Final thoughts on Homosexuality and the Chruch

I appreciate the time people took to comment on my prior posts but I must insist on my original stance that excluding members of our homosexual community from the church is horrible. Any organization, religious or secular, that works to exclude a person or people on the basis of their sexual, physical or financial (to name a few) attributes are creating a great wrong . . . no, a great sin. Why would we want to belong to an organization that doesn’t want us is not the question, I think, that should be asked. Rather, why would any organization that promotes love of god (and I don’t care which “god” one worships) wish to exclude those who also wish to worship god? Is this a special club we are talking about, one that only recognizes members in the correct financial class or who wears the right clothes? Is religion really about dogma and bureaucracy or, as we ideally spout, about spirituality? About love? The same can be said about secular society as well. Is our democracy only about those with the right connections and the right income bracket or about “by the people, for the people?” The sad thing is that the ideas I wish to promote do not seem to exist. We place dogma over the spiritual experience and finance over popular participation and we do it all under some vague tarp of “freedom” and “liberty”—all the while smiling and saying who can go to heaven and who can vote and who should know better than to try and join and these misguided people should just keep their place allotted to them by those who would exclude them—after all there are other clubs right? *sigh* I insist our priorities are screwed and to just lay down and say: “oh well, that’s the world we live in” is not only defeatist but also shameful. If the laws are bad, we must change them. If the dogma stinks, it is time to wash the dogma clean—we would do no less to a garment of clothing or our bodies when soiled. People are fallible and so interpretations of laws and the Bible is also fallible in places—it can’t be helped because we are not perfect entities. But we can learn and we can grow and so we can change what we have screwed up. I mean, let’s face it, the Bible also endorsed stoning people to death and keeping of slaves as well as many other inequalities induced to exclude members of the population. Could any of us in our right minds agree with these actions today? Could you imagine the kind of PR the Catholic Church would receive if they said—“we thought it over and decided that because the Bible had previsions for the keeping of slaves that it would be a good idea to reinstitute the practice starting . . . now.” Who would be considered the likely candidates for slavery? Which part of the population should we choose. Of course this is an absolutely ridiculous example and, again, I can not imagine anyone supporting such thoughts today. . . . at least I pray not. We grew as a people and expanded our insights into what it means to be human and kind and loving of our fellow humans. To put dogmatic roadblocks on this continued growing of the human spirit a sad state to exist in. Finally, limiting rights are contagious. We start by saying homosexuals can’t participate as leaders in the church. Next we say that homosexuals can’t be part of the church because they are gay. This is followed by refusing to give communion to any known homosexual or allowing them to marry or have secular marriage like arrangements--followed by taking away other rights and privileges like the right to liberty and freedom (in the ideal meaning of the words). What I am saying is, a door is opened to allow for further exclusions of rights and people. It becomes as deadly as a virus left unchecked and it kills. Again, thanks to all who participated in this discussion as even if we do not all agree, the pure act of discussion widens our views and forces us to think even if we do not change our original position. The opportunity to think and debate is what will, I hope, help us continue evolving the human spirit. Please join me for my next post on how to fix FEMA. I actually had this post prepared over a week ago, but I did not want to interrupt the conversation at hand. Peace R aka Harpowoman