Salami

Well, there are certainly some philosophical issues that I would like to address from a religious perspective, and I think I'll start with the problem with homosexuality and the religious objections to gay marriage, which is something I feel very strongly about.

Something religious people say a lot when objecting to gay marriage is: "how far should we go - allow people to marry anything they want?!!" Bestiality is often suggested. This is terrible logic, because the whole issue with homosexual love is that you are attracted to the person, (even if it's only for their body, you still love the person themself). Surely if two people love each other then that's the main requirement for a marriage? When forced marriages are taking place around the world with a complete absence of any love being demonstrated either way for each other, and yet marriages are being denied between people who do love each other, the discrepancy becomes clear.

Without wishing to get irrelevant or too personal, I'll say that my family is extremely religious and homosexuality was always thought of as a great sin. I won't go into the details, but it was referred to with great contempt, as the absolute abomination of disregard for self-respect and for God. I was told that gay relationships never lasted long - the evidence for this assumption never materialised and when I questioned it I was asked to "find a better use for your time". I was presented with scriptural evidence for it too. Forgive me if this next bit seems boring, unnecessary or even off topic, but I feel that what many people, especially in the USA, disapprove of gay marriage is from the Bible, especially since most people arguing against gay marriage seem to be Christians. I have looked at the verses in question, and found them completely unconvincing.

I looked more carefully at these verses. The one in Leviticus prohibiting a man lying with another man on pain of being stoned to death was one of the Church's favourites. Yet, when looked at in context, it is noticed that this is in THE SAME VERSE as trimming one's facial hair is also forbidden on pain of death. Unless one insists on keeping every other one of the 613 laws, it makes no sense to use that law as an imposition on the present. Even if you do, how should one cherry-pick the scripture - by what authority should you consider some laws relevant to today's society but others no longer required?

After reading other verses in the same way, I decided that the scriptural evidence for homosexuality being a sin was very poor indeed: even for Sodom and Gomorrah it was only referring to the acts being "sinful" in that circumstance - not necessarily implying that homosexuality itself is a sin.

The other huge problem is the ASSUMPTION that being homosexual is affected by any decision you make, and that it is a choice. It isn't. If it was, then clearly there might be some possible objection. However, let it be established that being gay is no more affected by your choice than the colour of your skin. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary – and since this is the case, what right is there for anyone to deny the right to be married? It is the logical equivalent to prohibiting people from marrying just because they are black.

A lot of what I've written here is taken from some of the thoughts I had following the Prop 8 thread, which did yield some useful thoughts in my opinion.

Anyway, I think that for me is why I think religious objections to being homosexual are wrong, mislead and not supported by scripture.