LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

I always wondered, could one of the factors in the Christians abhorring homosexuality stem from the rejection of Greco-Roman culture which was very homosexual friendly?

Also known as Achillesforever6 of Lordkat.com fame

It's been considered, but admitting to it would require the Church to admit bias seeped into Their Holy Book.

edited 17th Apr '12 9:19:21 AM by LMage

"You are never taller then when standing up for yourself"

Truth to be told, the Romans at least were not as "homosexual friendly" as they are sometimes depicted. The punishment for homosexuality in the army was death, and not a pleasant one — beaten to death, I think, but I might be wrong about this. After all, the receptive subject was made feminine and weak, right? And we cannot have people making other people weak in our army...

Now, it is true that nobody much cared if some wealthy Roman citizen had his way with some poor slave boy. Yeah, the slave boy is made weak and feminine and unworthy, but who gives a damn about him?

Quite obviously, I (and I think, everybody else here) don't really consider this to be a very good outlook; and it does not surprise me that Saint Paul and many early Christian thinkers shared this point of view.

One thing to remember is that the Christians — at least those of all denominations I can think of — do not consider the Bible to be divinely given, but divinely inspired. The point of views and biases of the human writers are certainly reflected in it, I think that there is no real doubt about that. And in any case, it's not like the Bible talks about homosexuality at length — it mentions it in a couple of passages, and that's it. The New Testament talks much more about the necessity of fasting, which seems to have fallen out of fashion among us Christians (not that I consider that entirely a bad thing, considering some of the excesses of the past — the anorexic Saints of the Middle Ages, for example.)

edited 17th Apr '12 10:28:38 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

In theory, yes. In my experience and in a lot of practice,m though, a lot of the more vocal and fundamentalist christian sects believe Divinely Inspired means "God told them the exact words to say and theres no chance in hell they were mistranslated or the translator didnt have proper context, and therefore the entire book is infallible"

I am especially non-literalistic myself, but I think that it's not only an issue of translation. For example, by reading its letters it is clear that Paul believed that the Second Coming was a very close thing, that it would arrive very soon — hence his discussing on whether the people who are still alive for it will have any advantage over those who die before, and so on.

And guess what, he was wrong. He was an insightful, passionate, incredibly intelligent and honest person — that much is also evident from his writings — and he was entirely in the wrong on this. That happens, divine inspiration or no divine inspiration.

Now, I speak only for myself here; but if he was wrong on the matter of the Second Coming, is there any particular reason to think that he could not be wrong in his wide condemnation of homosexual behaviour as a whole? Especially given that the forms of it that he was familiar with were objectively appalling?

edited 17th Apr '12 10:53:42 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

...Or was he?

edited 17th Apr '12 10:53:07 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

(I'm going to be playing devil's advocate here, so don't take me for my word but do consider these points.)

The biggest question in my mind is, why does one group have the right to discriminate against another? What makes this different from any other discrimination? Why is it not considered just as despicable?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Something of a derail, but in regards to Greece at least, homosexuality wasn't punished at all in the army and in fact was encouraged case in point

On the subject of the Bible, several of the Christians I have talked to on the subject, only one has ever said that the Bible could be flawed, the others all insist it is infallible.

edited 17th Apr '12 12:21:00 PM by LMage

"You are never taller then when standing up for yourself"

Read again what Carc said. Basically the ancient world had a different take on homosexuality. For them it was no sexual identity or anything like that. It was just a sexual practice. However, it made a great different if you were "giving" or "receiving". Basically, it was only gay when you were receiving it... because that was seen as submitting, as emasculating and feminine. The Romans solved that problem by upper class men buggering slaves or at least lower class people. The Greek solved it by pedastery - it was acceptable for youths to be "submitting" to older men, and then later do the same to the same to other youths when they'd become the older men.

So really, no, you cannot really draw a parallel to modern homosexuality,

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

I was not referring to the Greeks, although it must be said that the reason why the Sacred Band of Thebes was famous was because it was an exception: generally, the receptive partners were considered unmanly and certainly not fit to be soldiers — for example, after seeing them die valorously, Philip II said

which does not make much of a sense, as a comment, unless there was a widespread assumption that what the Sacred Band did was in some sense unseemly.

But as for the Romans, to whom I was referring to, Wikipedia says that

edited 17th Apr '12 1:36:03 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I don't think the Sacred Band was an exception. It was certainly unique in building an entire unit around the concept, but the socially acceptable venues of homosexuality very much were practiced in all Greek militaries. The Spartans especially were known for that. Hell, the Greeks culturally regarded those forms of sex even higher than heterosexual sex (mostly because they were all misogynsit fuckwits).

edited 17th Apr '12 1:40:41 PM by Octo

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Point taken. I should probably study the matter more; but it is probably true that the Greeks had not exactly the same "bottom=bad, top=good" dynamics that the Romans had.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I recall reading a fairly lengthy excerpt from Cato Th Elder denouncing it. Though, I think he was decrying the increasing influx of Greek culture in general more so than homosexuality specifically*

.

No one's answered:

Why does one group have the right to discriminate against another? What makes this different from any other discrimination? Why is it not considered just as despicable?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Why would that be the "devil's advocate" argument again?

The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing.

Even if it has a point, I plan to take it to its logical extreme to effectively demonstrate it?

Yes, I know.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Based on what I've read, their mindset seems to be that they are upholding God's law, and God's law is higher than any other consideration. If something is a sin, then they have a duty to keep others from sinning, and if that means depriving them of basic human and legal rights, then so be it. You can justify any number of atrocities by saying "It is God's will."

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

So why is this any better then the people who gun down innocents of a different religion or race in the name of god? The majority of the same people who are anti-LGBT would condemn such actions, but they're effectively doing the same thing and in rare cases literally doing it.

How do they know what god wants? Because some human said it? Who gave him athority? Other humans. Humans that we all know are flawed. Humans who constantly say things that are arrogant, ignorant, full of logical fallacies (including this), lies or just wrong. Sometimes combinations of those at the same time.

Yes, even the pope is human and flawed, and the idea that he might not be is both ignorant and arrogant - even though they'll never admit it.

Don't they think depriving people of their supposedly god-given human rights, open discrimination against them or killing them in the name of something is a substantially bigger sin then what those people are doing?

(I'm aware it all boils down to "stop trying to shove your religion down my throat" but there's no reasoning with these people anyways. It's even been demonstrated - repeatedly - in this thread. Yes, I'm probably being very harsh on them but considering these people try to be the moral compass for everyone else no matter if they like it or not, of course I'm going to be harsh.)

edited 17th Apr '12 4:04:56 PM by Vehudur

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

No different, really. They will say that they don't support violence against homosexuals, but won't lift a finger in defense of victims of the anti-gay violence that results from their efforts to dehumanize them.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

Well, in my experience anti-gay prejudice more stems from "You're different I don't like that" than "DIE HEATHEN SCUM". Even if they use "HOMOSEXUALS ARE THE SERVANTS OF HELL" an an excuse it's just, well, an excuse. It doesn't even really matter if you're gay (*All the times I've been called faggot it's been people who would have no reason to think I'm gay*), it's just an excuse to hammer down the nail that sticks out.

Actually, this song does a really, really good job of explaining why anti-gay violence occurs.

Yeah, I know, a song, but it really makes the point more eloquently than I could.

Or, to put it differently, if there was no religion, I still wouldn't be openly gay in rural Texas.

edited 17th Apr '12 6:17:15 PM by inane242

The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.

Christians called me "gay", "fag" and "queer" when I was younger. Even though I am straight, the fact that I was quiet, bookish and not interested in sports meant that I had to be a homo, right?

Churches teach children to hate and bully other children. It's a fact of life. We can start to change that fact and teach people that It Gets Better, and they can leave when they get older.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

No it's not.

Now it is.

I would recommend against making too broad generalisations from anecdotal evidence, even if it's your own.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Not gonna argue there.

I'm just saying that even if they weren't particularly religious, they probably would have called you the same things.

Though it's different in adults, homophobic adults have self control, and will just think you're a fag. They won't say it to your face nowadays unless they're very religious.

I mean, all the big examples of anti-gay violence that spring to mind? Most involve teen-on-teen violence.

edited 17th Apr '12 6:55:20 PM by inane242

The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.

But where does the prejudice come from? I've never met an atheist homophobe. Every gay basher I've ever known, met or heard of is a Christian.

And as far as it coming from teens, look up "Tyra Hunter".

edited 17th Apr '12 6:58:36 PM by Lawyerdude

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

I have. A few of them. The reasoning then seems to be "Gays are pussies" or some shit. I can't quite recall. It's been a while since high school. Honestly I've had more issues with atheists than I have with Christians or the theistically religious throughout my time in California.

Some are Buddhist that I've met or heard of. We generally disapprove of those at our temple since we hail from the LGBT supporting side of Thailand. The country is pretty much split in two.

edited 17th Apr '12 7:00:28 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah