Just what I needed
So I’ve been freaking out these past few days due to the imminent doom that is giving group meeting after having done asymptotically little work so far. Not so bad as the trials before others, certainly, but not fun, anyway. Andrew’s been really helpful, though. He’s got some really good ideas.
Anyway, in the midst of working on some QFT homework, I looked up at Google News only to find that the debates about homosexuality in the Anglican Communion are getting more and more intense as time goes on. Most recently, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada have been asked to voluntarily and temporarily (three years) step aside from one of the main steering committees of the global Anglican Communion. Us Americans are in the dog house for consecrating an openly gay bishop currently living with his (male) partner. The Canadians got into trouble after one of their dioceses developed a liturgy for the blessing of same sex unions, and then used it.
This is exactly the sort of thing that pisses me off most. A church is guilty of refusing priveleges based on demographics: discrimination at its finest. These are people who believe in your God, love eachother, want to get married and happen to be gay. I don’t believe the Bible ever defines marriage, but I could be wrong – I’m no biblical scholar.
But, it doesn’t even matter. Gay marriage isn’t the heart of the issue; it’s homosexuality itself. The most vitriolic opponent, Primate Akinola of Nigeria says
I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. It is so unnatural, so unscriptural. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don’t hear of such things.
First off, has this guy ever even seen a dog? Secondly, as for homosexuality being “unscriptual” or “outside the biblical boundaries” or a “Satanic attack” (as he also states in the article) ever read Deuteronomy? That’s in the bible, and it says some creepy-ass shit about marriage and sexual relations. Plus there’s all that stuff sprinkled throughout scripture about genocide, abusing women and slavery. But I guess we can ignore that slight difficulty in interpreting scripture as long as we send a few sodomites to hell.
I have one question to ask each of the Anglican Primates out there: “Do you consume, or have you ever consumed shrimp?” If your answer was “yes”, we need to talk. In particular, you need to listen.
Dad sent me a good link regarding the Anglican Consultative Council which itself links to some informative information.
UPDATE: and a link to Anglicans Online [with the article in question archived here]. Likely a bit on the religious side for some, but worth the read anyway. It quotes some very wise people and puts things into perspective a bit.
I should also point out that, though I disagree strongly with what appears to be the majority opinion among the Primates and perhaps of the Anglican world as a whole, most of those on the other side of the issue are not nearly so acid tounged as Primate Akinola.
Actually, the second-part of the Nigerian Anglicans’ comment is off the mark too. I don’t know about dogs, cows and lions, but there’s actually quite a lot of documented evidence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom– from
gay sheep to (don’t get too excited now) lesbian primates. Now some of this is just behavioral dalliance by animals that are “really” straight and will ultimately pair up heterosexually to reproduce, but in the meantime are, ah, experimenting a bit, often to strengthen social bonds in the group. So that’s more like bisexuality. But some animals really are gay, that is, exclusively preferring members of their own sex.
Anyway, there’s some interesting research going on to address the nature/nurture question in regards to homosexuality, including some interesting hypotheses about how to explain how the trait has persisted in the face of natural selective pressure seeming to be obviously against it.
Thanks for the links. I remember a documentary about macaques on, I think, the discovery channel many years ago. As I recall, the terms used were “penis fencing” and “genital-genital (GG) rubbing”.
I always think it’s interesting when well documented, reproducible science is completely disregarded (by anyone, including competing scientists).
[…] tube babies’, or even ah, eating shrimp [credit:MDA]). Nonetheless, it seems pretty much like that’s the measure we’re stuck with, sin […]