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News & ArtsThursday, December 3, 2009
Homo / Religion Heaven Is Like a Monster Truck Rally
Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 12:33 PM
Only straight people go. And hell is like an Atlantis Cruise or a Lady Gaga concert or that men's underpants store on 14th—only gay people go. At least that's the impression you get scanning the headlines.
- Mayor Osby Davis
"So when you look at someone who is gay, you see them as someone Christ died for and you look at them as if they are in fact committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven. But you don’t hate the person, you hate the sin they commit."
And yesterday a Catholic cardinal made headlines when he said pretty much the same thing:
"Transsexuals and homosexuals will never enter the kingdom of heaven and it is not me who says this, but Saint Paul," the cardinal said.... "People are not born homosexual, they become homosexual, for different reasons: education issues or because they did not develop their own identity during adolescence. It may not be their fault, but acting against nature and the dignity of the human body is an insult to God," he said.
- Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan
The mayor eventually apologized and the cardinal—who added that gay people should not be discriminated against (um, tell the pope?)—was gently rebuked by the Vatican. (The Vatican didn't say the cardinal was wrong, only that the news website where the cardinal's comments appeared "should not be considered an authority on Catholic thinking." And this is being reported as a rebuke of the cardinal?) I'm glad the mayor apologized, I guess, and I'm glad the cardinal was "rebuked" by a more senior crossdresser at the Vatican. But strategically I think both of these incidents represent missed opportunities. Instead of demanding apologies for stating the obvious—of course conservative Christians think gay people don't go to heaven—we should've asked for a list of all the other groups of people the mayor and the cardinal believe are going to hell.
Because it's not just us. Hell is not an Atlantis Cruise or a Lady Gaga concert.
When someone tells me that gay and lesbians are going to hell I concede the point—any attempt to argue with someone about their religious beliefs will be interpreted as an attack—and move on to the obvious followup question: Anybody else going to hell? Any other groups of people? Or is just us? How about the Jews? Are the Jews going to hell? Non-Catholics? Christian Scientists? Are Mormons going to hell? Seventh Day Adventists? How about the Scientologists? Atheists, obviously, but what about agnostics? Wiccans? Buddhists? Muslims? Zoroastrians?
It's the quickest way to make religious conservatives and their heavens and their hells look ridiculous. Because they don't just believe "sinners" are going to hell. They don't just believe that gays and lesbians and adulterers and murderers and other people who have committed discrete sinful acts—they don't believe in gay people, only the sin of gay sex—are going to hell. They also believe that other large groups of people—groups that number in the hundreds of millions—are going to hell too. Here's the dirty little secret that spoils the modern ecumenical anti-gay hate fest: Most "people of faith" believe that people of other faiths—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, the wrong kinds of Christianity—are going to hell. Evangelicals think Catholics are going to hell, Catholics think everybody who isn't Catholic is going to hell, all conservative Christians think the Jews are going to hell, and on and on.
And yet you don't see conservative Christians out there attacking the civil rights of all the other people they believe are going to hell. They may proselytize, sure, they may try to save the souls lost to the Whore of Babylon (that would be the Catholic Church, according to traditional Lutherans), but they don't attempt to persecute the Jews (anymore), the atheists (anymore), the other-kinds-of-Christians (anymore), the yoga instructors (really). Conservative Christians like the mayor of Vallejo and the cardinal are capable of sharing this world with sinners and apostates and infidels who enjoy full civil equality—atheists can marry! you can't fire someone just for being Jewish! yoga is totally legal in all 50 states!—content in the knowledge that God will punish the sinners and apostates and infidels after death. So, hey, no need to punish them here on earth! Because eternal torment is punishment enough, right? At least conservative Christians regard eternal torment as punishment enough where, say, the Jews and atheists and yoga instructors are concerned—at least they do now—and so they refrain from tormenting or attempting to disenfranchise Jews and atheists and yoga instructors here on earth.
All gay people want is the same deal the Jews and the atheists and the yoga instructors have got: full legal and civil equality, all the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens, equal protections under the law while we're all here on earth together.
And if it turns out that you were right about the afterlife, Mayor Davis, that just means more room in heaven for you.
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We have the same Mayor from a different mother (well, now he is ex Mayor, still on Council) here in Porterville. Search youtube for Porterville Cameron Hamilton for a wonderful example of an interview.
As for @1, I am in the same boat, Dan, put me down for +1 at the door please :)
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Hell is gathering with your friends around the wet bar on the patio on the nicest day of spring.
Or if a day will ever come when insanity is an automatic disqualification for holding public office.
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"Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues.(126); But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things,and as Saviour wills that all men be saved.Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life." (LG 16)
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And what about dogs and cats?
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Frankly, the religious aren't making much of a selling point for heaven.
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Considering that the future and the past don't actually exist and there's only this current moment, anyone telling me that something metaphysically 'good' or 'bad' "will happen" in the future is clearly trying to manipulate me.
The entire insistance on them somehow knowing the future like that is clearly insane.
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Well, perhaps it's just as well that Queen's University turned down my application. I guess I dodged a bullet there. Heaven ho!
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Luther was justifiably upset with the contemporary state of the Church - which everyone in the 16th century (outside of Rome) thought of as corrupt and in need of serious reform. He did call the Pope the Antichrist as often as he could, though. But his reasons were valid, that the Papacy at his time was seen elevating itself in above Christ and the Church - withholding the Sacraments from the laity and effectively deciding on individual human salvation was seen as outside any Biblical arguements and thus, according the Luther the work of someone against Christ - i.e., the antiChrist. This was something that was sorta fixed at Trent, and better fixed at V2.
You're not going to find a lot of support for the Whore of Babylon talk in most traditional and modern Lutheran works. That is something the the Evangelicals like to espouse. In fact, the Lutherans the the Catholics just celebrated our 10 year anniversary of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification where we agree on most of the big things.
And, echoing @8, Rahner, a principle architect of V2, favored universal salvation (echoing 4th century Gregory of Nyssa's On the Soul and Resurrection).
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http://www.countmeout.ie/
I had to modify the documents a bit for use here in the US, but that was easy. I've been meaning to do this for years. I understand that the church regards baptism as an irreversible act (it leaves "an indelible mark upon the soul"), but it still felt good to do it. For extra emphasis I enclosed my original baptism certificate.
Your fantastic argument puts a strain on one of mine: that the resistance to gay rights is driven by fear that good christian kids will "turn gay." There is certainly no corresponding overriding fear that kids will "turn Yoga" or whatever. Hmmm...
Wait, I got it. Unlike being gay, being a Yogi is a choice. You can drop yoga, but you can't drop the man-love. I think even christians implicitly accept this.
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You know, I was about twelve when I figured out homophobia was stupid. And I'm straight. Personally, I think marriage would be stronger if gays were allowed to marry. Maybe Christians really want to destroy society in some attempt to attain Armegeddon?
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"Traditional" Lutheranism now, in the US, is Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Swedenborgian and Missouri Synod are not mainstream and are more conservative on some things, particularly the Missouri Synod (or as many ELCA people call them - the crazy people).
For the benefit of your readers who may not have seen it, ELCA recently voted to allow gays in committed relationships to be pastors - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32522934/ns/….
I'm an athiest now, but I really appreciated my Lutheran upbringing, because it actually focused on how I could be a better person and help the world (golden rule, charitable works, international development) rather than calculating the sins of others. We never talked about abortion or homosexuality or anything particularly political.
We're also very good at suppressing any emotion we've ever had, but that's a whole other can of worms.
@28, there absolutely is an overriding fear that good christian kids will 'turn yoga' or whatever. Growing up Southern Baptist, there was constant fear that kids would sin, turn atheist, turn gay, or, just as bad, turn Methodist. And, for the most part, Christians feel that being gay is a choice, but unlike other sins (also choices), it's the only one that denies rights. Even a murderer can get married, just as long as it's to the opposite sex.
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