The Wednesday Word: Being Gay is a Gift from God

Here are two posts from the past:





Gay love is good because all Love is good in spite of what some of the ignorance on Oprah's message board purports. Go here. If you believe in a benevolent God, which is what the Xtian god is supposed to be, the smiting and the fire and the brimstone is of an unevolved era, a bygone era when Hebrews were slaves to the mighty Pharoahs. You may have noticed that it's no longer the case. Jesus Christ never mentioned homosexuality in the New Testament. The Old Testament writings come from another era. They are writings not unlike the thinking of terrorists. Yes, homosexuality is a gift from Creation. Homosexuals feel just as good about what they do as non-homosexuals, maybe even better about it, because we have learned to celebrate it.

In the days when one saw hope for conventional, global religions reaching out to real people and making an impact on the real world, there were two publications that were de rigueur for the progressive, professional Xtian: Your God is Too Small by J.B. Phillips and Malcolm Boyd's devotional poetry in Are You running With Me Jesus?

The Churches lagged far behind many forward thinkers of those times who had no choice but to pursue their paths outside the realm of those organizations.

It was with great pleasure to discover that Malcolm Boyd came out publicly with his sexuality and that he partnered up with an equally forward thinking spiritual gay person in Mark Thompson, the editor of an anthology first published in 1987, Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning. Go to his website to get more information on this and other books.

Gay Spirit calls gay people back to the Circle of Life as full participants in the dance of survival and joy…this anthology is like the rains of spring hastening our unique growth, flowering and fruition.” --Gay Community News

It seems that as we rapidly tumble toward another presidential election [or in the aftermath of a modterm election], that the issue of gay rights remains upfront. It comes up all over the place in North America and gets put to a vote. Asking people to vote on it with their respective Churches looking over their shoulders puts the issue at a disadvantage. After all, Jennifer Hudson who apparently loves gay people still will declare that it is a sin. While, Europe seems to just allow rights for gay people, since unions there can be simply civil and the separation of Church and State is finally being taken seriously there after centuries of turmoil and persecution. Perhaps religion is being relegated to a less important role in daily living. Governments provide benefits for all their citizens, including those who love and live with members of the same sex. Religion does something else. It does not govern. It renders all of that to Caesar.

Religion in North America is paramount in peoples' lives if one were to believe what politicians seem to be acknowledging and pandering to. It seems that the latest Xtian crusade is to save the world from evil homosexuals.

In his brilliant introduction to Gay Spirit, Mark Thompson wrote:

In a world so used up, where even hope has been betrayed as a disposable commodity, there stands a vision of the future as magnificent and shimmering as the silver sword plunged into stone. The sword is known by many names. For some people its name is 'gay,' and it has released them from a long buried past. Sustained by a sexuality as old as humankind but mired in the depths of Western consciousness, which has tried either to colonize or to destroy them (as it has so many others), these gay people finally stand at the edge of our time, resilient and resourceful, tending to the new life necessary for the future ... Gay Spirit, the psychic and creative energies generated by people we now call 'gay,' has always existed on the outershores of our culture's collective consciousness ... In creating new myths for themselves, gay people need to return to the questions ...: Who are we? Where have we come from? What are we here for?

They are questions that religion attempts to answer. Religion also attempts to help define one's identity in terms of one's beliefs.

Perhaps in the silliness evolved around religion in North America and its privileged status, it may be time for a gay religion. Institutionalizing homosexuality as a religion and forging a gay identity via that institution may be the answer in establishing gay rights.

Above and beyond the tax exempt status it will provide protection for couples and their households. It is not so absurd an idea as one might think. It would suffice to focus on the dogmas and tenents of the major religions as well as a few minor ones, in comparison to those that might be associated with a gay spirituality organized into a religion. Maybe not so crazy. Just a thought.

If God didn't create Adam & Steve (pictured), it's also very possible that he didn't create Adam & Eve either. If there's a belief in God as Creator, then that God created Adam, Eve, Steve and every other kind of being in the garden of humanity.


God bless us, everyone.


-- Tiny Tim

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