Accurately Describing the Bible Is Not Oppression
Slate.com
The manufactured outrage over Dan Savage's remarks about the Bible that
inspired what appears to be a staged walkout at a high school journalism
conference may appear on its surface mostly to be a last stand of the anti-gay
movement to regain ground by attacking one of the most compelling pro-gay
activists in the country. And it is, but winning the immediate battle is really
only the tip of the iceberg of what the right is trying to accomplish with this
feigned outrage and claims that Savage is a "bully" because he accurately
recounted what is in the Bible. It's an attempt to redefine acceptable
discourse so that statement of uncomfortable facts is considered off-limits,
and, in fact, is redefined as "bigotry." Unfortunately, some people are taking
the bait, such as Jay Michaelson writing for the Daily Beast, in a tone that
made it clear he would prefer to write from a prone position on his fainting
couch, smelling salts strapped to his laptop. See, Michaelson is incredibly
concerned that criticizing Christian teachings on homosexuality is bad for the
gays.
Michaelson would be easy to write off as a concerned troll, but to make things
worse, he speaks a falsehood about Savage's remarks. He says Savage's remarks
"represented a notable gay leader affirming that one must choose between
sexuality and religion, between God and gay." This is demonstrably untrue. In
fact, if you actually read Savage's remarks, he said the opposite:
We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people. The same
way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about
shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation,
about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all
sorts of things.
What Savage was clearly saying was that it's homophobes who are presenting a
false dilemma with their claims that you have to denounce homosexuality to be a
Christian. He was pointing out that it's easy to reconcile pro-gay sentiment
and Christianity by just doing what Christians are already doing when it comes
to shellfish and slavery, which is preferring their own moral judgment over the
Bible. So either Michaelson is lying about what Savage said, or he didn't
bother to read the comments he's denouncing, or he has poor reading
comprehension.
He does try to suggest that it's the last one when he claims that the Bible's
condemnations of homosexuality "can be understood literally, narrowly, and with
virtually no application to loving, same-sex relationships." Well, no, not if
you have basic reading comprehension skills. Leviticus is straightforward on
this: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."
Unless Michaelson believes that sexual penetration between a man and a woman
can't be loving, then this is straightforward: Gay sex is like straight sex,
and therefore it's an abomination by Biblical standards. (Plus, is Michaelson
suggesting that it's okay to be anti-gay in those cases where gay sex, as
straight sex often is, isn't in the context of committed, loving
relationships?) Savage is closer to the truth of how Christians (and Jews, too)
handle these kind of Biblical verses they don't agree with: They ignore them.
His advice is how religious people actually reconcile their faith to reality;
Michaelson taking umbrage is, at best, nonsensical, and at worst, some kind of
weird ax-grinding that has no respect for the truth.
Which is basically what this entire Savage dust-up is about. The American right
is undertaking a huge project of trying to put right-wing politics beyond
criticism by shouting "religious bigotry" any time someone gets in the way of
their political agenda. If they can create a consensus that it's somehow
off-limits to criticize teaching that gay people are subhuman as long as you
wrap it up in religion, that gives them a huge political advantage. Taken far
enough, merely stating out loud in public that you don't believe gay people are
evil could be cause for the fainting couches to be pulled out and accusations
that Christians are being oppressed. Sounds ludicrous? Well, consider that
we're currently debating whether or not it's oppressing Christians to
accurately state what's in the Bible. Anyone who is actually supportive of gay
rights shouldn't be playing along with this feigned umbrage. It won't stop
until opposing anti-gay actions is considered completely off-bounds on the
grounds that it's an attack on religion.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/05/03/the_flip_out_over_dan_savage_is_
part_of_a_larger_agenda_to_silence_pro_gay_discourse_.html
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