Why anti-gay bullying is a theological issue

[zeborah]

"Anti-gay bullying is a theological issue because it has a theological base. I find it difficult to believe that even those among us with a vibrant imagination can muster the creative energy to picture a reality in which anti-gay violence and bullying exist without the anti-gay religious messages that support them."

Read more at Sexuality/Gender: Religion Dispatches

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

I have to admit I can, very easily. I'm not defending the church's record on homophobia, which is largely (though not exclusively) abysmal, and I really do wish the church would rethink things, but it's not a uniquely faith-related issue.

You can have a totally toxic conception of 'manliness' and 'womanliness' which leads to homophobia without being Christian; or it needn't sit easily with your Christianity (see also: the type of fundamentalist who's uneasy with the 'girly' Jesus they see the church as promoting, where 'girly' means 'not macho'). And the homophobia of the Nazis wasn't justified in religious terms, but in terms of what was "natural" and what would promote lots of Aryan babies.

[julesjones]

My immediate thought is of the official state homophobia (as in "homosexuality is a perversion found only in the decadent West" rhetoric) found in the USSR and its client states. Of course, I also regard the USSR's official atheism to be a prime example of atheism practised as an organised religion, complete with the usual behaviour patterns of an aggressively hegemonising form of organised religion.

[kerravonsen]

The words "pluck the log out of your own eye" occur to me. Unlike many here, I do believe that homosexuality is a sin, but that in no way justifies violence against gays. No way. Which makes me think that there is something more to it than just a "theological" base. Because if it were just theological, then the "theological base" would be used to justify violence against other kinds of sinners, and yet that isn't happening. No lynching of suspected adulterers, no bashing of blasphemers... why?