Homosexuals, Prejudice, the Bible and the Supreme Court

Life was harsh in Old Testament times. The Israelites did not permit prisons or rehabilitation. Anyone who deviated from the norm was stoned to death or exiled. The norm included the death penalty for crimes of murder, attacking or cursing a parent, kidnapping, failure to confine an animal resulting in death, witchcraft/sorcery, doing work on the Sabbath, incest, homosexual acts, blasphemy/cursing, false prophecy (pundits beware), perjury in capital cases, adultery and false claim of a woman's virginity at the time of marriage.

Contemporary prejudices, fears, misconceptions, beliefs and attitudes make being homosexual more negative in our society than being as guilty of most of the other deadly 'sins' mentioned above. Cultural and political bias (or simple misguidedness) influence those sentiments veiled as religion.

Heresy? Guaranteed eternal condemnation from a vengeful God?

Homophobic proponents claim Biblical dogma as the basis for their conviction. But what of all the other above 'heinous crimes/sins?' They still carry a death sentence today and are still as vile as being a homosexual because Biblical dogma doesn't change. It would be an interesting statistic to see the size of our incarcerated population awaiting execution for working on Sunday.

The challenge of accurately interpreting Bible text is to determine what message was originally intended, its context for people of that time and what universal message it contains that is applicable in our time.

Presbyterian theologian Mark Achtemeier thought and prayed about this more than most of us. He staunchly supported traditional anti-homosexuality views, but in his book, The Bible’s Yes to Same-Sex Marriage, An Evangelical's Change of Heart, he writes:

"I was a conservative church activist working hard to defend the “traditional” teaching of my own Presbyterian Church (USA) that was condemning homosexual practice. Those efforts proved successful, and the result was a constitutional ban on gay ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA), beginning in the summer of 1997. The passage of fourteen years found me working to repeal the ban on gay ordination I had once helped put in place."

Achtemeier concludes that traditional condemnations of homosexual acts are based on a fragmentary reading of the Bible that is inconsistent with overall Bible teachings:

"I found strong reasons for doubting whether the church’s traditional condemnations of homosexuality were in line with the 'will of God.' ...how it was possible for those teachings to be mistaken, even though they seemed to be based on a reasonably straightforward reading of individual passages taken from the Bible. I found strong evidence, both in the history of the church and in the testimony of the New Testament...that (a) fragment approach to interpreting biblical Law is unreliable and highly prone to error. ...(and) that the traditional condemnations were contrary to the 'will and plan of God.'"

He goes on:

"The predecessor denominations of my own Presbyterian Church (USA) split over the issue of slavery in the mid-1800s. Going back and reading about that history, one discovers that the pro-slavery churches were defending their positions by appeal to the Bible! Isolated fragments, pulled out and interpreted apart from the overall witness of the Scripture, led those devout southern Presbyterians to conclude that their pro-slavery cause was blessed by God. Another such episode, which extends into more recent times, saw well-intentioned Christians appealing to isolated scriptural fragments as they argued to keep women in subordinate roles within both church and society. The fragment method clearly has a long and sad history of providing 'biblical' justification for teachings that we can recognize in hindsight as contrary to the will of God."

If we are sincere about using the Bible for guidance, we must not assume the Bible passages on homosexuality support our own conservative or liberal viewpoints. Are these teachings not like the Bible teachings on slavery and subjugation of women, i.e., remnants of a human-designed, fear-mongering, bible-control era incompatible with Scriptural teachings about God's love and mercy for all people?

Our answers are strongly influenced by learnings from authority figures in life that develop into personal feelings about homosexuality, never objectively learning for ourselves by leaving past bias behind in the search.

Christians opposed to political and social equality for homosexuals appeal to moral injunctions in the Bible.  Scripture is claimed to be very clear on the matter; verses are cited that support their opinion.

They accuse others of perverting and distorting texts contrary to "THEIR CLEAR" meaning. They do not, however, necessarily see quite as clear a meaning in biblical passages on economic conduct, the burdens of wealth, the sins of greed, lying, envy, cheating, adultery, divorce, sex outside marriage or eating shrimp, lobster and pork.

The inconsistencies never get reconciled in any other way than, "it's just what I believe; my Bible is my Constitution."

It is through the lens of a prejudiced belief, not a religious belief, that literalists "read" Scripture and morph a personal view into being self-righteously indignant based on Higher authority. We ALL interpret Scripture: make no mistake. But no one is truly a literalist, despite pious temptation.

The hypocritical part is that literalists 'cherry pick' what sins are to be piously read as still being, literally, 'deadly,' and what sins from that ancient culture can be ignored or slip by in our contemporary society as now being accepted behavior. THAT discussion is avoided. The topic is very uncomfortable, especially if you are divorced, had sex without a husband or wife or like to eat shrimp. 

Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity. It is inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless. It switches to a human system of political power to destroy what it spirituality cannot convert.

It is dangerous, especially in America, because the human system it uses is anti-democratic. It is suspicious of "the other," in whatever form that "other" might appear. To maintain itself, such conservatism must always define "the other" as deviant and unequal.

But the chief reason fundamentalism is dangerous is that, in the hands of worrisome clerics, preachers, pundits and politicians, it uses Scripture and Christian practice to encourage ordinarily good people to act upon their moral fears and human prejudice rather than their virtues--all in the name of a God that changed His/Her mind over the last 3500 years as to what was a sin and what wasn't.

Fortunately, those who speak for the religious right do not speak for all American Christians. The Bible is not theirs alone to interpret. 

The same Bible that the advocates of slavery used to protect their wicked self-interests is the Bible that inspired slaves to revolt and their liberators to action.

The same Bible that the predecessors of fundamentalist preachers used to keep white churches white is the source of inspiration for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the social reformation of the 1960's.

The same Bible that anti-feminists use to keep women silent in churches is the Bible that preaches liberation to captives and says that in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free.

The same Bible that cites an archaic social code from the ancient Middle East based on sameness, and uses a tortured reading of Paul to condemn all homosexuals, includes metaphors of redemption, renewal, inclusion and love. Principles that invite homosexuals to accept their freedom and responsibility in Christ and demands that their fellow Christians accept them as well, "that through me the proclamation might be completed and all Gentiles might hear it" (2 Tm 4:17).

The political piety of the fundamental religious to express themselves is not more righteous, nor does it trump, other freedoms. In this summer of discontent, one of the freedoms for which we must all fight is freedom from a prejudice whose assumed biblically-based premise is as biblically incompatible as slavery.

It is realistic to say that religious feelings won't easily change. But perhaps, after the recent US Supreme Court ruling that reaffirmed the Constitutional right to human dignity for all living in America, it is time to replace homophobic and xenophobic prejudice with tolerance, inclusion and love.

Citation: Mark Achtemeier. The Bible’s Yes to Same-Sex Marriage, An Evangelical's Change of Heart, Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. 2014. (Mark Achtemeier, PhD, serves the Presbyterian Church (USA) since 1984 as pastor, writer and theologian. He taught theology and ethics for 15 years as a faculty member of the Dubuque Theological Seminary.)