opinion

Beliefs: Faith and Social

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I’ve been thinking on this part of this ask for weeks now and the way my mind works this may or may not flow well. One thought led to another one and things expanded from there. This is the portion I’ve concentrated on:

“To be a member of the Roman Catholic church means that you accept that the Pope is infallible when he speaks on matter of faith, and is communicating the the true will of God. That also means that you accept that acting on homosexuality is sinful and disordered, separates one from Christ, and that gay people are called to celibacy, as the Pope has stated.”

 

I know a lot of religious people have opinions on social issues and politics based on their concept of their religious teachings, their interpretation of the Bible and their surroundings (the people they know, their experiences.) I’ve also never heard of homosexuality being ‘disordered’. I’ve also said before that priests were previously allowed to marry, and if not marry, there was an open secret that they had women and children who were acknowledged by the church officials.

I don’t know where along the way there was this mix-up between social, moral, civil lives and faith. I’ve always thought of religion separate from religion. That may be having grown up in the US with the Bill of Rights as my benchmark.

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Reconcilling Church Beliefs and LGBT Issues

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I was recently asked how I reconcile church doctrine and my faith with issues like LGBT and I didn’t answer the question very well. After some time to think, I realized that it’s easier than you might think.

First, I try not to inflict my views on others. If I’m asked, I will say. Obviously, this is my blog and I give my opinion freely. I’m willing to engage in debate, and on some issues there is no middle ground. I also try really, really hard to keep an open-mind, much more open than many I know and I hope that people will listen to my views as deeply as I listen to theirs.

With LGBT in particular, I don’t see a conflict at all. The Bible isn’t written by G-d; it is an interpretation of G-d’s laws and a historical primer. It’s well established, including by the church that the four Gospels were written well after Jesus died and by people who did know him personally. After reading Reza Aslan’s book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, I wonder how different the church would be if James had lived to be an elder in the church and Paul had been executed, but that is a different debate.

Sexual orientation is not mentioned in the Bible and anywhere it’s inferred, it is ambiguous at best.

Any parts that talk about man lying with woman or marriage is between a man and a woman discounts polygamy and concubines as well as if a woman was barren (or presumed barren) as well as if the man died and his brother married the widow. Some consider the deep abiding friendship between David and Jonathan to be a tacit approval of homosexuality, not to mention that same-sex relationships have been around since the beginning of time. Most marriages were a contract with the end result being progeny. In fact, when Jacob was deceived and married Leah without knowing it, he was permitted to marry Rachel after seven years of work. Clearly that marriage was not one man and one woman and he was an indentured servant to pay for his bride, which is a whole other can of worms.

My second point, and more importantly, LGBT is not an ice cream flavor. You don’t walk into Baskin’ Robbins and choose one or two or however many scoops you want. Whether or not someone is LGBT is a biological fact. Gender is biological. Orientation is biological. It, like race, cannot be changed or adjusted to someone else’s liking.

Marriage equality, employment hiring and firing practices, housing, medical treatment – these are all things that every single person is and should be entitled to.

LGBT is not a gay issue. It is a civil rights issue.

When you have a great civil rights leader such as John Lewis agreeing on this issue, it is easy to see the comparisons to the rights of African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s.

When 38 states can fire you for being transgender, when your legal marriage isn’t recognized in another state, when the military had been turning away qualified men and women because of something biological but not detrimental to their service, it is easy to see how this is a civil rights issue.

Equal rights for everyone benefit everyone.

As far as the church goes, I believe in the separation of church and state. What this means is that the church can’t inflict its doctrine on my civil rights and the civil authority cannot force religious institutions to provide for things not in their doctrine. I would not tell the church to start performing same-sex marriages, but the church should not be telling the state that they can’t be done in a civil venue.

The topics of reproductive rights and gynecological and medical procedures that conflict with religions and health insurance is a different debate and one that I would write on in the future if anyone is interested in my opinion.

The Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

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Today is the forty-first anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Whatever side in the political abortion debate you’re on, we should all be of the same mind to equally protect the already-living and giving women the equality and the respect of autonomy over their own bodies.

I find it hypocritical that many of the same people who are anti-abortion are also pro-death penalty, anti-food stamps, anti-unemployment insurance, anti-birth control and anti- anything that will benefit women who choose to have their children and single mothers, some of whom are in crisis. Many lack health insurance and pre-natal care, which is the difference between a healthy pregnancy and a death sentence for the mother.

In all the conversations I’ve had with pro-choice people, not one of them has ever been pro-abortion. It is one of the most difficult decisions that a person ever has to make. The choices available should also be available to all women and not only the women in abusive situations. There are many reasons to have an abortion, and they are as individual as there are pregnancies.

For me personally, I had the right and the opportunity to make the choice. I don’t know what I would have done, given my mental state at that time without that choice. My choice was the right one for my family and me, and that should be all that matters to anyone facing that decision.

Everyone wants to eradicate abortion, but instead of shaming women (and some of these women are victims of assault, incest, domestic violence, economic disadvantage), we should be helping them. We should be making legitimate health, gender and sex education available, which includes how the body works and all those uncomfortable but anatomically accurate words, contraception, reproductive choices and rights for everyone instead of the constant barrage of misinformation about our bodies and suggesting that abstinence is the only answer when many of these pregnant girls and women didn’t have any choice or say in the matter of getting pregnant in the first place and would have chosen abstinence if their rapist had offered it.

We should put more value on girls and women as individuals, not as baby carriers and then maybe they would understand how their bodies work and have more respect for themselves.

Don’t misread that last statement. Having respect for yourself doesn’t mean not having sex; it means that you like yourself and can make informed choices without Puritanical shaming on every decision you make.

In fact, we give more bodily autonomy to cadavers than we do women. We need written consent to donate organs or to participate in ongoing scientific research. How is it even possible in this day and age that we are against reducing pregnancies and for abolishing abortions? It’s oxymoronic.

At least give out the correct information and the condoms. Continue to promote abstinence, but just like touching the stove for a toddler, we wouldn’t say no we’re not treating that burn – you should have abstained from touching the stove.

Whether you are for or against abortion, keep it safe and legal or many more than unborn will die. And please stop putting more value on unborn than on the already living.