted atheist.
Now if I thought their beliefs condemned them to the Lake Of Fire for eternity, I'd be pretty upset about it, and generally pretty nasty to them. They, however, are very nice to me. I have never asked them how they are able to do this, but I wonder.
are you sure they think you're consigned to the lake of fire? As best I could tell, my seriously Catholic grandmother seemed to think that there were better than even odds that she could talk the Virgin Mary into saving her godless descendants.
In re. "but it would be hard not to condemn my friend the drug addict" thing:
If your friend uses drugs, it's *none of your damn business* to tut-tut at them and tell them you think drug use is Morally Wrong.
If their drug use is *affecting their life* in obvious and fucked-up ways, then what you're concerned about is the way they're having obvious and fucked up problems, and that's what you talk about. And yes, sure, you mention, look, your drug use has become a problem, dude. Similarly, if your gay friend is, oh, say, cruising public restrooms and getting arrested, then what you're concerned about is the way they're having obvious and fucked up problems, and that's what you talk about. And yes, sure, you mention, look, your cruising public restrooms has become a problem, dude.
But if they're smoking pot on the weekends or enjoying the occasional recreational drug use and it's not an actual, you know, problem? Then your moral disapproval is your issue, and no, you're not required to fuss at them about it.
Not anymore Katherine- no more purgatory for your soul to repose in while Grandma does her pleading to the Holy Mother of God. Straight to hellfire for you!
273 omits the fact that it is always good to do your friend a favor by informing him of how he can avoid going to hell. An ETERNAL favor, with ETERNAL consequences.
They haven't gotten rid of purgatory, have they? Limbo, I knew was gone, but purgatory too?
I live in Red America and as a consequence know a depressing number of homophobic bigots.
This guy is Type 3-C, the emo bigot. He's just so tormented about the fact someone he knows is gay! He lies awake at night, troubled in his heart about how, if only he could testify in the right way, his friend would stop being gay. But his friend will reject him for being faithful to God and testifying if he says something about it! What to do?
And he loves it. People who have this sort of 'moral crisis' smack their lips over how good and pure and righteous they are to care about such a henious sinner.
In a way it's more disgusting than open hatred.
I think they outsourced the demolition of purgatory to one of those war-profiteering firms, with the result that it never happened and the money that was supposed to pay for the job all disappeared.
274: That's so sad about Katherine. She was a nice person, but, you know, damned. Down in the hell of fire. A real pity.
conversation between this guy and his gay friend that happens a few years from now
bigot friend: so... I've been wanting to talk to you about something for a while now
homo friend: yeah?
bigot friend: well, you know how when you came out of the closet I never said anything, and I was trying to be supportive in that difficult time for you?
homo friend: you mean when you ignored me for 6 months?
bigot friend: hmmm, yes, well, your choices were making were difficult for me. I tried. Anyway, there's something that's really been bothering me.
homo friend: I bet.
bigot friend: I mean it's really been bothering me. This whole time.
homo friend: ok.
bigot friend: well, you, ah, have sex with men now, right?
homo friend: I don't want to hear what you think the bible says about it.
bigot friend: no, no, not that.
homo friend: ok.
bigot friend: ok.
...
bigot friend: so, ah, well, do you?
homo friend: do I what?
bigot friend: have sex with men?
homo friend: what do you think I meant by `I'm gay'
bigot friend: so...
homo friend: ... yes?
bigot friend: what's it like?
Addendum to 273, now that I've seen 210:
And yes, obviously if you have a friend who has spoken to you about their problems with substance abuse, and you know they have tried whatever-it-is again, and they're acting unusual, it is perfectly okay to call and say, look, I'm worried about you, is everything okay? Just like if your bathroom-cruising gay friend, who has stopped cruising bathrooms, tells you he was hanging out at the MSP airport the other day and picked up a guy, and suddenly he keeps having to go "meet friends at the airport," it's perfectly okay to call and say, dude, what's going on?
272: When I am talking to my more playful Catholic friends, I try to make the case that I am still a good Catholic, because Catholic teaching allows for personal conscience and my actions are in accord with my conscience.
I remember trying this line out on a good Catholic friend of mine and remarking, "When my time of judgment comes, all I really need is a good Jesuit lawyer." My friend was not amused, though.
As to your actual question, once every decade or two, my parents pull something nasty, like the time they refused to attend the Unitarian "naming ceremony" (baptism substitute) for my sister's kids. My parents weren't, my mom said, going to be part of a "pagan ritual."
(My brother-in-law, in relating this story to me, remarked that the week before the naming ceremony, the church had Wiccan visitors who explained their beliefs. So when my mother complained about the pagan ritual, Russ told me he wanted to say, "No, that was last week.")
Anyway, my relationship with my parents is open enough that I chose to register my disapproval with my mother. Here's the ironic epilogue: Some months later, the Unitarian church burned to the ground, and the Unitarians arranged to hold their services in the nearby Catholic Church. My mother acknowledged that there was a lesson for her in this.
276: Wait, what? When did they get rid of limbo? (Also, I thought limbo and purgatory were the same thing. God, the Catholicism really never took... )
It was in the last year or two. But limbo and purgatory were always different: purgatory was for the sinful but redeemable baptized, and limbo was for the innocent unbaptized -- babies and pagans and such
277: Exactly. The letter is entirely about himself and his struggle. Fuck his struggle. If he's worried about his gay friend, and the person he's writing to is Andrew Sullivan, does that mean his gay friend is Andrew Sullivan? Is he Andrew Sullivan's last Republican friend so fucking clueless he didn't get that Andrew Sullivan is gay? If not, that letter's not really about his concerns for his friend; it's about preening in front of the mirror.
Purgatory is still Catholic doctrine. Limbo is sort of... in limbo, though the Church seems to be tacking toward it rather than away from it. What Catholics are aware of is a different story; I come from a pretty seriously Catholic clan myself (two aunts went to the convent straight out of high school, one is still there), and have never been assailed with threats of hellfire for being an atheist... but OTOH my mother once confided that she had secretly baptised me for fear that I would go to hell if she didn't.
They didn't just get rid of limbo? Huh. Let me look.
My friends used to go to a Unitarian Church in Cambridge right near a Catholic one. One Sunday the audio got screwed up somehow, such that a Catholic baptism was piped into the Unitarian Church right at the "Do you renounce Satan & all his works" part of the ceremony....much ensuing confusion.
I think it sums up Sullivan to say that he's the logical person to write to if you are a morally preening homophobe prick.
Hope yet for Katherine! http://www.iheu.org/node/1974
Limbus infantus gone- purgatory in Limbo
287: I think Benedict said something like, Catholics could hope that the unbaptized babies & virtuous pagans are just straight-up saved, but it wasn't definitive.
My Jewish in-laws may also be okay, but I think deliberately excommunicating myself puts me in worse shape.
This is that I was thinking of.
Gosh with all this talk of Roman Catholic Doctrine and gay buttsex you'd think this was the Vatican blog.
"Gettin' ecstatic, and
Kinda dramatic, and
Doin' the Vatican Blog!"
292: Meaning I have it backwards, the Church is tacking away from it rather than towards... but not necessarily in the direction of hellfire-for-the-unsaved. That's actually a surprisingly positive development.
Purgatory's still there, but Limbo was always in kind of a weird position in the first place. All the theology and philosophy said the babies had to go to heaven (problems for working out how salvation works) or to hell (intuitively fucked up) so Limbo's just kind of a philosophical shrug of the shoulders. Or an appendix.
My parents seem to be of the opinion that I'm not going to hell because they think either that I'll start going to church again or that really, the afterlife is more God's problem than theirs anyway and God's not going to send me to hell because God doesn't want to deal with my mother.
the Vatican blog
First you get down on your knees,
Say to Labs "oh if you please!"
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
No, this is too fish-in-a-barrely.
I do like reading some of the early church "philosophers". They know they have something, but they can't quite put their finger on it. Smart guys, wrestling with thorny problems. Not half of which is the way the power guys were actually using the church. Sort of like academics who go to bat for the Adminsitration. Yes, I'm looking at you, Dr. Rice.
Roman Catholic Doctrine and gay buttsex
Straight buttsex on the other hand is somehow less transgressive, a little lighter from a social perspective, and therefore strictly Episcopalian.
Episcopalians have sex? I mean, I knew they were very liberal about having whatever kind you wanted to, but not that they actually did.
wrestling with thorny problems
Bible here, pagan greeks there. Both right, but they disagree. What to do? Boethius is good. Also Tian tai Buddhists, who had a similar problem to confront.
288 is hilarious.
The Episcopal church takes a pretty sensible line on the unbaptised babies / virtuous pagans question, and the Roman Catholic church seems to have adopted something like it when they backed away from the (blatantly unscriptural) Limbo teaching. It basically says that we don't / can't understand all the mystery of salvation, but we know that God wants all humanity to be saved, and we can be confident that he will not arbitrarily withhold his saving grace because that would be his counter to the intentions he has shown the world through his gift of Jesus.
Episcopalians have sex? I mean, I knew they were very liberal about having whatever kind you wanted to, but not that they actually did.
See the first scene of The Meaning of Life for the definitive answer to this question as regards Anglicans. The U.S. offshoot seems to be similar, if we can judge by the declining number of parishioners.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is sacred
No, the part right before that (or is it right after?), where the Anglican is looking down his nose at superstitious Catholics with their prohibition of birth control. He snorts that they have a child every time they have sex. The ingenuous wife inquires whether it isn't the same thing for Anglicans, since the couple has had six three times and has three children.
I don't think I've had six even twice.
That's the one. Graham Chapman drones on about sexual devices allowed to Anglicans while Eric Idle (in drag) squirms delitedly.
I don't really have anything relevant to say about 210, but that it didn't sound off-topic at all to me.
296.1: As I remember that college class about the Divine Comedy, Limbo was actually a pretty nice place, it's only painful in that you're permanently separated from God. It's the Elysian Fields, but everyone mopes around all the time, because even nice weather gets boring eventually.
Also, I don't remember this from the class, but according to Wikipedia, it's also for "those who, if they lived before the coming of Christ, did not pay fitting homage to their respective deity." I thought that was interesting, because it implies that someone who did pay homage to Zeus or Vishnu or whoever could have made it into heaven, which I wasn't aware of.
I don't think I've had six even twice.
Me neither. At least, not on the same day.
I may have missed an earlier reference to this, but Fred Clark's writing a series at Slacktivist about how and why hating teh gay came to be so normative for American Christianity.
I also want to second the comments on the merits of knowing the Bible, and here's a case in point. Someone should tell the letter writer that yes, he should of course heed his conscience. But he should also test his conscience against the standard of Scripture. Has he confronted anyone lately for neglecting the poor and the stranger at the door? Has he himself set a good example in the matter of alms to those in need? What has he done lately to bring justice to those who put children (including Iraqi children) in peril, and who lead them astray? Has he been confronting any unjust judges or jailers lately, or done anything else to help those in prison and those in need of justice who are denied it because they're out of favor with those who make and enforce the laws?
This is all stuff Jesus himself spoke about directly, as the Bible presents it. There is no guesswork involved in saying that Jesus tells Christians that they must not tolerate such things, nor let those who do them escape without reproach. I would say to the letter writer, do what your Lord explicitly tells you to do, and then see how much confronting you need to do about teh gay. And I would remind him that Jesus said that come judgment day, there will be those who said "Lord, Lord" but will be denied the kingdom of heaven, and that there's plenty of gainful occupation for seekers of righteousness right where they are, usually.
62
"I think that horse is out of the barn. Fifteen, twenty years ago maybe, but even in small town America I'm pretty sure most people know at least some gay people."
As a data point, I don't know anybody who I know to be gay. In part this is because I am kind of antisocial but it also because even today there are plenty of social environments in which openly gay people are rare. Note people with different values may not interact much even if they live near other. For example I also don't know anybody who I know to be a fundamentalist.
312 - I mentioned it in 130, but people should click the link because Fred Clark is worth reading on this subject.