I'm fairly conservative in my theological views. I believe that the
Bible is morally authoritative, that sex is for marriage, and that promiscuity
is harmful to everyone involved. But, for many years of my life, I also
believed that all homosexual behaviour was wrong — whether it consisted of
anonymous hookups or committed relationships. I believed, based on what I was taught
that even the most loving and monogamous of same-sex relationships was evil in
God's eyes. In recent years, my view on
that subject changed. I now believe that homosexual behaviour is appropriate
within the confines of a committed, loving, monogamous, lifelong relationship.
As Cyprus’ first-ever gay pride parade draws near the Church
began its onslaught, calling homosexuality, “an affliction and a moral downfall.”
The Holy Synod, headed by Archbishop Chrysostomos, said events like gay pride
parades were “saddening and worrying.”
The Church claims that science says that homosexuality is an
affliction. “Therefore it should be properly treated. The church is opposed to
all attempts for homosexuality to be socially accepted and protected by law.”
The Synod said homosexuality has led to a global lax in
morality, which in turn has led to “tragic results such as an increase in
divorce, paedophilia, people dying of AIDS, families torn apart, the unnatural
adoption of children and many more. These are the strongest arguments against
this unnatural way of life,” it said.
Much to my disappointment, I’ve been embroiled in debates
about homosexuality many times, and every time, someone defending homosexual
behaviour brings up divorce. “If
marriage is so important to you,” the retort will go, “why don’t you ever talk
about the sin of divorce?” The
implication being: “You are just picking on homosexuals. You don’t follow the literal letter of the
law any more than we do. If you did, you
would be focusing on divorce, because that’s the bigger issue in our churches.”
Consensus now exists that paedophilia is a distinct sexual
orientation, not something that develops in someone who is homosexual or
heterosexual. Some people with paedophilic urges are also attracted to adults,
and may act only on the latter urges. Because people with paedophilic urges
tend to be attracted to children of a particular gender, they are sometimes
described in the literature as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual paedophiles.
Homosexual adults are no more likely than heterosexuals to abuse children.
HIV is a gay disease – a myth that refuses to die. Misinformation, fear, ignorance and
media sensationalism continue to fuel this myth in Cyprus. For every one person
like me trying to tell the truth about HIV transmission, there seems to be a
dozen shrieking, simpleminded people with a staggering inability to grasp
reality.
HIV is not a gay disease. All of us are at risk in getting HIV from
unsafe sex or other modes of blood to blood contact, like sharing needles.
Television talk shows and all those fundamentalist/conservative/family values
groups are chock full of flaky, clueless lightweights who made up their minds
twenty years ago that HIV is a product of the so-called "gay
lifestyle" and it's God's wrath on homosexuals. These poor creatures are
so invested in this myth that they are incapable of hearing the truth. They
continue to spew their self-righteous, delusional feculence to the detriment of
all humanity. They are, in fact, shameless, insidious prevaricators driven
solely by their irrational loathing and fear of homosexuality.
God does not ask us to choose between compassion and faith in the Bible.
Christians are increasingly divided over the issue of the acceptance and
inclusion of gay persons into the church. The debate itself is usually framed
as essentially pitting the Bible, on one hand, against compassion and social
justice on the other. Our Christian hearts compel us to grant full moral and
legal equality to gay and lesbian people.
Compassion for others is the fundamental cornerstone of Christian
ethics; the Bible is the bedrock of the Christian faith. What Christian can
possibly choose between the two?
The answer is that no Christian is called upon to make that choice. The
text of the Bible on one hand, and full equality for gay and lesbian people on
the other, is a false dichotomy. God would not ask or expect Christians to ever
choose between their compassion and their faith.
Reconciling the Bible with unqualified acceptance and equality for LGBT
people does not necessitate discounting, recasting, or deconstructing the
Bible. All it takes is reading those passages of the Bible wherein
homosexuality is mentioned with the same care that we would any other passage
of the book.
We can trust God; we can trust that God loves. And we can trust that we
can take God, in this matter, as in all things, at his word. If there is no clearly
stated directive in the Bible to sideline and banish gay people, then it is
morally indefensible for Christians to continue to do so. What cannot be denied
is that Christians have caused a great deal of pain and suffering to gay
persons by:
·
Banning
their participation in the church, thus depriving them of the comforts and
spiritual fruits of the church.
·
Banning
their participation in the sacrament of marriage, thus depriving them of the
comforts and spiritual fruits of marriage.
·
Damaging
the bonds between gays and their straight family members, thus weakening the
comforts and spiritual fruits of family life for both gays and their families.
·
Using
their position within society as spokespersons for God to proclaim that all
homosexual relations are disdained by God, thus knowingly contributing to the
cruel persecution of a minority population.
Christians do not deny that they have done these things. However, they
contend that they have no choice but to do these things, based on what they say
is a clear directive about homosexuals delivered to them by God through the
Holy Bible. They assert that the Bible defines all homosexual acts as sinful,
instructs them to exclude from full participation in the church all
non-repentant sinners (including gay people), and morally calls upon them to
publicly (or at least resolutely) denounce homosexual acts.
Without an explicit directive from God to exclude and condemn
homosexuals, the Christian community’s treatment of gay persons is in clear
violation of what Jesus and the New Testament writers pointedly identified as
one-half of God’s most important commandment: to love one’s neighbour as one’s
self.
A recent spiritual journey on YouTube led me to a movie titled “Prayers
for Bobby”. Based on the life of Bobby Griffith, this all-American boy grew up
as an innocent, happy and intelligent child with an obedient and gentle spirit.
But as he grew into adolescence, he discovered that he was attracted to other
teenage boys his age or older and not girls. And because Bobby was raised as a
devout Christian and was taught that being gay was one of the worst sins
imaginable, he believed that he was defective, that he was going to burn in
Hell for eternity, and that he was unworthy of God’s love.
Bobby was very aware of his church’s teachings because he was very
active in the Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church in Walnut Creek, California
along with his brother, two sisters and mother, Mary, who taught Sunday school.
Unable to handle the irresolvable daily struggles and conflict with both his
family and his religion, Bobby jumped off a bridge onto a busy highway in front
of a large tractor trailer in Portland, Oregon and was killed instantly due to
massive internal injuries.
His detailed personal diaries are filled with diatribes of self-hate
because he believed that as a homosexual, he was a worthless human being and
innately evil – a tool of the Devil. He believed these things because that was
what his church taught. He thought that he had no reason to live because he
wasn’t allowed to love who he was attracted to and was damned no matter what he
did.
The grieving Mary Griffith was convinced that she was very much to blame
for her son’s incomprehensible death. Because of her constant and incessant
preaching to him of the evilness of homosexuality, by continually quoting a
stream of bible verses at him in a campaign to convince him to “change” from
being gay to straight, which she later learned was not possible, and by being
openly ashamed of him, she believed that in her ignorance she had unknowingly
helped push him over the edge. She came to believe that she had sacrificed her
child in the name of rigid, uncaring religious tradition when all she should
have done was tell him that he was perfectly all right just as he was. After
his death her beloved church turned its back on the surviving family and was
unable to help them explain what went wrong or offer much comfort. She then
reexamined her theology and beliefs about homosexuality and was herself
radically transformed when she educated herself about the truth of what it
means to be gay or lesbian.
Mary Griffith's reexamination of her theology consisted of two very
important things that she did after she read her son’s revealing diaries. The
first was to find out from the minister of the local Concord Metropolitan
Community Church, Larry Whitsell, that there was an alternative and much more
compassionate, logical and accurate view of the teachings in the Bible which
accepted her gay son just the way he was, that he was neither defective nor
dammed and that God would never have wanted him to try to change himself into a
heterosexual. The second was to get to know the members of the local P-FLAG* organisation,
and to sit in on their meetings and listen to the heart wrenching stories of
these families who have a loved one who is gay or lesbian. Since then she has
been a national crusader for gay and lesbian youth, doing her best to right the
terrible wrongs that society and the organised church have inflicted on this
stigmatised and denigrated minority.
Back
on the home front, the Head of European Commission
Representation in Cyprus Giorgos Markopouliotis said, “LGBT people were victims
of discrimination on a daily basis which forces them to hide their identity as
a survival strategy. An EU study conducted in 2012 amongst the LGBT community
showed that half of them were victims of discrimination or were harassed due to
their sexual orientation.”
Markopouliotis
said that in Cyprus thirty-nine per cent of gay peoples shy away from publicly
expressing their sexual identity, fearing that they will be targeted.
Seventy-six per cent claim that they don’t hold hands with their partner in
public while fifty-six per cent said they had been victims of discrimination.
The gay community has cried out for justice in Cyprus for many
years. The suffering imposed on gay
persons is severe and unchristian like; the directive from God to marginalise
and ostracise gay people would have to be clear and explicit in the
Bible. If there is no such clearly stated directive, then the continued mistreatment
of gay and lesbian people is morally indefensible, and must cease.
The recent support shown by remarkable icons such as Whoopi Goldberg,
Olympia Dukakis and Harry Mavromichalis is an inspiring prayer to all Cypriots
to embrace and welcome the first Gay pride festival in Cyprus, and a sign that
Cyprus is finally making strides in leaving behind prejudices.
*P-FLAG is a national organisation and support group
of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
