I'm a writer, or at least I pretend to be. I currently reside in the land closest to hell (I'll leave where that could be to your imagination). I'm a writer, a lesbian, a conservative, a dreamer, and, most importantly, an American.
I spent most of the day, yesterday, trying to figure out how to start this post.
I’m usually quite witty (if I do say so myself), but I’m honestly just very angry about this. Wit has deserted me in favor of mental equivalent of “HULK SMASH!”
Now let me preface this with something that I don’t talk about often.
I am not a Christian. Let’s get that out of the way so that I won’t be categorized as a “religious bigot”, “butthurt Christian”, “conservative fundie”, or any of the other terribly tolerant language that many liberal blogs have been categorizing anyone who takes issue with Savage’s language as.
It’s been a while since I worked on this series. Even longer for those of you reading this on my personal blog (The Snark Who Hunts Back) as opposed to the articles on Queerlandia. (Yes, they are posted in both places. It’s relevant to both blogs).
I’m writing about both Leviticus verses in one post today. Each verse on it’s own would be terribly short and both have some similar issues.
“‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”
- Leviticus 18:22
“‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
I ask that you seriously consider this. I’m not trying to change your mind, I’d just like to know. This is a topic that is usually so heated that it becomes a war of stereotypes very quickly, the stereotype of pro-gay and anti-gay, without room for talking about the actual policies of either side.
I’m not sure how many of you here are familiar with the term Demisexual. Here is a link to the information at the AVENwiki about what the term means, but I’ll give you a quick definition.
It essentially means that I don’t feel sexual attraction, lust, for a person until I’ve formed an emotional attachment.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t see a women and think “wow, she’s hot” or that I don’t check people out. I do, but I don’t think “wow, I would like to have sex with her right now”. It’s just a general assessment of how attractive a person is.
Stuart Gaffney, another writer on this site, just wrote a post about Santorum comparing same sex marriage to polyamorous marriage. This isn’t specifically connected to that post, but some of the comments made me remember a post I wrote about polyamorous marriage quite a while ago and I thought I’d pull it over from my blog to share here.
Hope you enjoy it!
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I don’t remember how, but during a conversation with a friend a while back the topic of poly-amorous relationships came up and we ended up discussing the fact that, from a Biblical standpoint, this whole “one man, one woman” rule just doesn’t wash. You see, the construct of “one man, one woman” marriage is actually a fairly modern* idea.
This led me to thinking about the old slippery slope argument used by so many Christian fundamentalists in online forums. (I would hope they’ve stopped using it, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve actively debated on any Christian forum, but these arguments have a shelf life longer than a box of twinkies) This little argument was one that was tried on me several times, because they thought it would trip me up and destroy my argument.
The argument is that if same-sex marriage were allowed, that would open the door for people to start demanding poly marriages as well. (Also marrying inanimate objects and family pets…*eyes roll violently*)
This argument failed to work on me, because I would reply “So? Sure, let them get married.” (not the inanimate object or pets, but that’s because neither of those groups can sign a marriage contract or give consent.)
Polyamory does not hurt anyone. I’ve known people who were in polyamorous relationships and they were very happy with the situation. It’s not something I completely understand, (mostly because I have a clingy, jealous streak a mile wide when I’m in a relationship, but that’s a different topic) but it’s not something that I have a problem with.
I know, I know. You’re saying “but Meredith! What about all of those Mormon compounds where they are marrying teenage girls to old men and holding them there against their will?”
Look, abuse happens in a certain percentage of any type of relationship; heterosexual, homosexual and polyamorous alike. I said I support the right for polyamorous relations that aren’t hurting anyone. Abuse, abduction and forced marriages are very much hurting someone. Those compounds are terrible places, run by insane people, and I would never support that type of situation as either legal or ethical.
However, consensual relations between more than two people is entirely different.
*Well…I say modern, but that’s a relative term. I mean that it was put in place by the Christian church in relatively recent times. Sometime slightly before the Middle Ages, by my understanding. If someone else has a better knowledge of the concept, you are welcome to share your information in the comments. I’m well aware that this period of history is not my best subject.
I think we can all remember a moment in our late teens or early adult hood when we needed to discuss something important with our parents, something that they would likely disagree with you on, but you needed to be a mature, responsible adult and have a mature conversation because that was the way to resolve the issue at hand.
10 minutes into the conversation and they don’t seem to be agreeing with all your well-thought out arguments.
So instead you start yelling at them in the middle of the living room, jumping up and down, acting like an idiot, throwing glitter all over the place and then you storm out of the house.
Oh wait, sorry, that was a segment of the gay community during a protest Michele Bachmann’s clinic in Minnesota.
This didn’t even start out mature. In fact, the people at the clinic dealt with the situation with much more grace than I would have under the circumstance’s.
I would have called the cops.
This was just embarrassing to the gay community as a whole.
Sorry, I thought the gay community was trying to have a mature debate over the legalities of same-sex marriage. Clearly I missed the memo about how we were going to revert to being 5 years old and start throwing tantrums to get what we want.
Same-sex marriage is a serious topic, one that needs mature discourse, not glitter bombing.
You want same-sex marriage? That means being an adult, because, last I checked, 5 year old children can’t get married.
You want to be treated as an adult. Then you better start behaving like one.
By the way.
This glitter bombing was done by the same guy that glitter bombed Newt Gingrich.
(btw: This video is hilarious)
I know when you are pissed off at someone, it seems easiest to throw a fit and scream at them. Believe, me, I know. That story up there at the top, minus the jumping up and down and glitter, and plus a little hysterical sobbing, is actually something that I’ve done before.
But you lose respect when you react in that way.
So next time you get pissed off and feel the urge to dress up like a barbarian and go scream at a receptionist somewhere, because you think it will be a great way to get your point across…don’t.
I remember when I was in high school that a popular come back for me if someone asked “when did you realize you were gay?” was to say “When did you realize you were straight?”.
It’s a funny comeback, I have to admit that.
But from a sociological perspective it’s complete and utter crap.
(2 of 7 from the Biblical verses “condemning” homosexuality in the documentary Fish Out Of Water.)
Genesis chapter 2 is a fairly lengthy bit of text to be quoting, so I’ll give you a link to website where you can read it in it’s entirety (in several translation of the Bible) and give you a quick walk through of what happens in this chapter.
God creates Adam, the first human, but then decides that Adam is looking a little bit lonely in that big garden. So he decides to make a “helper suitable for him”. He makes all sorts of animals, birds, beasts and fish and Adam names each and every one of them, but none of them were suitable helpers for Adam.
So God, in what I can only assume was a fit of frustration, puts Adam into a deep sleep and yanks out a rib. From it he forms the first woman, who would be named Eve after the fall. (You notice that she doesn’t get her own name until she does something bad…).
Now here is where it gets interesting, because this verse is regularly used to prove that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but this verse proves no such thing.
