Skatje Myers (daugher of Pharyngula blogger MZ Myers) recently raised hell at her school over some anti-gay comments by the student body president. This is a problem at a lot of high schools, so I'd like to take this moment to float a suggestion for dealing with such people that's been bouncing around in my head for some time. What follows was designed with a full-force anti-gay campaign in mind: some high school students have actually organized anti-gay days, complete with custom made t-shirts that say "homosexuality is a sin" or some such.
Step 1: Ask yourself "can I rely on the mental stability (if not rationality) of my opponents?"
---> If "yes," gather up some fair-sized rocks.
---> If "no," take a collection and buy some Bricks of Silence. Paint over original lettering
Step 2: Mark them with choice verses from the Old Testament
Step 3: One by one, each person on your side hands one rock/Brick of Silence to your targets, each time telling them something about your self. The progression should go something like this:
(Leviticus 20:13): "Hi, I'm gay."
(Deuteronomy 13): "Hi, I'm Hindu."
(Deuteronomy 21:18-21): "Hi, I don't always get along with my parents."
(Numbers 15:32-36): "Hi, I have a weekend job."
And so on.
Such a campaign just might "shock them into sanity" (to quote nuclear critic Lewis Mumford).
Technorati tags: gay rights, high school, The Bible
15 comments:
Sorry but that was the most hilarious post you've done yet. Do you honestly believe this nonsense?
Are you ever going to seriously bother trying to understand Christian theology, or are you just going to keep repeating the same moronic arguments ad nauseum to win the plaudits of your sycophants?
The very first Christians understood that Jesus' receivement of the punishment for our sin had summed up all the legislative functions of the Jewish theocracy. That's what Christians have always believed. You may not like it, but it's true.
If on the other hand you're whining about the 'barbarity' of people living in ancient times 'How very different from the home life of our own dear Queen', then get a clue. Seriously. Not everyone enjoys your cosseted Western lifestyle. To quote Holding (who knows FAR more than you):"Do you know what it is like to live in a world where anarchy and chaos were constant threats, where life could be stolen from you at any moment? Ancient people did. As a creampuff society, we have lost the realization that for the ancients, education wasn't simply a matter of teaching times tables so we can get a job selling timeshares: Education was a matter of survival, of ensuring that what there was of civilization did not slip over that fine line from order into chaos. Thus all of the Ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature is filled with pithy sayings like this one you cite from Proverbs, along the lines of, "A student's back is his ear." Even as today students had to be taught to want to learn -- the only differences are that the options for distraction have become more diversified (i.e., video games, versus, i.e., trips to the prostitute's house), and most of us aren't perceptive enough to see through our society's complexity to know that chaos is just as possible here and now. We don't see a reason to associate severity with education, but if we wait long enough and have enough school shootings, perhaps we will. "(This is about education, but you can make the logical connection)
You could never have kept an ancient society from falling into chaos. No, oh no, you couldn't. And unless you PROVE that your system of jurisprudence is superior to the one in Leviticus and Deuteronomy then you should just shut your yap.
Thank goodness for free speech. I'd hate to see the day when a person could be arrersted for a hate crime for openly opposing homosexuality.
Hey anonymous coward, you are all for free speech when it comes to publicly taunting gays, but Hallq should not be allowed to have his blog expressing his opinions about religion. Yes, you are quite the open minded one, aren't you. You're the poster child for legalized birth control.
Uncredible man, just like the first guy said. Are you ever going to seriously bother trying to understand Christian theology.
Tommy, you ever going to have some knowledge or facts to back up what you say? You say a lot, but when somebody asks questions, you don't say much after that.. Like your blog...
:)
Anonymous #1 and richard,
If one's theological basis for the sinfulness of homosexuality is a verse or two from Leviticus, then perhaps a broader reading of the Old Testament is in order. This is an argument a liberal theologian might make.
However if one is reading the New Testament and decides homosexuality is a sin, then in which Christian theology can you find justification for the statement "gays deserve to be shot."
Or did you not read the link in Hallq's post? Hallq's post wasn't anti-theology it was anti-bigotry.
"Richard", you labor under the delusion that anybody owes you an explanation for anything.
Tommy, is that a question or a statement?
Gays don't need to be shot. They need hugs. They need Jesus just like everybody else.
I make a point of reading a considerable amount of Christian theology and apologetics. Honestly, the more I read, the more disgusted I am. Orthodox Christians think that good rationalizations for the crimes of the Old Testament can include things like "we're God's property, he can do whatever he wants to us" and "God inflicts hideous suffering on us to glorify himself." It is not in any way obvious that Jesus abolished the OT death sentences; it was not too long ago that Christian countries put people to death for homosexuality, blasphemy, etc. And the point about how rough things were in the ancient world is the most stunning non-sequitur I've ever seen.
Anonymous #1, please ask yourself something: suppose that tomorrow the government brought back the policy of executing gays, would you really, honestly believe that such a policy would be A-OK if not for Jesus? Maybe pondering this question will get you somewhere, though I sadly wouldn't be surprised if you answered with a glib "yes." Though I would be stunned you were able to answer "yes" to that question while honestly saying that you know some gay people. If you don't, do you know any Hindus? Neo-pagans? At least a single "blaspheming Jew" (as Shakespear put it)? Try to imagine them being shot simply over religion, and you might begin to understand just how horrific the Old Testament really is.
An important point I missed:
To anonymous #2: As far as I'm concerned, you can be a KKK member, a neo-Nazi, a skinhead, a self described Maoist or Stalinist, or an advocate of theocracy and I'll stand up for your right to free speech. This does not mean I must let any of these views be promoted unopposed.
I don't understand what it is about this post that indicates that he doesn't understand theology. Here's how I understand theology: God is perfect, eternal, unchanging. God condoned and commanded killing people for those "transgressions" in the Old Testament, therefore by his unchanging nature, he (at the very least) condones them now. So either God didn't really condone them then, or God wasn't/isn't perfect, or what constituted "perfect" was somehow changed since then.
I believe in free speech. The cost of free speech, however, is vigilance against stupid and hateful speech: To counter it with logical and virtuous speech.
That would be the quotable version of my view.
I went to a highschool and this happened there. The perps were mostly stupid jocks. I am not one of them but I am a Christian who believes God places homosexuality in the pantheon of sinful behaviors, which also include things like gluttonly (Mr. Fallwell).
I have two issues with you:
1) Rubber bricks. Pleeeeze. They'll just call you, "fag." That'll never work. These people are thugs. I have no idea how they reconcile their behavior with the turn-the-other-cheek ethic of Christ. I think that you'll be able to beat highschool thugs by getting degree and excelling. Then people will listen to you. As a Christian I believe by excelling I, like Daniel, will have a wonderfull oportunity to be an ambassador for Christ.
2) You are probably going to discount me. Your reasoning is typicallly of the form: "He thinks that homosexuality is a sin, therefore, he's a bigot. He believes in God. Therefore Mr. Anonymous Coward == Campus Crusader. Most Campus Crusaders are retards." Seems to me you are the type of person who'd make a good Bill O'rielly intern.
I don't assume everybody who believes in God is a fundie. However, the Christian Right pretty much uniformly believes that the Bible is the infallible word or an all-knowing, perfectly good being when a close examination should tell any modern person that it is the product of an ignorant, barbarous people. In this it is really no different than Homer's epics, but that should clearly disqualify it from being used as the basis of modern morality or law. From what I've seen, most evangelicals get around this problem by rarely thinking about large portions of the Bible. But some clearly have thought about it, and that baffles me.
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