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"There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, 'Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'What is written in the law? How do you read it?' He said in reply, 'You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' He replied to him, 'You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.'" (Luke 10: 25-28)
It is said that everyone is bigoted in some sense or another. So, I guess I must admit it; I am bigoted. I am bigoted against bigots. In fact, I can't stand bigots. Unfortunately, if I follow the logical progression, I can't stand myself. But that aside, I think the real problem is that I don't understand bigotry. Religious bigotry is the one I really don't understand.
I was baptized Catholic. I wore a long white dress and carried my ten-dollar candle for First Communion. And, the indication of any true Catholic, I spent every Saturday evening in church, in this case, St. Mary's. I sat on the hard wooden pew, legs swinging, and stood as the parish stood and sat down again as the parish sat; we sang and prayed. We listened to (in chronological order): Father Vince O'Malley, Father Ryan, Father Tom, the other Father Tom, Father Juan, and Father Rodreguez. I might be forgetting a few.
Cleone was a rather out-of-the-way parish, so we had quite a number of priests cycle through. Let's just say that Cleone is the kind of town where you have to drive an hour and a half to buy a pair of socks. Not the dream assignment. I got the sense that our parish was a kind of no-man's land-- a temporary home for confused and otherwise befuddled priests.
Each new priest had his own speaking style. Father Vince, the first priest I was old enough to remember, was usually a bit drunk, played the organ obnoxiously, deafeningly loud, and wouldn't make much sense. The first Father Tom read slowly from his typed notes; they were always in a presentation folder as if he kept them all labeled somewhere. The second Father Tom hated our "complacency," and tried to bully the parish into putting more money in the wicker collection baskets. It didn't work.
And as I think back, I have realized that each of them were actually rather staid in their sermons. We didn't hear about abortion or the death penalty or homosexuals or anything too controversial. I think that the first Father Tom brought up divorce once, but that was about it. Perhaps as a result of this, it never occurred to me that I was supposed to hate. It certainly never occurred to me that I should hate homosexuals. What were they going to do to me, anyway? Surround me and use their evil powers to convert me against my will? Carry out some fiendish plot to destroy the institution of marriage? Or, Heaven forbid, love another person of the same sex and have a committed relationship with that person, in my sight? How dare they.
I thought, as Catechism taught me, that the Christian God was the God of love. Unfortunately, there seem to be some complications to this. How can one explain war in the name of Christianity? How could the Crusaders fight and kill the "infidels" in the name of their God of love and tolerance?
My teacher, a stern old woman with cropped gray hair and a limp, said that that was another time. We have moved beyond that now, she told us with authority. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, the Crusade hasn't gone away, it has just changed; Christians no longer wage a declared war, but instead fight with an insidious, creeping hatred. The "New Crusade" becomes "Christians" bombing abortion clinics and waving hate-screaming signs at the funeral of the young gay man who was killed in Wyoming. I can't even imagine calling myself a follower of Jesus while at the same time holding a sign saying "Fags Must Die" or "AIDS is God's Judgment." Especially if I was shoving it in the faces of the family of a pleasant-spoken young man who was brutally murdered.
Perhaps there should be a rethinking of the word "Christian." It is my understanding, thanks to the Father Toms and company, that Jesus' greatest law was for Christians to love God, and then to love one's neighbors as oneself. Although I admit I am not a Bible scholar, I cannot find anywhere in its text an amendment to this statement, such as, "Love your neighbor as yourself, except if he is a homosexual (or fill in another appropriate word here)." But then, I was also under the apparently mistaken understanding that we are all sinners, and that we are not supposed to judge others.
I am put in mind of two quotes. The first is from a preface written by Charlotte Bronte in an edition of Jane Eyre. This selection is posted over my bed, where I can see it the moment I awake: "Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion.... Men too often confound them; they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming word of Christ.... The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth..."
So maybe some people won't accept Charlotte Bronte as an authority on religion. But perhaps they will listen to the words of their Christ. "He responded, 'Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts." You disregard God's commandment but cling to human tradition.... Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters from the outside can defile the person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.'" (Mark, 7: 6-16) Jesus was, of course, not referring to the Christian Coalition but rather the Jewish people, but I think his statements can be applied to the bigoted human race in general. Both quotes say in a more official way that God's law may be love, but if humans change and distort it to justify hatred, something went wrong somewhere.
I find this quote from the Gospel of Mark particularly interesting since the basis of much of the anti-homosexual feeling is due to one little fragment of Leviticus, a book mostly devoted to which outside things are unclean and not to be consumed; the very issue Jesus dismisses. Besides the condemnation of homosexuality, the book Leviticus is full of such useful tips as: which winged insects are acceptable for consumption, the correct animal for a prince to sacrifice when he offends God, and how to conduct the daily cereal offering. I somehow doubt that most of those people who are taking Leviticus as their authority for hating homosexuals conduct a daily cereal offering or even know what one is. I certainly didn't before reading it. I also doubt many of those who espouse the Christianity of hate spurn eating pork, or respect the need to break any vessels which a mouse, gecko or skink has touched, or indeed know anything about most of the other rules of Leviticus.
But here it is, in all its glory, from the section "The Sanctity of Sex:" "You shall not lay with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination." (Leviticus, 18:22) That's it. There is one more mention in the "Penalties for Various Sins" section: "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20: 13) Obviously "Christians" can't get away with that, because we are supposed to oppose the death penalty; I think that is the case anyway, although no doubt there are Christians who support killing criminals, and may even agree with this segment of Leviticus.
I don't understand the logic-- or illogic, as the case may be. How can you discard the hundreds of other lines in Leviticus and just take those few that allow you to justify hatred? Now I'm not saying that if you are a Christian you must believe in the Bible word for word, but by some quirk of logic, that is the very justification often given for hatred of homosexuals. "The Bible says homosexuality is bad, so I must hate gays." Well, the Bible also says that on the tenth day of the seventh month all men will fast, and other such things that I don't see too many people observe. If people are using the excuse that they must do as the Bible says, they ought to do all the Bible says, just not the parts they find convenient.
Then there is the famous Sodom and Gomorrah section, the grand condemnation of sodomy. In brief, two angels visit Lot at his home in Sodom. The townspeople swarm Lot's house and demand that he turn over his visitors so they might have their way with them. Commit indignities upon them, I believe is the phrase. Lot tells the crowd he will give them his two virgin daughters to do with as they will if only they will go away. God is apparently so impressed with this action that Lot and his family are allowed to leave the city before it is destroyed.
Now I have some doubt in my mind how moral it is to throw your two virgin daughters into a psychotic crowd with rape shining from every eye, but that aside, I suppose you could construe this section of Genesis to say that homosexuality is a horrid sin. However, the Bible is not consistent as to the reason for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In this Genesis account, the sin that brought God's wrath upon the cities was homosexuality. However, according to Isaiah it was a lack of social justice; Ezekiel attributed it to lack of kindness to the poor, while Jeremiah sees their sin as a sort of general immorality.
Regardless, this bit of Genesis doesn't convince me that homosexuals are evil. It doesn't need to convince me that the desire to rape others, male or female, is not acceptable; I already believe that. And it certainly doesn't tell me to hate; I think it is telling that in the section just before the destruction of Sodom, God says he would spare the city if there were but ten just men living there. He doesn't elaborate on what He means by just.
When people are determined to hate, and get that extra sparkle from being righteous about it, no logic can stop them. The Christian Coalition has taken on a new tactic in their war against homosexuals: they are claiming to be the injured ones. The line is: how dare you all call us bigoted; by doing that you expose your own bigotry and harm us. I tried, but I can't understand that.
But then I think about my grandparents. They are the kind of Southern Baptists who vote for Pat Robertson every time he makes a grab for the presidency. If they knew I associated with gay people, they would no doubt fear for my soul. Of course, they already do because I am a Catholic and worship Mary and idols, so will not be written in the book of life.
My family and I always spend the three days after Christmas with my grandparents. Last Christmas, we ended up trapped on the couch, politely attempting to not listen to my grandmother tell a long story about her neighbor. I don't really recall the details, but apparently the great excitement was that a new woman had moved on to the block. This new woman wasn't married, but she had a boyfriend. One day the boyfriend came over to my grandparent's house once to ask if they had any aspirin.
"I opened the door, and there was a black man standing there..." said my grandmother. My grandfather leaned farther forward in his brown recliner. Both had an expectant glint in their eyes. My parents and I stared back dully, waiting for the story to continue. It didn't, since we were too stupid to understand the point.
I can only imagine their views on gay people. I haven't dared to start that conversation. But they are Christians. They go to church every Sunday.
Now I admire a plain and simple belief in the Bible, probably because I can't seem to attain it myself. But there is a difference between simple faith and willful ignorance. There are certain irreconcilable differences between a doctrine of love and a belief that certain people are evil and deserve righteous hatred.
A friend of mine, who happens to be gay, once said, "I don't want to believe in a big bearded white man on a cloud who hates me." I don't either. It frightens me that some people say they believe in a God of Love while their actions proclaim that actually they believe in a hateful and vengeful God. They claim the Bible as their guide, but I can't let that stand. But neither can I blame the Bible for what some have made of it, anymore than I can blame Christianity for what some have done to it.
I think back on being a little girl. A little girl with shining brown hair cut in the shape of a mushroom, who swings her legs as she sits, careful not to hit the pew in front of her. She stares at the priest, white-robed and official-looking. He reads from his notes a message of love and acceptance. And around her sits the congregation. And now I wonder how those people took that message. How many of them hate.