The Three D's: Dogma, Discrimination and Death
 

May 15 2006
Counterbias.com
MEL SEESHOLTZ
 

Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr., pastor of Greater Mount Calvary Church in Washington D.C., told the congregation in his Good Friday sermon, “It takes a real man to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior … I’m not talking about no faggot or no sissy … Let the real men come on down here and take a bow … all the real men. I’m talking about the straight men.”

Apparently Bishop Owens forgot that the phrase “real men” was once used to describe only white men. Owens is one of several black clergy who have been co-opted by the radical Christian Right – especially Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition – and who use their “minority” status to advocate denying another minority equal rights and civil equality based on perverted, politicized religious dogma.

Kelly Carson, news editor for the Washington Blade, was as perplexed as many by Owens’ statements:

But now I’m confused.

 

The champions of equal rights during the past century seem to be railing against equal rights for another thread in the American fabric. To hear the ministers – black or white, Christian, Jewish, Muslim or other – repeatedly tell their congregations that gay people have no place in the brotherhood of religion goes completely against the ideology of inclusiveness preached during the height of the civil rights struggle.

 

Why in the name of God are these men of the cloth preaching against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people when we are all suppose to have equal rights?

The answer may be simple: dogmatic religious fanatics need someone to hate.

Whatever the religion, fundamentalist dogma inevitably leads to overt discrimination and often murder. From Jerome Taylor’s May 5, 2006 report in London’s The Independent:

Iraqi police ‘killed 14-year-old boy for being homosexual’

 

Human rights groups have condemned the “barbaric” murder of a 14-year-old boy, who, according to witnesses, was shot on his doorstep by Iraqi police for the apparent crime of being gay.

 

Ahmed Khalil was shot at point-blank range after being accosted by men in police uniforms, according to his neighbours in the al-Dura area of Baghdad.

 

Campaign groups have warned of a surge in homophobic killings by state security services and religious militias following an anti-gay and anti-lesbian fatwa issued by Iraq’s most prominent Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

 

Ali Hili, the co-ordinator of a group of exiled Iraqi gay men who monitor homophobic attacks inside Iraq, said the fatwa had instigated a “witch-hunt of lesbian and gay Iraqis, including violent beatings, kidnappings and assassinations”.

 

“Young Ahmed was a victim of poverty,” he said. “He was summarily executed, apparently by fundamentalist elements in the Iraqi police.”

The story reminded me of someone I knew several years ago. I’ve told his story before, but it bears repeating in the shadow of Bishop Owens’ words…

We never met face-to-face, but we communicated almost daily. “Joshua” was an accomplished dancer, musician, painter, and sculptor living in Kampala, Uganda. He was a lead dancer in several companies. His sculptures and paintings had been purchased by high-ranking government officials, including the President of Uganda. He was in the final year of his studies at the university. The future looked bright, until his fundamentalist Christian parents discovered he was gay.

His father informed the police and had his twenty-five year-old son arrested.

Ugandan law punishes same-sex love with life imprisonment. Under this harsh law, even individuals who elude imprisonment face constant fear, stigmatization, and the threat of extortion by the police.

– Kamal Fizazi, Regional Program Coordinator for Africa and Southwest Asia, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

Upon release – pending further legal action – frightened straight friends abandoned him. He was dismissed by dance companies and barred from art exhibits that received public funds, which virtually all of them did. His family disowned him and his unfinished art was destroyed. Homeless, broke and alone, naturally he considered suicide but, as a practicing Christian, he felt “God” had something planned for him.

Finally, after months of harassment, rearrests and releases pending further legal action, the police appeared at the home of the woman where he’d been hiding. Since he couldn’t pay the officers the 1.5 million Ugandan shillings (then about $756 US) they required to “lose” his file, he was told to leave the country or face charges. But because of his previous arrest record he could not leave the country.

Two days later I lost touch with him. Several months after that I learned of his fate: arrested, convicted, sentenced to life without parole. But his life sentence lasted only ten days. He was beaten to death in prison by a group claiming to be doing “God’s work.”

One of the last e-mails I received from him before his final arrest ended with this:

Ps: there is no hope to find help/refugee from churches here. They are very much against us [homosexuals] and since the church in America embraced a gay bishop it has become almost the main topic of condemnation in the churches all over here. It’s all very terrible and disgusting and I believe they are all just selfish and with hatred hearts – yet claiming to be of God!! I don’t go to churches here any more.

Religion is an intricate part of human history. It has brought comfort to many, but it has also been used to justify heinous crimes against humanity. The 300-year “Holy Inquisition” and the “jihad” of 9/11 come immediately to mind. So too do those who used religious dogma to justify slavery and segregation. The “N-word” was used as freely by them as “faggot” and “sissy” were by Bishop Owens.

Spirituality is an inherent part of being human. For most it’s a personally liberating and powerful experience, an encouragement to grow and evolve to more conscious perceptions and awareness. But when personal spirituality is organized into a religion, an institution is formed and as all institutions it produces a hierarchy who create dogma that often has little to do with spirituality and everything to do with maintaining social and political control.

Consider Pope Benedict’s recent statements:

Pope Declares War On Italy's Government Over Gay Unions
by Malcolm Thornberry, 365Gay.com European Bureau Chief

May 11, 2006 - 1:00 pm ET

 

(Rome) Pope Benedict warned Italy’s new left-of-center government on Thursday that the Vatican will use all of its power to thwart any move to recognize same-sex couples.

 

Speaking at a Vatican conference on marriage and the family, Benedict condemned gay unions – especially  marriage – noting that marriage must be a union between a man and a woman and must be open to procreation.

 

“Only the rock of total and irrevocable love between a man and a woman is capable of being the foundation of building a society that becomes a home for all mankind,” the Pope told the conference. [italics added]

“Use all its power.” Coming from a pope, that’s ominous indeed. Aside from the Vatican’s silent complicity during the slave trade and its “policies” during the Holocaust, history is quite clear how vicious the Vatican and popes can be:

His Holiness Pope Sixtus XIII (1585-90) declared with infuriated vigour: “While I live, every criminal must die!”

 

The Most Blessed Father Pope Benedict XII loved inflicting pain and turned his palace into a vast torture chamber “with irregular walls off which the screams and shrieks of prisoners bounced back and forth into silence.” Clement VI “pillaged Cesena in 1377, where 4,000 anti-papal rebels were massacred.” Pope Stephen IV (768-72) tore out the eyes of an antipope and was incredibly cruel. He is today venerated as a saint in parts of Sicily. …

 

In the early thirteen century the Church showed how it dealt with those who would not surrender to papal dogma during the so-called Albigensian Crusade, which devastated much of France in the process of theological cleansing. …

 

Pope Sergius III disposed and imprisoned Pope Christopher (who had earlier deposed pope Leo V in 903), subsequently having him strangled to death.

 

Pope Boniface VI was involved in the death of Pope Forsus, and in turn was murdered by his successor Stephen VI. Pope Boniface VII “ordered the murder of his predecessor, Benedict VI.” He then imprisoned and presumably murdered former pope, John XIV. He in turn was murdered by a “vengeful Roman mob.”

 

Boniface VII imprisoned pope Benedict VI in June 974 before strangling him “by order of Crescentius.”

 

Gregory I “paid fulsome compliments to the most vicious and brutal rulers of the time – Queen Brunichildis of Gaul (Epp., I, 74) and the Emperor Phocas (XIII, 31, 38, and 39) – when they promised to help the Church, and shockingly rejoiced in the murders of good men who opposed the Papacy.” [italics added]

Good men – and good women – both gay and straight continue to oppose the papacy’s ongoing medieval thinking, its new Holy Inquisition, and its current vendetta against Italy’s civil government and its citizens’ civil rights: “more than 71 percent of Italians are favorable to gay civil unions such as those allowed in the U.K., Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium, according to a January report by research group Eurispes.”

Benedict XVI wants all unions “open to procreation.” Apparently the pope hasn’t heard of in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination, or the global overpopulation problem. And obviously he missed the fact that there are millions of children awaiting adoption. But then again, the Catholic church opposes same-sex couples providing homes for homeless children.

But the most out-of-touch, dogmatic statement was Benedict’s “Only the rock of total and irrevocable love between a man and a woman is capable of being the foundation of building a society that becomes a home for all mankind” [italics added].

Again, apparently the pope hasn’t heard about “divorce,” the rate of which in the United States is between 40-50 percent. In commenting on his research group’s 1999 study of divorce among Christians of all denominations, George Barna had this to say:

While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages. [italics added]

The Barna Group’s 2004 study confirmed their earlier results: “among married born again Christians, 35% have experienced a divorce. That figure is identical to the outcome among married adults who are not born again: 35%.”

According to an article titled “Breaking Vows: When Faithful Catholics Divorce” by Tom Hoopes, “The divorce rate among Catholics is reputedly the same as that among the general public, where about 35 percent of people who have been married have also been divorced. The couples I spoke with were very aware of the high Catholic divorce rate. The abandoning spouse in each took comfort in the thought that he was just part of a crowd.”

Benedict XVI argued for “a society that becomes a home for all mankind,” but the pope obviously feels gays and lesbians should not be part of that society or welcome in the home of “all mankind.” For Pope Benedict XVI as well as Protestant and Islamic fundamentalists, “dogma” would more accurately reflect their megalomaniacal beliefs if the word were spelled backwards: “AmGod.”

In America people are free to practice their religion. That does not, however, give them the right to force their religious dogma onto everyone else or embed it into civil laws that must, by definition, treat all people equally regardless of their personal religious beliefs.

Today’s campaigns against the civil rights and civil equality of gay and lesbian Americans are based exclusively on religious dogma: carefully selected dogma that serves its users’ purpose while they ignore other tenets of their religious heritage. The most obvious example – as well as the most often cited Biblical reference – is Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Yet the vast majority of other Levitical laws are completely ignored by those who cite 18:22 to justify civil discrimination. I’ve not heard anyone call for the stoning to death of people who swear or wear clothes made of two different threads as Levitical law demands.

Some like to cite St. Paul, especially Romans 1:26-27. But in First Timothy, Paul instructed Christians “suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” because “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression.” Shouldn’t those who use Paul to justify discrimination against homosexuals also be campaigning against civil equality for women?

Aside from the fact that Jesus himself had absolutely nothing to say about homosexuality, those who quote early church figures consistently take their references out of context. As Andrew Sullivan noted in Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality, St. Paul’s epistles spoke of fulfilling and being faithful to the unique nature God had given each person:

For by Paul’s argument, the key issue is that individuals act according to their own nature as it is revealed to them (as Christ was revealed to the Romans). By this logic, the person who is by his own nature homosexual would be acting against his nature by engaging in heterosexual acts [and thereby committing a sin]. His destiny is homosexuality, just as the destiny of the Romans after Christ was monotheism.

Since homosexuals have existed in all cultures and in all times, from ancient Greece and Rome, to the Christian saints of the Middle Ages who left a considerable body of love poetry dedicated to their partners –

He was the refuge of my spirit, the sweet solace of my griefs, whose heart of love received me when fatigued by labors, whose counsel refreshed me when plunged in sadness and grief... What more is there, then, that I can say? Was it not a foretaste of blessedness thus to love and thus to be loved?

Saint Aelred, from his eulogy for his lover Simon

– from depictions in prehistoric rock paintings left by the San people in modern day Zimbabwe to Native American berdache who were venerated for their “Two-Spirit” nature, homosexuals have always been present. One would naturally conclude, therefore, that homosexuality is part of “God’s plan” and the specific nature Divinity ordained for some individuals throughout human history.

When dogmatic “faith-based” politicized groups such as Don Wildmon’s American Family Association try to force companies like Ford to revoke equal employment policies and strip gay and lesbian employees of benefits commensurate with their heterosexual counterparts they not only blasphemously pervert the spiritual basis of religion, they expose their distinctly anti-Christian agenda:

HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another’s superiority.

– Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Bierce’s definition well describes the actions of the American Family Association, but he forgot two other defining attributes: unbridled hatred is also quite blind and devoid of common decency.

Fundamentalists and dogmatists are, by definition, fanatics not open to reason or reality. Don Wildmon’s American Family Association again provides a glowing example. Even though the campaign to have Ford Motor Company revoke equal employment policies and strip gay and lesbian employees of benefits failed miserably, Wildmon and the AFA ignored reality and vowed to continue their fight for discrimination:

Shareholder Vote Is a Victory: Dr. Don Wildmon, founder and chairman of the American Family Association (AFA), says he is extremely pleased with the Ford shareholder vote. “The mere fact that five percent voted for this proposal [ie, discrimination] came as a shock. I think it sends a loud message,” says the AFA leader. “And we’re very grateful that we got that five percent and that this issue can come back up again next year. We have a lot of time to work on it.” [italics added]

Wildmon, the AFA and its allies continue their boycott of Ford with the sole purpose of financially damaging the company and sending a “warning” to others that practice and promote civil equality. Such actions are not only detrimental to America’s overall economy, they directly hurt the individuals and their families – heterosexual and homosexual – those companies employ and support. But that doesn’t seem to matter to the badly misnamed “American Family Association.”

Religious dogma has become extremely political, and some politicians have been eager to use it as a tool. The results were lethal in Iraq and Uganda. While America is not likely to start killing or imprisoning gays, there are those who may well approve of both based on their dogmatic views. That does not bode well for religious freedom, freedom from religion, or civil equality in a secular state, all of which were once called “the promise of America.”

Isn’t it time for Americans – all Americans – regardless of their personal religious beliefs to stand up for what “America” was supposed to be, supposed to guarantee to every citizen? Isn’t it time for people regardless of their personal religious beliefs to stand up for equality and civil justice for all people, everywhere?

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

NB: In a previous article I mentioned one of those politicians “eager to use religious dogma as a tool.” On Diversity Day 2006, Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher revoked gays’ and lesbians’ guarantee of “equal treatment” in the workplace. An update on the pious governor:

Kentucky gays were smiling Friday [May 12, 2006] after Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher was indicted by a grand jury on allegations he illegally rewarded political supporters with state jobs since taking office two years ago.

 

He is charged with conspiracy, official misconduct and violating a prohibition against political discrimination. A conviction on any of the counts could lead to jail time and Fletcher’s removal from office.
 

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