Gay Bashing and Other Religious Practice
"Opinion"11/14/2005
Paul Munnis
In the book of Genesis, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God because of the sexual practices of their inhabitants. Ever since that news was written religious fundamentalists have used this passage in the Old Testament to preach against these sexual preferences and to kick out of organized religion all of those who practice the activities especially when they become lifestyle choices.
The New Testament of course carries a message of love, tolerance, and understanding. It encourages mankind to spiritual development – to come to know God and to love Him and to serve Him.
Mankind of course has at least two component parts comprising the very nature of man. The first is physical and the second spiritual.
Sexual activity is part of the physical world of man and in the lifecycle of man is temporary and transitory. It is temporary because sexual activity declines with age and it is transitory because the spirit of mankind can live long past the body decays from physical death. An example of spiritual notions living on way past bodily death are the non-violet teachings of both Christ and Ghandi.
A Church then, by its very purpose and mission, is a place for mankind to go in order to develop the spiritual nature of mankind; it is a training ground for spiritual development. By definition, Churches have nothing to do with the physical nature of mankind.
As men and women develop spiritually, they pass their values on to one another for assimilation into our human culture adding to the collective spiritual knowledge of mankind as well as contributing to the intellectual knowledge pool. They pass this on as their inheritance to future generations. In a sense this is a part of what is meant by “eternal life.”
Homosexuality is not a cultural or a lifestyle choice. More and more scientific evidence is pointing to this as a chromosomal configuration with DNA consequences arising from human breeding. This has been demonstrated recently by rapidly breeding fruit flies and counting those having homosexual behavioral characteristics and these studies are now being extended to include examination of the human genome.
Yet Churches are using their position as spiritual places of development as a basis for discrimination against some and to deny men and women of their civil rights—the exact opposite of why Churches exist.
Indeed our American Churches have taken to trying to obtain through legislation that which they have been unable to get through persuasion from the pulpit. And, in terms of persuasion through legislation, we note that they are also failing.
Why is that?
Do you suppose that it is because they are wrong to be dealing with the physical side of mankind to the detriment of dealing with the spiritual development of man?
What if, like a possibility, they were successful in developing the spiritual nature of mankind? Do you think that might influence the behavior of men and women? In this way might the spiritual become able to influence and to control the physical?
It seems not to matter if 8, 80, 800, 8000, or eight million ministers condemn the practices of homosexuality; yet still a new generation adopts them. Might it be time for these alleged ministers of the spirit to work on ministering to the spirit forgetting the sexual proclivities of the person that they are working with?
If they can’t or won’t do this are they then any good to themselves or anyone else in their capacity as ministers?
I hate to do this but I am going to remind the reader that if they attempt to purchase an insurance liability contract for the minister or priest at their Church they will find it very expensive. When you ask why you will be told it is because the profession has a wicked track record of sexual conduct by priests and ministers resulting in huge liability lawsuits and settlements. This was true long before the pedophilia of Catholic priests became a recent scandal in America. It does not seem to matter what denomination is involved.
Isn’t there something in the Bible about throwing the first stone? I think there is and that we would do well to demand that these priests and ministers return to their dwellings and meditate and to develop spiritually. They should do this before and instead of, throwing stones and encouraging discrimination and denial of civil rights to others.