Homosexuality and the Bible
This Saturday the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry and Greater Boston PFLAG are sponsoring an event at Arlington Street Church called “Homosexuality and the Bible”. The event runs from 4-6pm and there is a suggested donation of $10. Rev. Jeff Miner will talk about Bible passages that he says have viable interpretations that affirm same-sex relationship. He is also going to tackle those familiar passages from the Bible — Leviticus, Romans and all the other usual suspects — used by religious opponents of LGBT rights, to argue that the anti-gay interpretations of those passages are inaccurate or incomplete.
Miner is going to talk about a story in the bible that involves a same-sex relationship. “Here is Jesus performing a miracle that preserves a same-sex relationship,” said Miner. “You put that together and you have this profoundly affirming gospel passage that has been conveniently ignored for centuries.”
This event should be very interesting. It could arm you with some new tools to use when you are at a protest and someone quotes Leviticus to you.
posted by Chris Mason @ 4:16 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I have to confess, I've never seen a reason to have any better armament in a conversation with someone religious than "seperation of church and state." If they can't see the distinctions between policing their own church and society, none of us are probably going to be able to convince them.
Plus, the type of people who would throw Leviticus at our face either haven't read the bible (and don't know that those who eat shellfish are an abomination too) or do (and are using their prejudices in skipping half of the old testament in picking and choosing what's valid and what isn't).
Ryan, I usually also take the approach of just cutting off the religous talk by insisting that what the legislature is debating is a matter if civil law, not sacred, and therefore bible talk is irrelevant.
However, I have often been in other situations where I felt a more thorough knowledge of this weapon being flung at me (bible) would be useful. It was very instructive, for example, to realize that the 1st 4 new testament books are the only ones with words attributed to Jesus. Haters inevitably quote stuff from books attributed to Paul, that self-appointed busibody for christ. Because Paul never knew Jesus (on teh scene 100 years too late), I now know enough to confront my loving attackers with Qs like: are you a follower of Jesus, or a follower of Paul? they HATE that because they love to ignore the fact that Jesus never condemned gays. That's just one example. At worst it's useful to know their weapon as well or better than they do, at best it makes for fime sport to trip up the *ssholes. I recommend any with the time, Xtian or not, got to this or similar event.
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