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Am I going to go to hell because I like men or women? This is the simple question that plagues many young homosexuals today. Recently the debate on homosexuality has morphed into a modern day civil rights fight with supporters and contesters all across the globe. Like any plausible debate there is preface. Many religious groups have turned to the Bible to support their opposition to homosexual acts and people. Christian churches such as the Westboro Baptist church have gathered at residential areas and public events holding anti-gay rallies and inciting hate crimes. According to the federal bureau of investigation in 2008 there were 1,617 homosexual hate crimes reported in America. Minister of Westboro Church, Fred Phelps, pulls his hate crime justification from the Bible. Many people carry the stigma that to be homosexual is abnormal and that homosexuals are a different breed of people. According to http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-brain.html “ the love gay couples experience for their partners is indistinguishable from the love heterosexuals share.” The evidence was collected from a series of brain scan and neurological tests. Despite all this evidence some people are still opposed to gay love and relationships. “Fire burn out gay people straight. I’m ah Rastafarian man. I use correct human judgment to see that gay cannot work, No partiality,” said 19 year old Emmanuel Thomas from the small French island of Dominica. Many people follow Thomas’ irrational view of hating a certain group of people without valid reason. In the 20’s it was called racism but today we use terms like opinion, free speech and religious doctrine to replace the ugly truth of discrimination. But for some Christians this kind of behaviour is simply unacceptable. “Judging people is not of the Christian faith, everyone falters and everyone is a sinner,” said 20 year old heterosexual Kaliqua Warrior. “People often sit down and try to pick parts of the Bible to follow. I interpret the main principal because I know it was written in a different time and translated many times. Jesus preached love and acceptance not condemnation and judgment.” Eighteen year old Psychology major Ashanti Allen-Williams has experienced the contradictory side of Christianity first hand. Allen-Williams said, “One day a friend of the family began to yell at me for being gay. She told me that we didn’t pray to the same God and that God doesn’t love me. She was so angry and I was so confused; she brainwashed me into saying that I wasn’t gay.” She added, “That was a horrible experience. Of course now I know that no one can brainwash me into being something that I’m not. This is me and there is nothing wrong with me.” Allen-Williams and her mother often had to church hop due to very condemning sermons and the noticeable reactions when members saw that Allen-Williams was openly gay and comfortable with her sexuality in Church. Despite all the negativity Allen-Williams says, “I am still looking for a church in Virginia that is more open. I know God loves me; he has blessed me significantly.”

When actually looking at the Bible correctly many will see that there is not as much basis for anti-homosexuality doctrine as people may like. According to www.gaychristian101.com:

1) Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 were written around 1450 BC yet no Jewish rabbi linked those verses to same sex couples until 2500 years later (AD 1100 time frame). If those verses were speaking of lesbians, wouldn't some secular Jewish writer or one of the human authors of the Old Testament have mentioned that important fact?

2) Moses Maimonides made the link in the 12th century AD but still insisted that lesbian conduct did NOT disqualify a woman from marrying a Jewish priest.

3) Therefore, every modern preacher who reads a prohibition of lesbianism into the Leviticus passages and then transfers that false assumption over to Romans 1:26 will always get Romans 1:26 wrong.

4) Paul's argument in Romans 1:26 is about idolatry - not lesbianism and not homosexuality. The sexual conduct Paul deplores in Romans 1:26 and 1:27 is conduct linked to idolatry. The specific idolatrous conduct that Paul refers to and which both women and men shared was shrine prostitution.

8 reasons why lesbians are not mentioned in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 • First, there is no penetration by the male. • Second, there is no transfer of semen. • Third, women were an underclass, so lesbianism posed no danger to family structure since women were compelled to marry a man. • Fourth, since female-female sexuality carried no risk of procreation, lesbianism posed no problem in determining paternity of children. • Fifth, some assert (falsely) that lesbianism may have been unknown to the Israelites and Canaanites. Because lesbianism is not mentioned in any legal materials from this time period in the ancient Near East, there was no reason to legislate against it. • Sixth, a woman could not loose her ‘manly honour’ in a sexual relationship with another woman. • Seventh, female same-sex activity did not challenge male domination. • Eighth, the male authors of scripture were more interested in males and their behavior than in females and their behavior.

Rabbi Migrom comments further "This Biblical prohibition is addressed only to Jews. Non-Jews are affected only if they reside in the Holy Land, but not elsewhere (see the closing exhortation in Leviticus 18:24-30). Thus, it is incorrect to apply this prohibition on a universal scale...

What is the rationale for this prohibition... in the entire list of forbidden sexual unions (in Leviticus 18 and 20), there is no prohibition against lesbianism.

Can it be that lesbianism did not exist in ancient times or that Scripture was unaware? Lesbians existed and flourished, as attested in an old (pre-Israelite) Babylonian text and in the work of the lesbian poet Sappho (born circa 612 BC, during the time of the First Temple), who came from the island of Lesbos (hence lesbianism).

But there is a fundamental difference between the homosexual acts of men and women. In lesbianism there is no spilling of seed. Thus life is not symbolically lost, and therefore lesbianism is not prohibited in the Bible...

Lesbian couples have an additional advantage. Not only do they not violate Biblical law, but through artificial insemination each can become the natural mother of her children. Thus from the Bible we can infer the following:

1. Lesbians, presumably half of the world's homosexual population, are not mentioned.

2. More than ninety-nine percent of the gays, namely non-Jews, are not addressed. This leaves the small number of male Jewish gays subject to this (Levitical) prohibition."

In recent days the media has been filled with news concerning the battle for equal rights and acceptance of gays in the military. Many of our nation’s leaders are opening dialogue for a fresh review of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy—affecting approximately 65,000 gays and lesbians proudly serving our country in the military. Today headlines were made as a major Southern Baptist leader suggested that people could actually be born gay. Yet, still claimed they were not acceptable to God. It is clear that the time has more than come to end this out-dated policy and faith of discrimination and exclusion...

Yet, one thing stands out clear to me on this whole issue. When the church has embraced God’s children equally, so will the country—love, compassion, tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance must be first embraced and practiced by our communities of faith, before we can expect to see large scale changes in our community and country. As long as Christianity allows hate and judgment to flow out of its churches, the battle will continue to wage in the country. When Christians unite on the unconditional love and grace of Christ, then true social change will follow.

God is love. He loves the whole wide world. The mission of Jesus in coming to earth was not to be the Savior of a select few. I Timothy 4:10 tells us that Christ is the Savior of all people; this would of course include not just gays and lesbians, but also you. The Gospel of John tells us repeatedly that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. The good news of the Christian gospel is that all people have now been forgiven and accepted by the God of extravagant grace.

Groups attempt to use the Bible to spread hate and judgment against gays. Thankfully many thousands of Christian churches are reexamining the Bible in the light of God’s unconditional love and grace, and realizing that these hate-based arguments are faulty. The time has come for the Christian community worldwide to swing the welcome doors open to the millions of gays and lesbians in our communities who have been shunned and made to feel unworthy of being active in our communities of faith and seek the fellowship of other Christians.

This will not be a transition without its challenges. Christ raised the opposition of the religious leaders by wrapping His arms of love and acceptance around Gentiles, slaves, women of the evening, lepers, thieves, and social outcasts of His day. Christ did not back down from the threats and hate of religion in His day, neither should we in ours.

For years many Southern churches used the Bible to back up and support such social evils as slavery and racism. They had their “key” texts that seemed to support their hatred and bigotry. Through the years, the light of God’s grace and inclusion tore these erroneous views down. They are held today only by small fear-based hate groups largely viewed as cultic. The same transition is taking place today on the issue of inclusion of gays and lesbians in the Christian community. When the Bible verses used to spread hate are viewed through the eyes of the love and grace revealed in Christ, we find that there is nothing in the New Testament message of Christ that excludes people from the family of faith based upon their sexual orientation.

Some use the Old Testament to ban gays from God’s family. The same verses would also ban all gentiles, those who eat shrimp and catfish, women on their monthly cycle from shaking hands with men, uncircumcised males of all races, along with demanded the death penalty for disobedient children. Such rules and laws are from an Old Covenant taken away by Christ on the Cross. The whole world today stands loved and forgiven by God through the amazing grace and love that came to us in Christ Jesus.

It is clear that just as Christ fought to include the outcasts into His kingdom and family of faith, the church today must continue the fight of love in welcoming and including into its family all people who have been made to feel unworthy of God’s love and grace. We cannot make the same mistake the church made during the holocaust and simply sit by and say nothing while millions suffer. Our message must be, no matter who you are or where you are on your journey in this life, in God’s love and grace, you are always welcome here. We can only overcome hate by spreading love and grace, and this must begin in you.
Christian Garrett
Pastor Grace Church
www.gracechurchcorpus.com

This is an editorial column page written by gay/gay-friendly residents of the Corpus Christi community. Columns are written with regards to the gay & lesbian lifestyle, politics, or current events. If you have something that you would like to submit for publish on GayCorpusChristi.com, write us at info@gaycorpuschristi.com.