Date:   9/12/2005 12:53:22 PM ( 20 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=271192

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Gay Bashing for Jesus
A large number of people who dislike homosexuality and homosexuals find a variety of ways to use Jesus as support for their bigotry. This is interesting, considering the fact that Jesus is regularly portrayed as sitting down and having friendly relations with those who would be considered the dregs of society. How times have changed.
Laura Parcells writes for The Cavalier Daily:

Does the Bible say homosexuality is wrong? Yes, there are arguably a few allusions to this in the massive text. However, the Bible also says that women are inferior creatures and that slaves should not make haste to free themselves. What we all need to understand that the Bible is, like everything else, a historical document. Even the letters of the New Testament were written to specific regions regarding specific problems that were to be resolved in specific ways. The Bible has been used as a means of social control since its inception, and has always been subject to the self-preserving interpretations of the ruling class.
Why do we insist on depriving people of true equality on the basis of something they cannot control, and which should not be of concern to us at all? Why must we ruin people's lives by telling them that what they are is not OK? To maintain the status quo? To not have to reckon with what it means to truly let everyone (and not just heterosexual, rich, white men) be equal? ... What people do not understand is that the white, heterosexual, Christian capitalist norms we are taught every day are not "neutral," as people like to believe, but are themselves political! These status quo perceptions need to be challenged, all the more because they are perceived as being "non-political" and "natural." Instead however, Christianity -- which in truth preaches nothing more radical than love -- is being used to maintain and further reify these social constructions which leave so many behind.
Parcells makes some very interesting comments about how Christianity gets used to maintain social control over people. Certain modes of behavior are labeled "normal" and, thus, removed from normal political debate. Part of that process is to portray those norms as being part of a natural Christian system, set forth in the Bible and followed faithfully by generations of God-fearing Christians. In this manner, real dissent and challenge are largely eliminated from the community through a combination of religious, political, and peer pressure

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/041821.htm


 

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