Pro-Gay, Pro-Trans, & Pro-Choice, with Bible Verses

Pro-Gay, Pro-Trans, & Pro-Choice, with Bible Verses (by Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins)

On the sub/Reddit thread “Gay Christians” a straight identified poster asked, “Is being gay ever approved or said as okay by God or Jesus in the bible? Is transitioning to a different gender a sin? And do you (a gay Christian) believe in abortions (why or why not)? It would be nice for scripture to be included [in your response]. Asking because I’m curious.”

A day later, the OP (original poster) had received 25 responses, including this one from me:

The very few verses used to condemn LGBTQ people are all in the context of violence or exploitation. Love is never condemned.

We now know that gender isn't binary so "transitioning" is just a matter of coming to terms with one's gender experience & identity & then living in one's truth. Eunuchs in the Bible were considered a sort of third gender and Isaiah says they have a special place in God's all-inclusive house of prayer.

I am pro-choice. I believe everyone should have bodily autonomy. In the creation myth Adam is just a body until the breath of life enters him. His life begins with the ability to breathe on his own, not with simply being formed.

Those biblical nods were because you asked for them. I actually do not limit my moral reasoning to ancient texts that have been interpreted in countless ways & used to justify such horrors as war & slavery. I study scripture but I don't use it in place of independent thinking.

That said, I will add a verse that I find to be true, not because it's in a sacred book but because it has proven to be healing in my own life: "God is Love & WHOEVER lives in love lives in God & God lives in them."

Musings of a Pro-Choice Pastor

Pastor Durrell says: “If you celebrate Abraham’s ’faithfulness’ for being willing to slaughter his own child,
If you are unaware of or unconcerned about Jephthah’s sacrificing his own daughter,
If you use Sodom and Gomorrah (a story void of love or romance or attraction) to condemn gays but have no problem with Lot’s willingness to sacrifice his daughters to a rape gang only later to commit incest with them himself,
If you ignore the passage in Exodus that says if two men fighting cause a pregnant woman to miscarry, a fine must be paid - unless the WOMAN is inured, then its ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, hand for hand, foot for foot’,
Or if you’re Christology involves the belief that a deity required the brutal execution of ’his’ (sic) Son (and that’s somehow a good thing)...
Then your opposition to a woman’s freedom to make her own procreative health choices is not about the bible. There are child sacrifices in sacred scripture that you find laudable, and there is no passage forbidding fetus removal or early pregnancy termination.
Your belief may be sincere and even passionately held, but a biblical mandate it is not.
Please stop using religion to colonize women’s bodies.
Let’s create a world where the need for abortion is rare. In the meantime, men should not ever get the final decision about women’s choices.” (dw)

#ProChoicePastor

A Justice Seeking Holy Week

It's Holy Week, and while the pageantry of waving palms, sharing a water ritual, recalling ancient stories, and finally, on Easter Sunday, celebrating the resilience of life, is all quite marvelous, cathartic, therapeutic, and engaging, it is also important to remember that all of it is inspired by a prophetic voice that imperial power tried to silence with extreme violence. That voice could not die, or at least it would not stay dead. It would rise up in the power of community and continuously seek to give people their dignity back.

And so, on this Maundy Thursday of this Holy Week I affirm the sacred value of same-gender loving people. Legislatures may try to silent queer voices, but they will rise to new heights.

Today I affirm the dignity of transgender and gender non-conforming people. Municipalities and state legislatures may try to demonize and dehumanize transgender people but the dignity of trans lives will not be erased by hate speech or fear mongering or oppressive legislation.

Today I affirm the sanctity of women's bodies and women's sovereignty over their bodies. Misogyny may try to control women and limit their choices but Justice will not abandon Her daughters.

Today I affirm the right of Muslims to live peacefully in this country without vilification or harassment. I affirm their freedom of religion and their civil liberties.

Today I affirm the courage of refugees who risk everything and leave behind all that is familiar to keep their families safe and to build a new life in what are too often unwelcoming environments. I take to heart the biblical mandate to welcome the newcomer.

Today I affirm the imperative of every person who can vote to do so at every opportunity.

Today, let us turn over the tables of hate and division and call out the peddlers of fear and bigotry and let us declare boldly that our society is meant to be a House of Goodness for All People. If this is to be a truly Holy Week, it must be a week where injustice is challenged and hope is lifted up.

Too many people have known their own Via Dolorosa, way of suffering. In Holy Week, let us not be content to accept the suffering, but let us address it and move forward to the promise of Renewal that Easter represents. Amen.

Another spirited exchange

A Planned Parenthood opponent (who was responding favorably to a meme calling abortion "infanticide") said, "We need to call things as they are and stop being 'politically correct'. God says abortion is MURDER. He says gay is HOMOSEXUALITY."

The appalling ignorance merited the following response from me:
"If 'he' means the bible (which 'he' didn't write) then 'he' never said homosexuality...that word was coined in the 19th century almost 2 millennia after the last New Testament writings were written...
Instead of fighting to have bodies passed through a birth canal that many then will fight to deny food stamps, free medical care or college aid if it should be needed, maybe we should remember all the women's lives that were lost as they sought illegal and unsafe abortions before Roe v Wade.
And if abortion is really your holy crusade, it is misdirected at Planned Parenthood...only 3% of PP's services involve terminating pregnancies. The majority of their work is providing education, contraception, and cancer screening. In other words, Planned Parenthood saves lives. One may 'believe' that a fertilized egg deserves protection, but surely we can know that a living, breathing woman deserves protection. Reducing the complex and important issue to 'infanticide' is hyperbolic and intentionally misleading." (dw)

Of course I have no hope that my interjections make any real difference, except possibly to the silent seekers who desperately need a counter-narrative. Those are the ones for whom I continuously lift up a progressive voice.

A Story about Child Eating Bears is NOT the one to use for your anti-choice argument

This morning someone called me a "demon from hell" for being pro-choice (in reality, all I did was post a statement from Planned Parenthood, but obviously my posting it did suggest I supported it). The demon-hunter then threatened me by saying God sent a bear to kill people who mocked "the prophet of God" (I suppose being pro-choice falls into that category for this person). Always one for enlightened dialogue, I responded with the following "lesson" about 2 Kings 2.23-24:

"I don't really expect to be attacked by any bears (and in the story, the bear wasn't sent to attack people for disagreeing with the prophet, but for making fun of his baldness...AND, it wasn't God, but Elisha who put some magical curse on them that brought out the bear...oh, and the ones the bear mauled were CHILDREN...not preborn fetuses, but actual, living, breathing children...so, that's an odd reference for this discussion). anyway, i'm a clergy person from Florida not a demon from hell, although Florida in the summertime..."

And such is my form of evangelism smile emoticon

We Can End Oppression

It looks like there are only 5 states left with unchallenged marriage bans, and about 70% of states now have marriage equality. This is so much closer than I thought we'd be in my lifetime, and it is totally possible that we will have freedom to marry in all 50 states by the end of next year. If we can do this, we can also stop the war on women/choice, heal the deep wounds of racism in our country, establish economic justice and prosperity for all, and even end war for profit. Seriously, if we can win the race toward marriage equality, we can overcome all oppressions, and we must never stop trying to do just that.

80% Free Isn't Free Enough (More on the Hobby Lobby Court Decision)

In the fall out from the Hobby Lobby decision yesterday, some have argued that HL's insurance plans offer 16 of 20 possible contraceptive options; they only are denying plans that cover so-called abortifacients (such as the "morning after pill) because, in the view of Christianity held by the owners of Hobby Lobby, full human-life begins at conception.

But that is irrelevant. For Hobby Lobby owners to passionately hold a philosophical view is their right; it is not their right to enforce that view on anyone, not even their employees. If medical therapies are legal, then it should not be in the employer's power to make health care decisions for individuals.

The HL family is apparently evangelical in their beliefs; but if they were Christian Scientist, would they have the right to deny any insurance to anyone because they passionately disbelieved in the efficacy of "materia medica" for "true" healing? If they were Jehovah's Witnesses, who passionately and honestly oppose blood transfusions, would they be allowed to prevent employees from choosing them? If they were Scientologists who diagree with psychiatry, could they prevent people from taking medication that might control an anxiety disorder? You see, it doesn't matter if you agree with HL's view about birth control; the precedent has now been established that one's religious beliefs can trump someone else's personal freedom to choose, and that opens the door to religion being used in ways that you might later not find agreeable.

See, the issue isn't whether any of us share the HL family's faith (and as a pro-choice Christian, I do not); the issue is that as a corporation, the HL BUSINESS does not have religious liberties (though, according to the court which has established the personhood of corporations, I seem to be mistaken). Religious freedoms are afforded to individuals and to churches (or other religious bodies, e.g., temples, synagogues, etc.), and the beliefs of the HL owners are interfering with the rights of individuals to make their own health care choices. Someone who doesn't hold the HL's belief (aka opinion) should not be denied their freedom to choose for themselves.

So, the Hobby Lobbyists (a good phrase for a variety of reasons) are entitled to their beliefs, but they have now persuaded five MEN on the nation's highest court to give them the power over their female workers' bodies. They now have the ability to say of 20 options available, you may choose one of 16 regardless of what YOUR values, opinions, beliefs, or perceived needs are and regardless of what your medical practitioner believes is in your best interest. They have said 80% freedom is free enough, and I disagree.

This isn't about how devout the owners are; this is about the wage earner being denied legal choices. The worker must now sacrifice sovereignty over her own body to comply with someone else's values, and that is neither moral nor just.

Rev Dr Durrell Watkins

Sunshine Cathedral

Senior Minister

Pastoral Response to the SCOTUS "Hobby Lobby" Decision

"[MCC] affirms that all people are entitled to the rights and resources that equip them to make their own decisions about their bodies, their sexuality, and their well-being, including the inalienable right of women to control their bodies. We call on all levels of government and civil society to honor and respect those rights." from MCC's Statement of Faith on Women's Reproductive Health, Rights, & Justice

Companions on the spiritual journey:

As a faith leader and a parish minister, I stand in solidarity with other people of faith who are outraged by the US Supreme Court's decision on June 30th, 2014 in the "Hobby Lobby" case. The Court ruled that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception violated a federal law protecting religious freedom. This decision, in my view, privileges the religious biases of a company's owners while treading on the rights and freedoms of individuals.

As so many leaders have already stated, this decision opens the door for a series of injustices. If legal medications can be denied because of someone's religious views (other than the one taking the medication), then it is entirely possible that family owned business could refuse to offer medical coverage for blood transfusions, AIDS therapies, vaccinations, psychiatric medications, medical marijuana, or any number of medical procedures because someone other than the recipient of the legal medications objected to them for "religious" reasons. Dogma is rarely life-enhancing and in this instance may prove to be very dangerous.

As a religious progressive, I support the idea that universal health care is a right, not a privilege; and I further affirm the verity that that neither churches nor corporations nor governments own human bodies and women are the ultimate authority when it comes to their own health care and procreative choices.

LBGT people know what it is to be judged, marginalized, and vilified for their consensual, adult relationships and gender identities; in other words, the Queer community knows what it means to have their bodies and their sovereignty over them diminished. As a Queer man I object to the colonization of bodies even (and maybe especially) when it is done in the name of religion.

The consciences, needs, and values of workers were ruled to be secondary to the religious opinions of business owners in the June 30th decision. The values of the powerful and privileged were affirmed while the values of workers of modest means were dismissed, and that is not justice.

It is time that people of faith insist that patriarchy and its wayward children: heteronormativity, racism, nationalism, and misogyny cease to be elevated to the position of religious values. It is time that we speak out more passionately than ever before when we see people being punished for their class, gender identity, sexuality, or procreative choices.

Yours in the spirit of justice-love,

  

Rev Dr Durrell Watkins

Senior Minister, Sunshine Cathedral

PS ~ Below are some powerful statement by other faith leaders:

Rev Dr Nancy Wilson, Presiding Elder & Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches: 

"The high court of the United States put all of our freedoms at risk today. Conservatives will now seek to deny a range of civil liberties and religion will be an excuse to discriminate."

A statement from The Religious Institute, led by Unitarian Universalist minister Rev Debra Haffner:

"The Religious Institute decries today's U.S. Supreme Court decision undermining true religious freedom--the right of individuals to make their own moral choices."

Unitarian Universalist president, Rev Peter Morales:

"I am deeply concerned by the growing rights granted to corporations by this decision and others of this Court and our Congress. I am also deeply concerned by the growing use of the religious freedom argument as a tool of discrimination and oppression."

Rev Harry Knox of The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice:

"The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is dismayed by the Supreme Court's decision...which perverts our nation's historic understanding of religious liberty. As a coalition of denominations and religious organizations, RCRC is gravely concerned about the Court's notion that a for-profit corporation is able to exercise religion."

Dr Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York:

"As a Christian, I believe that God creates human beings individually, and that the mark of our individual blessedness before God is our souls. It is this soul that allows us to be bearers of rights and obligations and rational agents capable of holding religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby would have us believe that corporations, too, have souls. This is not the case. I am horrified by the thought that the owners of Hobby Lobby as Christians think their corporation has a soul, and I'm even more appalled that the Supreme Court agrees."

Bishop Gene Robinson (The Episcopal Church):
"The Jesus I follow always stood with the poor and powerless - and trust me, this struggle is about power. Whether the issue touches women or gays and lesbians, our religion should be about more love, not less; more dignity, not less."

A biblical reflection on procreative freedom

Exodus 21 is a harsh text if taken literally and applied uncritically. In that text we see slavery condoned (more than condoned, rules offered for how to carry it out) in verses 2-4.

In that chapter we see the horror of sexual slavery, not merely condoned but legislated! (verses 7-11).

In verses 15 and 17 we see the command for unruly children to be put to death!

Verse 20 even says a slave can be beaten almost to death! Horrifying, but there it is.

So, Exodus 21 is hardly a text that could be accused of having a liberal bias (or even an humanitarian impulse!).

So, since the author of that ancient passage believes children who threaten or swear at their parents should be executed and families ought to be allowed to sell their daughters into sexual slavery and even male members of the community should be allowed to be held as slaves for up to six years, and a slave can beaten almost to death, you'd think that causing a woman to miscarry would result in the offender being drawn and quartered or at very least "water-boarded"...but you would be mistaken.

In verse 22 we read that if two men are fighting and a pregnant woman is in their way and as a result of being caught in the scuffle she suffers a miscarriage but is otherwise unharmed herself, the one who caused the miscarriage must pay a fine. The husband demands an amount and the one who caused the miscarriage must pay it.

HOWEVER, in verses 23-24, if the woman herself is harmed, THEN the retribution is "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb, wound for wound." If the fetus is aborted, there is a fine. If the pregnant woman is harmed beyond having a miscarriage, then whatever harm she suffered, the offender must suffer in equal measure.

Now, I'm not looking to Ex. 21 to form my opinion on matters of choice (or anything else). The writer probably forteited his moral authority at the advocacy of slavery and killing ill-behaved children. But it does show that these issues are more complex than standing on tradition or the rules of an ancient institution, or looking up a sentence or two to serve as "proof-texts" that something ought to be done or avoided.

Even in our sacred literature, even in a time when daughters could be sold into sexual slavery and children could be killed for showing disrespect, to cause a miscarriage was only punished by a fine, but harming the mother was punished "eye for eye."

I am completely pro-choice and that isn't based on an ancient text or a ruling from an ecclesiastical office. But, even if I were to look to sacred literature for guidance on the issue, what I might find would probably surprise the anti-choice activists, at least if what I found was Exodus 21!

I find it disturbing that people will fight to insist that a fertilized egg is a person but then disregard the human dignity of same-gender loving people, the elderly, the poor, the uninsured, those coming to this country to improve their lives, and others. I don't know if a fetus is a person in the same way that you and I are, but I do know that LBGT people are human and deserve equal rights. I know that women are persons. I know the elderly are persons. I know that regardless of when human life begins, our responsibility for caring about it doesn't end in the delivery room!

No one is saying, least of all me, that abortions on demand should be offered at the mall. The decision to have an abortion must be very difficult and often is made after the woman has already experienced some sort of trauma. It is an invasive procedure, and no medical procedure is 100% risk free. It isn't ideal, but it is sometimes needed, and those who need the procedure should have a safe and sterile place in which to receive the procedure. And people facing the difficult choice shouldn't be harrassed by those who will never be faced with such a choice!

I honestly believe that anti-choice rhetoric is more about controling women than protecting the unborn. Those who are most vocal about denying a woman control over her own body are often the same ones who seem to think war (killing) should never be questioned, that capitol punishment (killing) is at least morally neutral if not all out good, and that deadly weapons (instruments of killing) should have very little or no regulation. These same people who are so concerned about the unborn are often the ones who then wish to deny those children once they are born affordable health care, help with adequate nutrition, and assistance in obtaining higher education. While they are undeniably pro-birth, they can't really be considered pro-life. At least they aren't always "pro" life that needs to be sustained beyond an umbilical cord.

When rape is prevented rather than redefined, when health care is a right rather than a privilege, when nutrition, housing, and education are more valuable to us than prisons and war, then my guess is that abortions will be fairly rare. But until that day, some women will need them and desperate women will get them whether they are legal or not. We can make abortions safe for the women who choose them while working to create a society where abortions would be needed less often, or we can continue to try to colonize women's bodies. I hope as a society we choose the former and not the latter.

For Me, Pro-Choice IS Pro-life

According to a commentary offered by a cable news network anchor on August 22nd, 2012, in 1930 alone, more than 2700 American women died from illegal abortions (that's more than 7 per day throughout the entire year and that is just one year!). When abortion was illegal, people still sought them, but b/c they were illegal they were done in unsanitary places, often by people who were not medically trained, & so women died. I may or may not "believe" that a fertilized egg is a person, but I know with total certainty that a woman is a person, and I am "pro" women's lives and I trust women to make their own choices for their own bodies.

{The number of 2700 women dying in 1930 was reported on the Rachel Maddow Show, Aug. 22, 2012, MSNBC}

Who are people?

I could never and will never embrace a philosophy that says corporations and fertilized eggs are persons with rights but same-gender loving individuals are not.

Murder of Dr. Tiller

It's been a few days since Dr. George Tiller was slain in his house of worship. I've spent these days thinking about it and what this tragedy means for our society. I'm tempted to blame fundamentalists whose fear based, vindictive, repressive form of religion breeds intolerance and violence; but then I realize that such religion may simply attract violent people as much as create them, and religion then becomes an excuse rather than a cause for violence.

I'm tempted, also, to blame the neo-cons on radio and television who gain fame and fortune by spewing venomous hate-speech; but then I realize that they only screech their intolerance because there is an audience for it. Do the pundits of pugnacity create the violent mobs, or do the violent mobs create the pundits?

I don't have the answers...perhaps the sociologists and psychologists among us will sort it all out.

I do know that Dr. Tiller risked his life (and ultimately lost his life) in the service of women. I do know that in a sacred space where he was worshiping with friends and family he was murdered in cold blood. Not only was his life taken, but the lives of his entire parish were traumatized by the horrific act.

Of course, Dr. Tiller performed abortions, and not everyone supports that legal procedure. But it is a legal procedure, while murder is not. I do wonder how people can be so passionate about embryonic life and so callous about the living human beings with whom they share the planet. I wonder why someone would desecrate a house of worship, traumatize a congregation, and take a man's life all as a "pro-life" demonstration.

Some of the so-called Pro-Life advocates are also against gun restrictions, in favor of almost any war that any U.S. President wants to wage, and even supportive of state murder (capital punishment). When "values" promote so much violence, perhaps those values should be re-evaluated.

The Extreme Right (not to be confused with honest conservatives or centrists) wants to control bodies...sending bodies to die on battle fields, sending bodies to die in state executions, preventing bodies from expressing love or attraction for each other if they are of the same gender, and keeping women from having the final say over their own bodies. Maybe that's what this is really all about...not religion, or media, or politics...but a pathological hatred of bodies, or a twisted craving to control bodies.

When "Pro-Life" means caring about the quality of every person's life, demanding peace and justice and equality, offering medical coverage to every person as well as trying to provide all people with adequate nutrition, shelter, and equal opportunity, then I will embrace the term myself. But as long as "Pro-Life" seems to mean pro-violence, then I'm afraid it will remain a phrase that makes me fear for the lives of those who disagree with those who call themselves "Pro-Life."

Of course, Dr. Tiller may have simply been killed by a disturbed person, making his death a senseless tragedy with no explanation; but I strongly suspect Tiller was victimized not only by a gunman, but by a social pathology that is getting worse day by day. God bless our "free" and "civilized" society.

Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins
Sunshine Cathedral
www.sunshinecathedral.org