Gay Sex and the Law

Ok.  I know I’m naïve.*  I know I just started coming out six months ago, which, as I am want to say, might as well be 10 minutes ago.  So, I have to say that I was surprised when I recently read an article on a blog I follow about the status of sodomy laws in this great country of ours. (For those who don't know, sodomy does NOT just mean anal sex.  Read on.)   More to the point, I was surprised to learn that Utah still has a sodomy law on its books.

The blog linked to this story from Mother Jones, which featured the following map that color-coded each state as to the status of its sodomy laws.  

Now, before I go any further, I should perhaps illuminate just what is meant by “sodomy.”  Some might be under the impression that it connotes only anal sex.  Not so.  According to Utah’s Criminal Code, “a person commits sodomy when the actor engages in any sexual act with a person who is 14 years of age or older involving the genitals of one person and mouth or anus of another person, regardless of the sex of either participant” [Utah Code 76-5-403(1)].  And in case you’re wondering, under Utah law, the penalty for a Class B misdemeanor is up to six months in jail and/or a fine of up to $1000.

You may have noticed a few things about Utah’s definition of sodomy.  Like, for example, that it would include oral sex, whether performed on a man or a woman, by a man or a woman, as well as (oral or genital) anal sex.  Or that it does not contain any differentiations between heterosexual and homosexual partners.  Or that there is no “exemption” if the couple just happens to be married.  So, I wonder how many temple-recommend-holding men and women in Utah have committed a Class B misdemeanor in the past few months because they have engaged in oral sex (and how does this fit in with “obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law”)?  Just asking.

Having said that, you’ll note several things about the map.  You will notice that there are a lot of red states, many of which are actually “Blue” states.  In fact, there are 36 states in this great Union where sodomy is not illegal.  Then, there are four states that do have laws against sodomy, but only for gay people.  (In other words, the legislators have remembered to carve out an exemption for married couples to legally engage in oral or anal sex.) 

Then, there are the ten remaining states where sodomy is illegal, with no exceptions.  You might notice that, with the glaring exception of Michigan (what’s with that?), all of these states are either in the Bible Belt or the Mormon Belt.

Now, what’s interesting is that the United States Supreme Court, in its 2003 ruling in the case of Lawrence v Texas, struck down the sodomy law in Texas as unconstitutional, the majority of the court holding that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Lawrence has the effect of invalidating similar laws throughout the United States that purport to criminalize sodomy between consenting same-sex adults acting in private. It also invalidated the application of sodomy laws to heterosexual sex.

So, why is Utah’s law still on the books?  Well, there are no doubt some (perhaps some who read this blog) who could provide the scoop on the situation in Utah, but the Mother Jones piece pretty much sums it up: 

“Conservatives … know they can’t enforce the [sodomy] laws, but by keeping them in the code, they can send a message that homosexuality is officially condemned by the government.”

“Texas' state legislature has thus far refused to remove the law from the books—in large part because most Texas Republicans still support it. In 2010, the state GOP made defense of the anti-sodomy statute part of its platform, calling for the state to effectively ignore the law of the land: ‘We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.’

“But Texas isn't the only state that's still legislating bedroom activity. Fourteen states currently have laws on the books outlawing anal sex between two consenting, unrelated adults—referred to variously as "deviate sexual conduct," "the infamous crime against nature," "sodomy," and "buggery." And it's taken a concerted effort to keep those laws on the books. Since Lawrence, efforts to formally repeal laws in Montana, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, North Carolina, and, most notably, Texas have all faced resistance before fizzling out in their respective state legislatures.”

Gee, imagine something like that happening in the Utah Legislature?  Ya think?

* This post was originally published yesterday. It was suggested that I republish it under another title.

Sodomy: Committed any Misdemeanors Lately?

Ok.  I know I’m naïve.  I know I just started coming out six months ago, which, as I am want to say, might as well be 10 minutes ago.  So, I have to say that I was surprised when I recently read an article on a blog I follow about the status of sodomy laws in this great country of ours.  More to the point, I was surprised to learn that Utah still has a sodomy law on its books.

The blog linked to this story from Mother Jones, which featured the following map that color-coded each state as to the status of its sodomy laws.  

Now, before I go any further, I should perhaps illuminate just what is meant by “sodomy.”  Some might be under the impression that it connotes only anal sex.  Not so.  According to Utah’s Criminal Code, “a person commits sodomy when the actor engages in any sexual act with a person who is 14 years of age or older involving the genitals of one person and mouth or anus of another person, regardless of the sex of either participant” [Utah Code 76-5-403(1)].  And in case you’re wondering, under Utah law, the penalty for a Class B misdemeanor is up to six months in jail and/or a fine of up to $1000.

You may have noticed a few things about Utah’s definition of sodomy.  Like, for example, that it would include oral sex, whether performed on a man or a woman, by a man or a woman, as well as (oral or genital) anal sex.  Or that it does not contain any differentiations between heterosexual and homosexual partners.  Or that there is no “exemption” if the couple just happens to be married.  So, I wonder how many temple-recommend-holding men and women in Utah have committed a Class B misdemeanor in the past few months because they have engaged in oral sex (and how does this fit in with “obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law”)?  Just asking.

Having said that, you’ll note several things about the map.  You will notice that there are a lot of red states, many of which are actually “Blue” states.  In fact, there are 36 states in this great Union where sodomy is not illegal.  Then, there are four states that do have laws against sodomy, but only for gay people.  (In other words, the legislators have remembered to carve out an exemption for married couples to legally engage in oral or anal sex.) 

Then, there are the ten remaining states where sodomy is illegal, with no exceptions.  You might notice that, with the glaring exception of Michigan (what’s with that?), all of these states are either in the Bible Belt or the Mormon Belt.

Now, what’s interesting is that the United States Supreme Court, in its 2003 ruling in the case of Lawrence v Texas, struck down the sodomy law in Texas as unconstitutional, the majority of the court holding that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Lawrence has the effect of invalidating similar laws throughout the United States that purport to criminalize sodomy between consenting same-sex adults acting in private. It also invalidated the application of sodomy laws to heterosexual sex.

So, why is Utah’s law still on the books?  Well, there are no doubt some (perhaps some who read this blog) who could provide the scoop on the situation in Utah, but the Mother Jones piece pretty much sums it up: 

“Conservatives … know they can’t enforce the [sodomy] laws, but by keeping them in the code, they can send a message that homosexuality is officially condemned by the government.”

“Texas' state legislature has thus far refused to remove the law from the books—in large part because most Texas Republicans still support it. In 2010, the state GOP made defense of the anti-sodomy statute part of its platform, calling for the state to effectively ignore the law of the land: ‘We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.’

“But Texas isn't the only state that's still legislating bedroom activity. Fourteen states currently have laws on the books outlawing anal sex between two consenting, unrelated adults—referred to variously as "deviate sexual conduct," "the infamous crime against nature," "sodomy," and "buggery." And it's taken a concerted effort to keep those laws on the books. Since Lawrence, efforts to formally repeal laws in Montana, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, North Carolina, and, most notably, Texas have all faced resistance before fizzling out in their respective state legislatures.”

Gee, imagine something like that happening in the Utah Legislature?  Ya think?

Burning in Lust – Part Two

This post continues the discussion (from Monday’s post) of verses 24-32 of the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans.

The Structure of the Passage

The next major proposition that Helminiak advances is that the passage in question sorts out and separates the impurity or social disapproval of homogenital acts, on the one hand, from real wrong or sin, on the other.  “Homogenital sex,” writes Helminiak, “was an everyday part of the [Roman] world.  They thought it perfectly natural for me to be attracted to other men … the Greeks and Romans saw nothing improper about sex between two men.  Why does Paul bring it up at all?”

Well, Helminiak argues that Paul was, in effect, making a statement about “purity” in the same sense that Jews thought of this term.  Though his argument is a bit too technical and intricate to be described here, Helminiak posits that verses 24-32 of Romans 1 can essentially be divided into two groups, the first four dealing with societal improprieties and the second half addressing real sins.  The reason:  Paul wants to teach an important Christian lesson on morality; he wants to emphasize the difference between ritual impurity and real wrong.

The Overall Plan of the Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Helminiak’s last argument requires, even more than the previous one, that one lift one’s head out of the few passages in the first chapter of Romans and view them in the context of Paul’s entire epistle to the Christians in Rome.  The overall purpose of this epistle, Helminiak argues, was to try to appeal to and unite both segments of the church in Rome, i.e., the Jewish converts and the gentile converts:  “Paul structures his Letter to the Romans so that he can win the favor of both the Jewish and the Gentile Christians.” 

In trying to reach the Jewish converts, Paul discusses various “impurities” among the Romans, including homogenitality.  “Seen in the context of the whole Letter to the Romans,” writes Helminiak, “that reference serves a rhetorical function.  It is part of Paul’s plan to win the good will of his Jewish Christian readers.  Then he uses the same issue to make his point:  the ritual requirements of the Jewish Law are irrelevant in Christ.”

“[But] why did he choose homogenitality and not some other purity issue,” continues Helminiak.  “Why not talk about unclean foods or about circumcision?  Well, from the current century’s point of view, the answer may sound crazy.  But from a first-century point of view, it makes perfect sense:  in those days, homogenitality was a safe topic.  Paul could not open his letter with talk about clean and unclean foods.  Debate over foods was still splitting the Christian communities. Likewise, circumcision was too sensitive an issue.  But evidently homogenitality was not ...  The whole Gentile world was well aware of the Jews’ peculiar attitude toward homogenital acts.  The Gentiles just chuckled and shrugged the whole thing off.  They would not be offended if Paul raised that issue …”

 Bottom Line

The bottom line of Helminiak’s discussion of Romans 1 could perhaps be summarized by quoting the Apostle Paul:

“I know and am persuaded that in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself.”

~ Romans 14:14

Paul was trying to unite the Gentile and Jewish “factions” that made up the Christian community in Rome.  He used the references to homogenitality in the context of a larger argument that such acts, though considered “unclean” to the Jewish Christians, were in fact morally neutral, albeit not the societal norm.

As was the case with the sin of Sodom, the true message of Paul’s letter to the Romans has been obscured and distorted by a naïve, polemical and bigoted reading of the scripture, bolstered by societal prejudice and zealous self-righteousness on the part of some Christians, who apparently believe they need to make up for Jesus’ omission of dealing with the subject of homosexuality. 

As Helminiak points out, “Paul insisted on faith and love as the things that really matter in Christ.  But by misunderstanding Paul’s argument, people unwittingly rely on tastes and customs instead of the word of God.  They argue about what’s dirty or clean, dispute who’s pure and impure” – precisely the sorts of things that Paul decried.

In previous posts, I have also referred to a book by Rev. Jack Rogers, Professor of Theology Emeritus at San Francisco Theological Seminary and former Moderator (President) of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  I plan to write at a later date about his book, Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), as well as about Dr. Rogers’ journey into and through the world of Biblical scholarship and gay affirmation in Christian communities of faith.

Rogers writes the following about Romans 1:

“Paul’s thesis statement for his letter to the Romans comes in Romans 1:16:  ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.’  The very next sentence states that thesis in another way:  ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith’ (Rom. 1:17).  No one is excluded from the possibility of receiving God’s salvation.  The gospel that Paul is proclaiming in Romans does not center on the issue of sexuality.  It focuses on the universality of sin and the free grace of salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  That is the essence of the Christian message.

“In Romans 1:18-32, Paul is writing about idolatry, that is, worshiping, giving our ultimate allegiance to anything in the creation instead of God, the Creator … It seems as though Paul is setting up his Jewish readers.  It is easy at this point in the text for them, and for us, to feel self-righteous.  Jews didn’t worship images of birds or animals or reptiles.  Those were typical Gentile sins.  But then Paul lowers the boom on his readers by listing other sins that proceed from idolatry – covetousness, malice, envy, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossip, slander.  Idolaters could become haughty, boastful, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  Now Paul is talking to all of us …”

“Paul’s understanding of the naturalness of men’s and women’s gender roles is not a matter of genital formation and their functional purpose, which today is considered by many the main criterion for the natural and unnatural.  Rather, in the culture Paul is addressing, a man and a woman each had a designated place and role in society, which could not be exchanged … For Paul, transgressions of gender role boundaries cause ‘impurity,’ a violation of the Jewish purity code …”

Rogers sums up his points as follows:

“Those who are opposed to equal rights for Christian gay and lesbian people make several serious errors in interpreting Romans 1:  (1) they lose sight of the fact that this passage is primarily about idolatry; (2) they overlook Paul’s point that we are all sinners, (3) they miss the cultural subtext, and (4) they apply Paul’s condemnation of immoral sexual activity to faithful gay and lesbian Christians who are not idolaters, who love God and who seek to live in thankful obedience to God.”

Sunstoning: Whited Sepulchers

This post is the second in a series containing reflections on pieces I recently read in the current issue of Sunstone.  Today, I consider Zombies, Mormons and whited sepulchers. 

One of the pieces in the current issue of Sunstone that caused much reflection was Michael Vinson’s short essay entitled, “Jesus and Mormons and Zombies.”  After pointing out that the popular media has, in recent years, been obsessed with zombies and the undead, Vinson ruminates on this phenomenon: 

“Perhaps the reason we are obsessed with the eaters of the living is because so many of us are leading soulless lives.  Perhaps something about having our life – our purpose – sucked from us resonates with us on a cultural level.  So what does a soulless life look like?  I imagine that for each person, the soulless life would be somewhat different, but it might have in common some of the following:  a lack of purpose, an inability to self-direct our lives, a vague feeling of not being satisfied; and a feeling of incompleteness.”

Quaere: 

What is a soulless life?  What does it look like?

How is purpose sucked from our life?  Having it sucked out implies that it was once there.  What is/was it?

Why would “the soulless life” look different for each person?

Why would one not have the ability to self-direct his or her life?

If one is not satisfied or feels incomplete, what is missing?

Vinson next discusses Jesus’ reference to “whited sepulchers” and opines that “Jesus’ phrase might apply to the vanity with which we dress ourselves, diet ourselves, exercise ourselves, outfit ourselves with new cars and homes – all to appear beautiful to others, but all the while living empty – even dead – lives.”

 “What does the term ‘whited sepulchers’ mean for Mormons today?” he asks, before providing a possible answer to his question:

“Could our inner spiritual life be empty, even though to outward appearances, our life appears complete?  … [By spiritual,] I do not necessarily mean religious or Church practice, which is largely composed of activities easily seen by others.  For example, we may have ward callings, attend church and the temple, do our home or visiting teaching and yet still might feel we have fairly empty spiritual lives.  [Why?] Can Church activities become just another form of consumerism that can be used to adorn and fill up (but not truly ‘fill’) our lives?”

These questions and comments resonated with me.  I thought, for example, of a time in my life, many years ago, when I knew, but did not know, that I sought purpose, that I felt incomplete.  I later saw how I had tried to fill that need through a consumerism of sorts – of buying things, thinking that these things would bring me happiness.  But, of course, they didn’t.

It was at this time that I was introduced to the Church.  I saw the Church as providing my life with purpose.  It appeared to have all the answers.  It promised absolute truth.  All I had to do was get on the path; the rest would come.  I would never have to worry about making mistakes:  the Spirit would guide me.  I filled up my life with the Church.  I opened myself up and poured it in. 

I dedicated my life and my soul to living the Gospel and all that it entailed.  I went on a mission.  I got married.  I continued my education.  We started having children.  I fulfilled church callings.  In short, I did everything I was supposed to do.  I filled my life with spiritual busyness.

Yet, I made one tragic mistake that turned my life, in a way, into a whited sepulcher:  I tried to (and believed - for a time - that I could) asphyxiate who I really was – a gay man. 

On the outside, I appeared to be a dedicated heterosexual husband, father and priesthood holder.  On the inside, however, I was, metaphorically, “full of dead men’s bones.”  I filled my life with spiritual and familial busyness; but this ultimately gave me little sense of soul, of purpose, of fulfillment. 

What is one to do?

Vinson writes, “What your unique answer to an empty life will have in common with others will be an inner feeling of completeness, of following your destiny, of directing your own life.”

Then, after pointing out that Jesus’ metaphor of the whited sepulcher has a double meaning in that it also refers to the Jewish concept of uncleanness (a tomb would be über-unclean), Vinson poses a final question:  “Is Jesus suggesting in the analogy of the dead and impure tomb that an empty life is also a sinful one.”

What do you think?  Is a life spent in denial of one’s God-given true self the ultimate sin?

Sunstoning: The Borderlands

I recently had occasion to make a business trip, and one of the things I took with me to read on the plane was the current issue of Sunstone.  Most readers of this blog will be familiar with this publication, but for those who are not, Sunstone is the closest thing there is to a “liberal” Mormon journal.   It explores issues that everyone knows are there (in the Church), but are rarely if ever discussed in official circles or publications, and it certainly addresses these issues in a way and from a point of view that one would never find in an official church publication.

There were several stories and articles in the current issue of this journal that I found interesting and meaningful.  I thought I’d share and write about a few of them in this and subsequent posts.

Borderlands

One of the highlights of the current issue was the inclusion of the complete script from Eric Samuelsen’s play Borderlands.  In his introduction to the script, Samuelson shared some of the thoughts that went into the writing of this landmark play: 

“We Mormons,” Samuelsen wrote, “face tremendous pressure to conform, to fit in, to obey, to define ourselves in certain quite limited ways.  It is, for many, a religious culture of public orthodoxy and quietly whispered rebellion.  And so we carve out spaces for ourselves, and we meet in those spaces [borderlands], and we come out to each other … So I wrote a play about coming out … about death and God and sexual desire.  And a space … where we dare to tell ourselves the truth and where we are appalled to find how little it sets us free” [emphasis added].

There were many things about this statement that struck me, the first being Samuelsen’s comment that we as Mormons face tremendous pressure to “define ourselves in certain quite limited ways.”  One of the most damaging aspects of cultural Mormonism, I think, even beyond the feeling that one has to conform to a prescribed imposed code of conduct, is the feeling that one must define oneself in accordance with this external code, through an external lens through which one not only sees oneself, but also portrays (but not reveal) oneself to the world.

It occurs to me that this is one of the primary reasons that gay Mormons have such difficulty in coming to terms with their sexuality:  they are taught from a young age to look to the Church and to their parents and family for a sense of personal identity.  They define who they are by reference to an idealized code of conduct that is taught to them from infancy – a code that imposes, particularly in the case of gay Mormons, a built-in conflict. 

Gay Mormons are conditioned to look to others for approval, for affirmation, for identity - but never to look inward, or even to God (because He himself is defined through the lens of the Church, which also defines the self).  They rarely are able to gain a strong sense of self in the face of this external definition process, and are thus unable to muster the strength to acknowledge, let alone accept, who they really are.  In fact, they often have no sense of self apart from this external definition process.

In the words of Rev. James Alison, the gay Catholic priest and theologian about whom I have recently written, we are “spoken into being” by this external definition process, and it takes a concerted effort to look into ourselves: 

“Just remember that we are all spoken into being by those who are other than us. The 'I' of every one of us is a multiplicity of voices, more or less stably held together, but sometimes we can hear little faint echoes, can't we, of the voices of our fathers or our mothers or schoolteachers or politicians, speaking through us. And part of the life of prayer is sitting in a place where we sift through, not being run by those voices any longer, and find that God our Father is able to talk a new 'I' into being.”

I very much like Alison’s image of prayer being a process of sifting through voices, looking for and ultimately finding God’s voice, a voice that affirms who we truly are: the Self He loves with an intensity that can sometimes frighten but, if embraced, releases the divinity in us and thus ennobles and sets us free.

This brings me to the other phrase in Samuelsen’s quote that struck me:  of being “appalled to find how little [the truth] sets us free.”  I would like an opportunity to ask Professor Samuelsen what he meant when he used this phrase. 

What I think Samuelsen may have meant, at least in part, is that, even when we allow ourselves to go into the Borderlands to look for and to speak truth, we cannot take (at least not without great difficulty and pain) that truth back out of the Borderlands into the “Church”:  it does not set us free.  Rather, it can even further enslave and conflict us if we try to live in the Church by the truth we find in the Borderlands.  A realization of this appalls us, demoralizes us, depresses us.  Once one has come to see and acknowledge that the emperor is wearing no clothes, one can never quite look at the emperor in the same way again.

Burning in Lust

This is the fourth of a series of posts examining Dr. Daniel Helminiak’s book, What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality.  The first three posts are located here, here and here.

Some may wonder why I bother preparing these posts.  Such persons may believe that these Biblical passages should simply be ignored, and that any effort to interpret them in a different light than that used by religious bigots is a waste of time and effort.

I, however, believe that, given the background of most people who read this blog, i.e., Mormonism and perhaps other conservative Christianisms, it is more than worth the time and effort to educate ourselves about differing interpretations of these offensively-used scriptures.

BTW, the picture above is of the so-called Warren Cup in the British Museum.

There is only one New Testament passage that discusses homogenital acts at any length:  the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, from which the title of this post comes (verse 27 from the King James translation): 

“And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

Helminiak’s chapter dealing with this passage has as its thesis that, far from condemning same-sex acts, Paul is actually teaching that such acts are ethically neutral, neither right nor wrong in themselves. 

In support of this proposition, Helminiak advances three propositions:  First, the vocabulary Paul uses describes homogenital acts as “impure,” subject to social disapproval, but not as ethically wrong. Second, the structure of the passage sorts out and separates the impurity or social disapproval of homogenital acts, on the one hand, from real wrong or sin, on the other.  Third, analysis of the overall plan to the letter to the Romans reveals that Paul’s purpose with respect to his mention of homogenital acts is to teach that in Christ, the purity concerns of the Old Law no longer matter and they should not be dividing the Christians in Rome.  This post addresses the first of these propositions, with the remaining two to be considered in a follow-up post.

A Word about Homosexuality in Ancient Rome

It has been noted that the term “homosexuality” is anachronistic for the ancient world, since there is no single word in either Latin or ancient Greek with the same meaning as the modern concept of homosexuality, nor was there any sense that a man was defined by his gender choices in love-making; as James Boswell has noted, "in the ancient world so few people cared to categorize their contemporaries on the basis of the gender to which they were erotically attracted that no dichotomy to express this distinction was in common use” [Wikipedia: Homosexuality in Ancient Rome].

Helminiak states that “the Greeks and Romans saw nothing improper about sex between two men … In the Roman mind, there was a pecking order; a hierarchy of social status was the rule.  Adult male citizens could have penetrative sex with women and with male and female noncitizens, slaves and youth.  Male-male sex was fully accepted, except for this restriction:  adult male citizens were generally not to have penetrative sex with one another nor be penetrated by anyone else.  Such sex would disrupt the pecking order … Those were the mixed social expectations that Paul was addressing in Romans 1.”

 What’s In a Word?

Helminiak begins his analysis of Paul’s vocabulary by focusing on the two central verses of Romans 1 dealing with homosexuality, i.e., verses 26-27 [New Revised Standard Version translation] (with original Greek words bracketed where indicated):

For this reason God gave them up to degrading [atimias] passions.

Their women exchanged natural [physiken] intercourse for unnatural [para physin],

and in the same way also the men,

giving up natural [physiken] intercourse with women,

were consumed with passion for one another.

Men committed shameless [aschemosyne] acts with men

and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

Paul did not use the word “nature” in our abstract sense of “Nature and the Laws of Nature.”  For Paul, the “nature” of something was its particular character or kind.  Helminiak gives examples from several other Pauline writings, in each case using the term to imply what is characteristic of peculiar in this or that situation.

“For Paul, something is natural when it responds according to its own kind, when it is as it is expected to be.  For Paul, the word natural does not mean ‘in accord with universal laws.’  Rather, natural refers to what is characteristic, consistent, ordinary, standard, expected and regular.  When people did something surprising, something unusual, something beyond the routine, something out of character, they were acting unnaturally [i.e., uncharacteristically].”

Next, the Greek word para usually means “beside,” “more than,” “over and beyond.” “So when Paul refers to exchanging “natural” intercourse for “unnatural”, it means that these women and men were engaging in sexual practices that were not the ones people usually perform.  The practices were beyond the regular, outside the ordinary, more than the usual, not the expected.  There is no implication whatever in those words that the practices were wrong or against God or contrary to the divine order of creation or in conflict with the universal nature of things.  For Paul, those words do not mean ‘unethical.’ … Rather than ‘unnatural,’ the words para physin in Romans would more accurately be translated as ‘atypical’ – unusual, peculiar, out of the ordinary, uncharacteristic.”

As further evidence of this approach, Helminiak cites other passages where the same term, para physin, is used with reference to God himself.  For example, in Romans 11:24, Paul describes how God grafted the wild branch of the Gentiles into the cultivated olive tree that is the Jews.  “Usually, one grafts a branch of a cultivated tree into the stock of a wild tree ... But God acted in reverse order, acting para physin – unnaturally, or atypically.  “Paul’s point is that God is not bound by standard expectations.  God goes beyond what culture and society prescribe.”

Helminiak next considers Paul’s use of the Greek word atimia, translated as “degrading,” and aschemosyne, translated as “shameless.”  Just like the words para physin, these words have no ethical connotation and simply refer to societal disapproval.  Atimia means something “not highly valued” or “not respected.”  Paul uses this word in 1 Corinthians 11:14 to suggest that it is “degrading” for a man to wear long hair.  As to the word aschemosyne, the word literally means “not according to form,” again referring to social regard, not a moral judgment.

I am the Light of the World

This is another in a series called “Gay Gospel Doctrine Class,” which takes a lesson from the LDS Church’s (Adult) Gospel Doctrine class and presents it from a gay perspective.  Today’s lesson is based on Lesson #15 from the Gospel Doctrine Manual and was prepared by Quiet Song.  The lead photo was taken and provided by thisblogauthor/duck.

In our electric society we rarely experience darkness.  Places where the stars can be seen are dwindling.  And, we have not experienced what our forebears knew, utter and complete darkness held in contrast to brilliant sunlight. We have come to take light for granted.

Return with me to an earlier time . . . .

In John Chapter 7, we read that word of Jesus attending the Temple in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles had spread among the people.  There was lively debate, and I’m sure whispered titters among some, that this man known to perform miracles would arrive soon. The people asked themselves and each other, “who is this man?”

            “And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him:  

for some said,

            he is a good man: others said, Nay, but he deceiveth the people.  

(John 7:12)

One thing I love about the scriptures is that when you actually read them, you will find that they are replete with stories of people questioning, debating and intellectually striving to know what God wants for them.  You will also find a wonderful variety of characters with less sincere motives as well.  

Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles is described as a joyous time.   Occurring six months after Passover, it was a celebration of the harvest as well as celebration of the end of the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness.  Additionally, it was an outdoor holiday with the people building “booths” which they camped out in for several days.  And, among other things it was a wine festival, and, thus there was copious drinking and celebration of the vine and the harvest occurring in conjunction with religious ceremonies.  

During Christ’s time, massive candelabra were lit in the courtyard of the temple and it was against this very festive and stunning light display that Christ entered the temple and began to teach ultimately explaining that he was the light in a darkened world.  We are told that the people marveled due to the fact that Christ was not a man of letters.  Ever humble and clear on his mission, he explained that the doctrine was not his.  And, then, he challenged them:

            “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.  (John 7:17)

This is where things become a bit strained in our [LGBT] community and in the larger church, because we have a tendency to see this only in light of the things we shouldn’t do, including some things such as having a same sex relationship that some members of our community have come to total peace with.  Some even feel that their own decisions regarding their relationship status have some blessing of their union from the Lord.  However, I would strongly suggest that this particular verse is really a very simple suggestion to “experiment upon the word” and is really very much about taking those small steps toward Christ, however far away we may find ourselves and regardless of our “status.”

I love the testimonies of LGBT members, even as some struggle or are barred from finding full expression or opportunity to participate in the Church. I cherish the opportunity I had to work through my own conflicts and find healing, hope and comfort that things are moving in a more positive direction within the Church.  I particularly appreciate the work of John G-W and his great depth of spiritual knowledge and the fruits of his efforts to journey ever closer to the light despite the lack of opportunity he faces in doing so due to his same sex marriage status.

I believe it is particularly fitting on the day that we celebrate the resurrection and the atonement, that we as a LGBT LDS community have the opportunity to revisit the story of the woman taken in adultery.  Perhaps you have heard that the woman was brought before Christ to trick him.  This I believe to be the case, but even more distressing is the hypocrisy of using the law in a very, callous, and unkind way for inappropriate purposes.  Earlier, I explained that Sukkot was a time known for its joy, it was also a time due to the drinking and outdoor activity where a person very easily could slip into some forbidden sexual activity as the unfortunate woman did in this story.

 Moreover, there is some indication that she was enticed into the forbidden sexual activity by the very persons who wished to condemn her.  If that alone was not wrong enough, the same scribes and Pharisees sought not only to violate the law of Rome, but they also sought violate their own religious law which required two witnesses for certain acts before a person could be condemned to stoning.  And perhaps this was a sly way of reminding him of the circumstances of his own birth with the intent to embarrass him.  Curiously, only the woman was brought forward.

Christ also saw directly into the sad and corrupted state of their hearts.  The intent of stoning, as odd and inappropriate as it may sound to our modern sensibilities (today we clearly regard it as torture and cruel and unusual punishment), was to be a discipline of concern and “love” and was to only take place for very grave sexual error beyond the sexual sin committed by this woman.  The idea was one of collective societal capital punishment, wherein no one person casting a stone would know that they had thrown the stone that killed the victim/offender.

In this case they had all conspired not only to entrap this woman, but also to callously sacrifice her life as a political tool, not because they were truly concerned about her and her soul, or even her wrongdoing, but to get gain and to undermine the purposes of Christ’s work.  It was this sin among those who would condemn that Christ so clearly identified in their hearts when he offered the following:

  

            “ . . . He that is without sin among you, Let him first cast a stone at her.”

After all had left, Christ tenderly conversed with the woman and gently told her to go and sin no more.

I cannot help but think of many of our LGBT LDS community members having felt callously used as a political tool these past few years.  I also cannot resolve the issue that undoubtedly has arisen in some reader’s mind as to ultimately whether a same-sex sexual act in a marriage or committed relationship is a sin or more of a currently proscribed sexual union that could change some time in the future. 

What I do know is that I have read enough of what other faithful LGBT members have written regarding their cherished testimonies and the experience of drawing near to the light of Christ to fully believe that there is more than enough room for us all to go and sin no more in many, many areas of our life.  Each small step towards the light of Christ brings us closer to preparing ourselves for the reconciliation of the atonement where we will be judged perfectly in light of our ability, our hearts and our true desires to do his will, and, dare I say it, the sexual orientation of our bodies and perhaps even our souls.

I hope this Easter Morn to find a small way to try to do the will of God and step a little closer to experience the light of Christ.  Let us walk together with the true love and concern for each other regardless of our relationship or membership status with the tenderness and concern that Christ showed the woman taken in adultery.

Happy Easter, Everyone!

Relaxing Into God's Embrace

In a couple of recent posts, I have made reference to James Alison, a gay Catholic priest and theologian.  Not long ago, I first ran across a piece written by Alison, and I immediately became intrigued by his writing. 

Though coming out of the Catholic tradition, I thought that much of what I was reading by Alison is relevant to the gay Mormon experience.  And, after all, we don’t exactly have any gay Mormon “theologians”, do we?  So, my belief is that there is much out there, written by gay Catholic and Protestant writers, that can benefit all of us who have come out of a Mormon tradition.

Alison grew up in an evangelical (Protestant) family in England and converted to Catholicism when he was 18 years old.  He entered the Dominicans in 1981, was ordained in 1988, and after studies at Oxford, completed his doctoral dissertation (on original sin) at the Jesuit Faculty in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.  He left the Dominican order in 1995, and a few months later, his lover died of AIDS.  Since that time, Alison has been an “independent theologian,” writing and speaking on topics relating to Catholicism and homosexuality.  He has lived and worked in Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and the United States.  He is currently based in São Paulo, Brazil.

I plan to publish posts from time to time about Alison’s writings, starting today with excerpts from a talk given in September 2010 at the Pitt Street Uniting Church in Sydney, entitled The Shape of God's Affection.  The talk was featured on an Australian Broadcasting Corporation program called Encounter, hosted by David Rutledge, who prefaced presentation of Alison’s speech by saying, “It was about faith, and the remarkable outworkings of the idea that God doesn't just love us, but likes us as well.”  Imagine.

Relaxing into God’s Embrace

“ … What I'm going to be exploring with you is how the gift of faith is God's way of enabling us to relax into God's embrace. If you think about it, the normal use of the word 'faith', if we take out all the celestial bit, if and when we use the word 'faith' in a normal human setting - if you believe someone likes you, you relax. The masks come down. You're able actually to let go of the tense self-presentation that accompanies being with someone who you're not sure whether they like you or not. So I just want to ask you to hold on to that, what we're talking about when we talk about the gift of faith is a habitual disposition to relax in the presence of someone who likes us.”

“We seem to regard it as obvious, that all religions are faiths. Whereas in fact most of the cultural forms of life that we refer to as religions, attribute either very little or no importance to faith.  [For example,] the Hebrew religion … has … at its centre the notion of Torah, a legally given way of life, which is much more important than belief or concentration on the God.  It's getting along with the way of life that's the important thing. And very frequently, that's the case with lots of different religious groups [Can you think of one such group?] … [But] the more you relax into the regard of someone who likes you, the less inclined you are to take very seriously the strictures of religious goodness.

“… No, the shape of God's affection is this: 'You're a susceptible bunch, you don't really think I like you. I'm really going to have to prove to you how much I like you … I'm trying to teach justification by faith. That's what it's about; it's the notion of God made present in the midst, as our forgiveness, and as we perceive his love for us [we say], 'Oh, so I no longer need to try.' And as I relax, I actually find myself wanting to respond in certain ways, actually being given another heart, another pattern of desire.”

Spoken Into Being 

And that's the very odd experience of faith: you find yourself being spoken into being by someone who loves you. Just remember that we are all spoken into being by those who are other than us. The 'I' of every one of us is a multiplicity of voices, more or less stably held together, but sometimes we can hear little faint echoes, can't we, of the voices of our fathers or our mothers or schoolteachers or politicians, speaking through us. And part of the life of prayer is sitting in a place where we sift through, not being run by those voices any longer, and find that God our Father is able to talk a new 'I' into being. That's part of what goes on in the life of prayer and meditation.

But [it is] interesting, that part of this being talked into being by someone who loves us, has strange consequences. One of them is this: the richer and deeper the faith that is given us, the more secure we are about being insecure. Isn't that an odd truth? Part of the gift of faith is the ability to dwell with a certain insecurity, and a certain realisation that I may not have it right. I may not even be very truthful. I may not be very good. And that[‘s] OK, because it's someone Else's goodness that actually makes the difference, it's someone Else who's doing the hard work, and I who am becoming [is] a symptom of that something else over time, with a lot of kicking and screaming - in my case, anyway – on our part.

Faith, Doubt and Crisis

“One of the reasons why this is important is that it enables us to understand something about the proper place of doubt and of crises of faith within our life. One of the things we would expect if this picture that I've been giving you is true, is that as we relax and find ourselves undergoing this alteration of subjectivity … we find ourselves letting go of certain forms of security, who we thought we were, as we are talked into being.

“One of the things that happens is that we feel often in crisis; we are losing ourselves, and I want to say, Yes, that's not a crisis of faith, that's a crisis of self. And it's exactly what you would expect, if faith is true. After all, we are the symptoms of someone Else doing something. We are the ever-changing object which is the result of someone Else's activity. That's what faith is about, a certain being held.

“Doubt is exactly what you would expect within this certainty, which is someone Else holding us and all our points of reference changing. [We ask ourselves,] 'How does this fit together? How does the world which I thought I understood and in which I thought I knew how to be good and how to behave properly, how does that all look?' In other words, doubt is a proper part of the life of faith. It's how being held accompanies the huge shifts of personality that are going on.”