On Homosexuality

That's right. I'm going there. Why? Because I'm tired of Christians looking like hateful bigots. I've had some of my non-Christian friends ask me lately why Christians "disagree" with homosexuality. Considering the gluttony of media attention Christians have received for the North Carolina amendment and stances against anti-bullying legislation, I can understand how non-Christians just can't seem to reconcile the idea of "loving your neighbor" with the seemingly hateful rhetoric of Christians against homosexuals. For more on how Christians might be doing more harm than good in this culture war, read this great article by Rachel Held Evans. 

The big questions, from what I've gathered, are 1) Is homosexuality a sin  and 2) Are homosexuals going to hell. I'm not going to broach gay marriage in this post, but I'm formulating thoughts for a later post on that topic. While I am certainly no theologian, I've been percolating and researching Christian views on homosexuality for a couple of years because I've never been comfortable with the anti-gay tone of the American church. So, here are my thoughts. 

1) Is homosexuality a sin?


Many Christians believe homosexuality is a sin because the Bible clearly ordains sex to take place between a man and a woman within the confines of marriage. So, this means that any sexual relationships outside of marriage are sinful, including pre-marital sex and adultery. It's much easier for the American church to attack the homosexual minority rather than discussing the fact that many members of their congregation co-habitate before marriage, are addicted to pornography even though they are married, or have engaged in adultery. 


The issue for many Christians, from my understanding, is about the translation of the passages in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Leviticus (see more details on these passages here). Some liberal Christians argue that the New Testament passages criticized using male sex slaves rather than demeaning homosexuality in general. Other arguments claim that the term "homosexual" didn't even exist until the 19th century, so our arguments about homosexuality in the Bible are anachronistic since the term didn't exist in Biblical times. For me, whether or not these arguments are true, the main point is this: the Bible clearly states, in many places and with no ambiguity, that God designed sex to occur within marriage between a man and a woman. So, anything outside of this design is considered un-Biblical, including homosexuality. 


Does this mean that someone dealing with homosexuality can just "turn it off" or "convert to heterosexuality?" I honestly and firmly believe the answer is no. I think many Christians wrestle with this very topic and unfortunately the church is not a safe space for discussing the torment of believing in Christ and the Bible while struggling with homosexuality. To read about a committed Christian's experience growing up homosexual, click here. I don't agree with many of his ideas on homosexuality in the Bible, but I think it's important for Christians to glimpse his struggle. 


2) Are homosexuals going to hell? 


Unfortunately, the American church's track record with homosexuality is embarrassing and hurtful. For some reason, ignorant Christians have decided that their task in life is to shout from the roof-tops that gays are going to hell. 

ATTENTION AMERICAN CHRISTIANS: GAY PEOPLE KNOW WE DON'T APPROVE OF THEIR LIFESTYLE. So let's find a way to stand for truth while still loving our neighbor. 

That said, I don't believe gay people are going to hell for being gay anymore than I believe heterosexual people are going to hell for having sex outside of marriage. Orthodox Christians believe that all men are sinful, meaning all men commit actions that separate them from God. This separation and sinfulness is what makes Christ's death on the cross necessary, to atone for the sinfulness of man and allow God's justice to prevail without punishing sinful man.  So, the fact that we are sinful in many ways is what separates us from God and sends us to hell. Only when man admits he needs a savior in Christ does this separation end, whether you are gay or straight. 


Here's the rub for me. Many Christians believe this theology,  but they don't want to admit that their own actions are sinful. Instead, they focus on easy "target sins" like sloth, gluttony, or of course, the all-time favorite, homosexuality. These same Christians will, however, step out of their $600,000 homes to drive their brand new luxury car to their million dollar vacation homes and not think twice about their sins of materialism.  The Bible has ove 2000 verses (!) telling Christians to be generous with their time, talents, and money. Jesus is very clear about the mandate to care for the "least of these" (Matthew 25); the prophet Isaiah warns of the false religiosity of people who refuse to care for the poor and vulnerable (Isaiah 58); James calls "pure religion" caring for "the orphans and widows in their distress." It's much simpler and less messy for the church to lambast homosexuality, however, instead of speaking to the actuals sins of church congregations. 


So, those are my thoughts. I'll leave you with this video clip of Tim Keller at the Veritas Forum at Columbia University, which is where I got many of my ideas for this post. 

I'm back

So, I've taken a blogging hiatus since December, mostly because December was a crazy busy month, but also because I'm pregnant! And being pregnant means that I've been sick for the last 8-9 weeks and haven't felt like getting up off of the sofa, much less blogging or exercising any higher level thinking skills. Now that I'm pregnant, and especially in light of the recent debates over the Planned Parenthood-Susan G. Komen scandal, the Virginia bill over trans-vaginal ultrasounds before allowing abortion, and the whole contraceptives from Catholic institutions mess, the issue of women's rights and pregnancy seem to have been blasting from all media sources. 


I've always been opposed to abortion because I feel that a child is a child from the moment of conception. With my own child growing inside of me, I have been reading more and more about fetal development in the first trimester of pregnancy: the baby can feel pain, has fingernails, has all major body organs, kicks and swims gracefully in the amniotic sac, has reflexes, and by week 12 can even suck it's thumb. To me, all of these milestones are markers of humanity. And as I've read about my baby's progress and seen my baby's ultrasound, I keep being reminded that thousands of babies are killed despite showing these markers of humanity. No, my child could not survive outside of the womb. But when people raise this issue, I'm reminded that no infant can survive outside the womb without someone caring for it. 


I'm not opposed to contraceptives or sexual education. I experienced both and was especially grateful for contraceptives so that Tucker and I could somewhat plan when we started our family. But I get so frustrated with the liberal-conservative vitriol over the issue of abortion. Liberals claim that pro-lifers are misogynistic for wanting to limit a woman's rights to her body. Conservatives claim that pro-choicers are favoring convenience over a child's life. Both sides are guilty of hypocrisy. Liberals rail on conservatives for being pro-life while limiting access to basic human rights like healthcare. My question for liberals is how a child's right to life is not considered a basic human right? Further, how can some claim a woman's right to her body trumps a child's right to live?  Many pro-choicers claim that a woman's rights have precedence because the fetus is not truly human yet. But as Ayelet Waldman's interview admits, as quoted below, with modern-day technology, it's hard to argue a fetus is just a "clump of cells."


I'm not saying that many women don't agonize over the issue of abortion. Ayelet Waldman gave a raw, emotional interview with NPR's Fresh Air describing her second-trimester abortion and the searing pain of knowing she had killed her baby after finding out that the baby could potentially have a chromosomal disorder. She admitted that it wasn't a matter of not being able to afford care for the child but that it was a matter of not wanting to care for a special needs child. After making her decision, she was depressed for over a year. She was racked with guilt. Yet, she still supports a woman's right to choose. While I don't understand her perspective, I respect her honesty in facing the fact that she did not abort "a clump of cells" but that she killed her baby. Here is an excerpt from her interview:

“For women of my mother’s generation, who struggled so hard to get the right to abortion, what they needed to do in order to achieve that right and to maintain it was to describe what they were doing in a certain way. So I - you know, when they were describing the process of having an abortion, language was really important to them.

“So they never called the baby a baby. It was a fetus. It was an embryo at best, you know. It was - and this is a quote - a clump of cells. But to women like me, who've grown up in the age of the ultrasound, we now have three-dimensional ultrasounds of our babies from the very beginning, you know, when we can actually see their features, recognizable features, and we can see them suck their thumbs. And for us, abortion - even though I think I am absolutely as committed to choice as my mother is - the idea of abortion and the fact of abortion has become something very different. And I think women of my mother’s generation are very uncomfortable with how we talk about abortion….

“Well, we had a D&E, which is a dilation and extraction, which is they, you know - and here’s another point where, you know, my mother and I differ completely on this. You know, my mother, when she describes a procedure, she doesn't describe the details. And for me, I needed to know exactly what was happening. And in this procedure, your cervix is dilated, and the baby is extracted, and the baby's extracted, essentially, in pieces from your uterus.

“It's horrible. It’s - the photographs that you see that the right-to-lifers show, you know, they're real photographs. I mean, that's really what it’s like. And I say this because I feel like I can’t support a woman’s right to choose unless I’m willing to look at the darkest side of it, and that was the darkest side of it.

“So one of the things I asked the incredibly generous, gentle doctor who did the abortion was, I asked him if he would make sure that the baby didn’t feel anything. That was – sorry (crying) That was really important to me, that he be dead, essentially, before that grim process took place. And the doctor promised me that he would give an injection that would make that happen.”

I think I would respect pro-choicers more if they at least admitted that it's not "all about a woman's right to her body" as if somehow there is no other person involved. There are other people involved, one person in particular: the child, who is being killed by no fault of its own.


But to me, Conservatives are just as hypocritical. Conservatives rail on liberals for being murderers, yet these same right-wingers will readily jump on board with the United States' imperialistic war aims, nuclear proliferation programs, and death penalty defenses. My question for conservatives is, if you're going to be pro-life, shouldn't you carefully consider war, nuclear issues, and the death penalty? How is an aborted child any different than a death-row inmate that's not truly guilty, or innocent civilians caught up in drone attacks? Shouldn't conservatives also be trailblazers for international aid programs and fair-trade support to protect children overseas from slavery and trafficking? Shouldn't conservatives be front-runners for foster care programs and adoption programs? If conservatives truly believe in anti-abortion, shouldn't they be just as concerned with caring for the children after they are born? Otherwise their rhetoric for cherishing and protecting life falls flat. 


I read a New York Times Op-Ed today called "The Safe, Legal, Rare Illusion" that revealed the similarities among Republicans and Democrats regarding the abortion issue as well as the cracks in each sides' argument. The author claimed the pitfalls of the Conservatives' program against abortion was  

"that it doesn’t map particularly well onto contemporary mores and life patterns. A successful chastity-centric culture seems to depend on a level of social cohesion, religious intensity and shared values that exists only in small pockets of the country." 

About Liberals' program against abortion, the author explained, 

"a lack of contraceptive access simply doesn’t seem to be a significant factor in unplanned pregnancy in the United States. When the Alan Guttmacher Institute surveyed more than 10,000 women who had procured abortions in 2000 and 2001, it found that only 12 percent cited problems obtaining birth control as a reason for their pregnancies. A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of teenage mothers found similar results: Only 13 percent of the teens reported having had trouble getting contraception." 

The author, clearly favoring a more right-to-life stance, concluded his article with the following:

"At the very least, American conservatives are hardly crazy to reject a model for sex, marriage and family that seems to depend heavily on higher-than-average abortion rates. They’ve seen that future in places like liberal, cosmopolitan New York, where two in five pregnancies end in abortion. And it isn’t a pretty sight."

I don't think that pro-choicers and pro-lifers will ever admittedly share common ground. But I sure would love to see us engage in respectful discourse that admits the areas of hypocrisy in each sides' arguments and stops using hyperbolic rhetoric that reveals at best half-truths. In other words, the media rants against Susan G. Komen and Rush Limbaugh's offensive comments need to stop.  This type of mudslinging doesn't help anyone, least of all the unborn children many conservatives hope to speak for.