207. congnisance

A few weeks ago at the Former Fundamentalists retreat that some friends of mine put together for our group, I made a troubling observation that I’ve been pondering.

The day was made up of a number of talks and workshops put on by members of the group. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday, in the company of like-minded people who are engaged in critical thinking and wondering about our world and our universe.

What troubled me though was how many women spoke up during discussion times — not many. Even during our bi-weekly meetings, the majority of the talking is done by the guys.

Gender variance among atheists is certainly male-leaning. Salon published a piece last year titled “5 reasons there aren’t more women in atheism,” citing things like:

• “… women are more devout because they have to be. Women’s religiosity is directly related to economic security.”
• “… sexism is real and has an effect on women’s participation and leadership within the atheist community.”
• “… it’s no exaggeration to say that managing sexism is exhausting, depressing and distracts from work women could be doing as visible spokespeople of fighting for higher and equal pay, or immigration policies that include uneducated women, or ending sexual predation, or advocating for the right to control our own reproduction.”

One place I’ve noticed this tend is Bill Maher’s show, where he’ll sit a woman guest between two guys who will then proceed to talk over or even around her. The woman may be knowledgeable about her subject area but can’t get a word in before someone else starts jabbering.

Our little tribe is a microcosm of an ongoing conversation concerning women in atheism. Because atheism is still largely a boys’ club. It was born out of the male-dominated academies of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and largely retains the same mindset. It raises concerns for me that women are still being socialized to not voice their thoughts and beliefs. And if I’ve learned anything from the LGBT movement, it’s an appreciation for diversity and the uniqueness of others.

Part of it is, I think, the dynamics of male relationships. When a bunch of guys get together, posturing and competition begin almost immediately to establish a hierarchy. We love to spar, whether physically or intellectually, and learn from an early age that if you’re going to make it in any group of guys then you have to prove that you deserve to be there.

This once meant literal life or death for humans on the African plains. Each male had to contribute to the group, whether through hunting or fighting, or the tribe could perish. This is why you’ll see many boys do ridiculously dangerous stunts to impress each other. We’re still running that same evolutionary program.

Men constantly have their masculinity challenged, especially if you don’t fit into a “masculine” stereotype. If you don’t look, talk, and walk like a dude, you’re not a “real man.” Whatever that means. This is perpetuated in Evangelical Christian culture, with the notion that there’s a Divine ideal each sex should live by. If you grew up in that world or are familiar with the books “Wild At Heart” and “The Heart of a Woman,” you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The blog What Women Never Hear had about a post a year ago about ten ways that men and women differ. (It’s full of Evangelical, heteronormative generalizations, but how can a piece written by a heterosexual guy about gender differences not be?)

• Girls ease smoothly into family life by anticipating what’s needed and what’s coming. Boys have to be taught to respect others’ interests by honoring their standards and expectations.
• Girls unconditionally respect others regardless of sex. Boys respect males much more readily than females. They usually must be taught to respect authority-figure females such as mothers, grannies, and teachers.
• Girls can easily respect others before others earn it. Boys tend to challenge others first and then respect them after they earn it.

There are massive generalizations here, along with the pathologizing of males, but there’s truth to be found here — as there is in all generalizations. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we live in the shadow of the Industrial Revolution, when gender roles and expectations experienced massive upheaval after people started migrating to cities. We’re still working out the details of mixed gender spaces that resulted from that shift.

For much of human history, the sexes inhabited different spheres—men, the field; women, the home. During the Industrial Revolution, centuries-old community structures dissolved almost overnight. The Victorian “Cult of Domesticity” called for the abolishing of traditional men’s spaces as the Powers That Be willed that men belonged at home with the family, and not in the company of other men. The decline of male friendship coincides with this as men started seeing each other not as brothers but as competitors.

… okay, this is getting too broad for a thousand words, so to bring it back to the former fundie retreat, I don’t think there was an intent to crowd out women in discussions because I don’t think anyone noticed it was happening. We guys tend to assume that if someone wants to say something that they’ll speak up, not knowing how intimidating it can be at times to enter into the discussion circle. There are some strong opinions in our group!

And I do think there is something to the claim that men respect other men more than they do women. This is not so much a criticism or indictment as it is an apparent inheritance of our bioevolutionary past. But so is tribalism, xenophobia, and aggression. Awareness is the first step towards changing any behavior. And part of the reason we all became atheists in the first place is we refused to ignore evidence that required action and change.

We’re (slowly) evolving as a species. These are the growing pains of leaving behind the African plains and graduating to something more than merely human.

104. respect

Tonight on the Tuesday edition of the CBC’s As It Happens, a story was aired about an ultra-conservative sect of Jewish men who are creating a lot of controversy in Israel by demanding a return of sex segregation and enforcing strict standards of modesty for Jewish women. The story has been covered in the Jerusalem Post, amongst other places, but it’s caused something of a cultural clash between traditional conservatives and progressive secularists. (I’m not quite sure if “secularists” is quite how to describe the latter group, but it seems appropriate when contrasted with the more religious conservatives.)

The issue has struck a bit of a cord when, as the story on the CBC related, the men began protesting outside of an all-girl’s school in the city of Beit Shemesh, harassing and even threatening the children on their way to and from, and then even during, school.

This they do in the name of their religion. And their god.

The sect in question is known as Haredi Judaism. As the article on Wikipedia states, “According to Nachman Ben-Yehuda, ‘the Hebrew word Haredi derives from harada – fear and anxiety – meaning, he who is anxious about, and/or fearful of, the word of the Almighty.’ Nurit Stadler writes that the word ‘meaning those who fear or tremble, appears in Isaiah 66:5: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word’.”

There is also the unfortunate case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman convicted in 2006 of the murder of her husband (which carries a stiff prison sentence) but is being sentenced to death by stoning (now commuted to hanging apparently) for the separate crime of adultery. Not surprisingly the outcry from the international community and from amnesty groups has been vocal, but (also not surprisingly) Iran is stubbornly moving forward with the (dare I say it) execution of the sentence.

To modern eyes accustomed to a modern judicial system, this sentence makes absolutely no sense. Prison for murder—but execution for adultery? Where no one was physically hurt or killed, and the only crime is against a husband (which itself is a private matter)? This sentence only makes sense in light of the barbaric views on women still harbored within religious fundamentalism, where women are considered inferior to men by decree from Almighty God.

Even the Apostle Paul, whose writings (presumably) make up a large part of the New Testament of the bible, had this to say about women:

“Women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” – 1 Timothy 2:9–15 (ESV)

The popular post-feminist interpretation of verses 11 and 12 of this passage is that Paul was not talking about all women but rather about one woman; that this woman rather was being disruptive and disrespectful of the entire congregation. Yet why would he bookend those verses with directives about women dressing modestly, and then with the reminder that it was Eve and not Adam who brought about the downfall of Mankind?

Yes, this was a different time and the views of the ancient world towards women were dreadful; yet those views have changed little in the Middle and Near East; in places where women often go uneducated, have few to no individual rights, and are themselves given as and considered the property of men.

This is the problem with religious fundamentalism, the kind that I was talking about in the previous article; the kind that is ultimately anti-human in nature. As Stephen Weinberg, who was often quoted by Christopher Hitchens, said, “If you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.”

(“But wait!” you might be saying (if you read my last blog, or have dialogued with me about ethics). “You don’t believe in good and evil. You’ve said so!” And quite rightly, I don’t. To expound on the quote, “If you want to make people, who under normal circumstances try to behave towards others in a kind and respectful manner, do things that even beasts would call beastly, you’ll need religion.” Things like:

• Gunning down a doctor who performs late-term abortions as he is serving as an usher at his church while his wife looks on in horror from her seat in the church choir;
• Blowing yourself up in a crowded marketplace along with numerous others who have done no wrong to you other than to hold differing beliefs;
• And protesting at the funerals of soldiers—who, ironically, died defending your right to protest—with hateful slogans like “Thank God for IEDs”, “Thank God for 9/11” and “Pray for More Dead Soldiers.”)

Fundamentalism not only loathes change: It rallies and often wars against it. It insists with a sharp finger jab to the chest that “the old ways were good enough for your grandparents, and it’ll sure as hell be good enough for you.” It screams, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” and sneers, “So, you think you’re better than us?”

Behind the black hats and the long beards of the Haredi; beneath the turbans, kufiya and the Pashtun dress of the Taliban; and the well-coiffed hair and tailored suits of men like Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann is fear. Theirs is a stern and unsmiling god, graven in their image, who looks down from Heaven with disapproval at anything that they dislike or feel uncomfortable around (which usually has to do with sex or sexuality, something god—even though he technically gifted us with it—is terrified of and detests). They fear anyone on the outside who thinks, believes or behaves differently, and cloister themselves, their families and their children away in guarded communities and schools (or home schools, in the case of many Christians).

It is this fundamentalism that presents the greatest threat to civilization and to progress. It’s the kind that demands that the whole world stop whatever it’s doing and bow down to its god and to its inexorable ethics. It craves the suspending of all human rights, of all human wants and desires, and of all human emotion and need. It demands worship and unwavering devotion, transforming people into mindless hordes marching unquestioningly into the yawning maw of its ravenous god, much like that iconic scene in the silent film Metropolis, where the main character sees a dynamo transformed into the god Moloch.

That’s a bit of a melodramatic description, yes, but no less true. These are the religions that demand that all females subject themselves to males as their superiors, to do with as they please, and as their god permits them to do. These are the religions that mutilate bodies according to the decrees of an ancient holy book. These are the religions that execute homosexuals for the supreme crime of loving someone of the same sex, but also the religions that brainwash gay teens and adults into believing that they are broken, diseased and in need of curing. These are the religions that promise that no matter how awful and unbearable life is on earth, that no matter how much you suffer, if you can hold out long enough, that Heaven is just around the corner, with a bright, shining afterlife.

In a scene from Tony Kushner’s Perestroika, the Angel delivers this prophesy to Prior:

YOU HAVE DRIVEN HIM AWAY! YOU MUST STOP MOVING!
Foresake the Open Road:
Neither Mix Nor Intermarry: Let Deep Roots Grow:
If you do not MINGLE you will Cease to Progress:
Seek Not to Fathom the World and its Delicate Particle Logic:
You cannot Understand, You can only Destroy,
You do not Advance, You only Trample.
Poor blind Children, abandoned on the Earth,
Groping terrified, misguided, over
Fields of Slaughter, over bodies of the Slain:
HOBBLE YOURSELVES!
There is No Zion Save Where You Are!
If you Cannot find your Heart’s desire
In your own backyard,
You never lost it to begin with.
Turn Back. Undo.
Till HE returns again.

This is what all fundamentalist religion demands of humans.

It’s what evangelical Christian parents demand of their gay sons and daughters, that drives those children to despair and sometimes to suicide.

It’s what Haredi men demand of Israeli schoolgirls in Beit Shemesh.

It’s what Iran demands of its people when it puts women to death for adultery, but not for murder.

Or when an Afghan court tries to force a raped woman to marry her attacker to spare her family the shame.

Evolution by nature moves forward. It progresses. The question is: How long before humanity lets go and progresses with it?

81. mandy

… or why I, as a gay American man, do not support same-sex marriage. Call it whatever else you want, but marriage it is not. And, personally, I want nothing to do with it.

What’s that? “Blasphemy!” someone is shouting? “Call the gay thought police?”

Hear me out.

Yesterday, an Op-Ed piece ran in the New York Times about Judge James Ware’s decision to release the California Proposition 8 trial tapes. As we all know, Prop 8 supporters are attempting to block the release, while (not surprisingly) equality proponents are eager for the public to see what actually went on during the trial. As Chad Griffin, board president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, was quoted as saying (also in the New York Times), Americans would be able “to see the case they put on and the case we put on, and they can decide whether the case was properly decided.”

Which is a clever way of asking, “What have you got to hide?”

Personally, I’m opposed to calling same-sex marriage “marriage” at all, for several reasons. For one, I actually agree with conservatives (and my parents) that marriage refers to a specific relationship that is somewhat exclusive to heterosexuals — and that this isn’t necessarily something for them to brag about. I’ve written about this before, but it’s not bad to have another go at explaining myself.

My own position begins and ends with the history of marriage and sexual politics, basically since the beginning of civilization. What it comes down to is that marriage is essentially a legal contract, not a basic human right, and we must keep that in mind. Without getting too deep into it, we can largely thank the Victorian era and the Cult of Domesticity for changing and romanticizing our ideas about marriage.

Historically speaking, marriage has always been a contract, and a deeply anti-feminist one at that. The most beautiful and moving aspect of a wedding (namely, a father walking his beloved daughter down the aisle) is a reflection of its original intent: that a woman was viewed as property, without rights of her own, and therefore a transferable commodity. A woman wore a ring as a mark of belonging to her husband’s household. Even the practice of a woman adopting her husband’s surname is an ancient holdover, one that couples do every day without question.

An even more ancient leftover is the custom of having a best man, and this too is tied into its anti-feminist history. In olden times, a man would often simply abduct his bride, and (as you might expect) her father and other close male relations would take offense. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, anyone? (Yes, I am a gay man.) So a groom would enlist a trusted friend to act as his second, as backup and as defense. After all, nothing says romance like raping your bride — and I’m using that term in both the sense of “an act of plunder, violent seizure or carrying off by force” as well as likely sexual. Most women probably dream of being swept off their feet, but I doubt it would be in the literal sense.

Aside from the misogynistic, chauvinistic roots of “traditional” marriage, there is also the inescapable connection of the institution to the Church — an institution that itself has not been the friendliest to anyone who was not capable of breeding more Christians to do the bidding of sky-father God to spread the mind virus of faith throughout the world. I can see the argument being made that this is where change needs to start, from within; but until the Pope Benedicts and the John Pipers of Christendom see differently, there will never be a true place at the table for gays, lesbians, or anyone under the “alternative” umbrella.

Don’t get me wrong. A marriage ceremony is an expression of love and commitment, and it’s easy to see how the GLBT community wants in on that. But at what cost? In seeking marriage equality, aren’t we selling out to the heterosexual majority in exchange for acceptance? Yes, extend the same legal rights and benefits to gay unions; but don’t merely swap out a bride for another groom on the wedding cake (or groom for bride).

The mere notion of “swapping out” a bride for a groom (and vice versa) is telling of how artificial “gay marriage” is, which is why I’m largely opposed to it and all for coming up with something new, a ceremony that reflects our unique relationships. The symbolic language of the traditional marriage ceremony is ultimately that of transaction, subjugation and bondage (not to mention fertility—you think flowers are there just for aesthetic appeal?). So why would we want to be a part of that?

What I think gays and lesbians are deeply wanting is the sense of collective celebration surrounding our unions. Weddings are massive events that bring together family and friends from all over. That’s really what’s going on — not a contract, not a legal binding. Attendants are no longer even considered witnesses in the sense that they once were. Actually, a fascinating piece of wedding arcana is that at one time the Church was so obsessed with a marriage being properly consummated that they required witnesses to attest that the deed was, in fact, done. (That’d certainly put a different twist on being the best man! The most we have to worry about now is not screwing up the speech.)

Lobbying for gay marriage provides an emotional locus, yes—far more effective and unifying than lobbying for, say, the legal rights and benefits of marriage. However, in the fight to achieve equal legal and societal standing, I think it’s important that we know what exactly it is that we’re fighting for. Most would probably say that I’m splitting hairs here, and that what really matters is gaining marriage equality; that we can talk definitions later.

But I think it’s precisely that lack of definition here that’s to blame for so much of the rancor surrounding this issue, and why it seems so costly to both sides.

Conservatives are fighting against the perceived threat of the “homosexual agenda,” which is code for “normalizing” and thereby recruiting (again, that’s code for “turning”) young people to the “gay lifestyle.” What we have here is a whole lot of inflammatory language and very little in the way of substance. It’s an effective use of apocalyptic imagery though. When in doubt, stress that our children are in danger!

So here is where the war needs to be waged, on the front of public education and clarifying definitions. And I suspect that there are many conservatives who, if you were to sit down with them in their living room and lay out what exactly we’re after (instead of on opposite sides of a picket line), they might say, “Oh, that’s what you wanted? Why didn’t you say so!” (When that day arrives, let’s resist the collective urge to be sarcastic. It’ll be a big step for conservatives to even admit that.)

This is another discussion entirely, but why that isn’t happening right now is that this is the last important social issue for religious conservatives and they want to keep it going as long as they can, or until they win. Once all unions, gay and straight, are recognized as being fundamentally equal, they will lose what little credibility and moral authority they have left. And they know it. Their entire argument that homosexuality is wrong (and therefore undeserving of legal or societal recognition) hinges on the validity and inerrancy of the Bible, and that God said that it’s wrong. That’s the sum and essence of it, right there. Take all that away and what’s left is a small, ugly voice whining, “You can’t be gay because I don’t like it and it makes me uncomfortable!”

Sorry, I meandered slightly.

As I said earlier, I think what we’re largely after in the fight for same-sex marriage is the deep sense of affirmation and celebration that surrounds the institution. It’s not about getting a piece of paper, or whatever else opponents may say, though an essential piece is certainly gaining the same rights, protections and privileges as heterosexual couples. But that doesn’t make same-sex marriage “marriage,” at least in the definitive sense, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Again, why would a gay couple want to participate in an institution that 1) has discriminated against them for centuries; and 2) is deeply chauvinist and misogynist?

Besides, the last thing I want anyone asking me is, “So who’s walking you/your partner down the aisle?” Because I can just see that conversation happening, and some bitch getting a martini to the face.

At the same time, I can see the point being made at how having “our own ceremony” still leaves us second-class citizens. In reply, I think the best solution of all is follow the lead of many European countries and totally separate Church and State. In places like the Netherlands, marriage is a contract, nothing more. You go and sign the license, which is the legally binding part; and then you have the church ceremony, which is about family, friends, etc. But the pastor or priest is not the officiant. The “By The Power Vested In Me” part is performed at City Hall (or wherever). The two are separate, but legally, as long as it’s between two consenting adults (which I think should be part of any definition), the two are indistinguishable. Granted, we’re talking about a radical cultural shift in thinking, and that’s never easy to bring about; but I don’t think it’s that outrageous.

And as I’ve said about religion, I think that definitions are important. And defining what exactly we want out of a “marriage” might take considerable wind out of religious and conservative arguments against it. At the very least, let’s know what we’re talking about before we go to war over it.

As they say, truth will out.

75. votive

On the way home this afternoon, I was listening to this passage from The Selfish Gene:

“Consider the idea of God. We do not know how it arose in the meme pool. Probably it originated many times by independent ‘mutation’. In any case, it is very old indeed. How does it replicate itself? By the spoken and written word, aided by great music and great art. Why does it have such a high survival value? Remember that ‘survival value’ here does not mean value for a gene in a gene pool, but value for a meme in a meme pool. The question really means: What is it about the idea of a god that gives it its stability and penetrance in the cultural environment? The survival value of the god meme in the meme pool results from its great psychological appeal. It provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling questions about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be rectified in the next. The ‘everlasting arms’ hold out a cushion against our own inadequacies which, like a doctor’s placebo, is none the less effective for being imaginary. These are some of the reasons why the idea of God is copied so readily by successive generations of individual brains. God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.”

—Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p.192-193

In my last post and in posts previous (in particular, one from a few weeks ago), I’ve been discussing and considering the idea of the existence of, and belief or non-belief in, God. I’ve pondered various theories, from theism being an evolutionary advantage for our early ancestors that we just never got rid of, to it being a “mind virus” that infects a person until a good dose of rational thinking cures him or her of it. But this idea of God being a meme (that is, “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” (source: Merriam-Webster)) finally put into words what I’d been trying to articulate. Considering how fast Internet videos and catch phrases spread now, and that some are more or less enduring than others, puts the whole thing in better perspective. God is an idea—and ideas, as Alan Moore once wrote, are bulletproof.

Or is God an idea?

Along with this I’ve considered the possibility that I’ve made God what I want God to be—or not to be—to suit my notions of the world and how I think it works. It certainly is more convenient for there to be no God, since it eliminates the “problem of pain.” This world is all there is, and there is no benevolent God in the afterlife waiting to wipe away all our tears and put all things to right. We don’t have to work out how or why God might allow terrible things to happen because there is no God to allow it. Things just happen. Children die. Planes fly into buildings. We’re just another animal on the Serengeti plains, eating or trying to avoid being eaten.

But I keep wondering if we’re simply asking the wrong questions. Supposing that there is a God (and my sense is that there is). Why would such an all-powerful being expect us to erect this monolithic ideology around the idea that people are intrinsically evil (tainted through no fault of their own, simply by virtue of the fact that they’re born and without any choice given to them, by this supposed Sin Nature that was imputed to them when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden however long ago it was) and that Jesus had to be born as a human in order to be tortured to death for our sins (which we seemingly have no choice about committing since it’s inevitable that we’re going to do something “sinful”)?

If we look not to the Bible but to the world around us, we see a common theme: it’s broken and a mess, but we do the best we can and life goes on. Why instead do we spend all this time flagellating ourselves (literally or metaphorically) about what awful sinners we are in God’s eyes? What a colossal waste of time and energy considering how brief and wonderful life is! It would be like going to the Louvre and instead of marveling at the incredible works of art, we’re outraged about how other people aren’t appropriately appreciating the artwork, or aren’t looking at it in the right way, or littering, or talking too loudly—and completely missing the point.

This afternoon one of my good friends at work and I were discussing her son and his three neighborhood friends, and how she wonders which one of them might turn out to be gay. She and her husband are trying to raise him in as affirmative a way as possible so that he feels free to be who and whatever he is. Her neighbors are of the same mind.

Then she talked about a friend of hers from college whose friends finally made him come out for his own good, because they didn’t care if he was gay—they just wanted him to be authentically himself and to be happy with that. Hearing stories like this—about parents who love and encourage their children, and friends who do the same—both inspires and kills me. One of our art directors at the agency has a gay son who is currently studying to be a dancer at Julliard. They knew he was gay early on, and when he finally realized it they basically told him what any parent tells their straight son or daughter—we love you, and be safe. No complications. No hand wringing. No soul searching. As if it was normal.

Because (pardon my Finnish) it fucking is normal—se on vitun normaali.

What if I’d grown up in a family where my parents didn’t care whether I was gay or not? How much unnecessary mental anguish could I have escaped? And, thinking beyond just myself, I wonder what kind of a world we might have if all parents did that. If kids didn’t worry about being bullied at school because they were or are perceived to be gay.

It comes back to this cultural god meme.

I’m going to backtrack for just a bit and lay some groundwork—and I’m going to focus for now on homophobia, which happens to be on my brain and is currently (and no doubt will be) a major moral and political issue in the upcoming presidential campaign. Now it’s telling to me that the only places where homophobia still has a strong foothold is in the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Let me focus briefly on the latter two:

• Asian culture (and forgive me for generalizing here) is one steeped heavily in tradition and honor to family, though the up and coming generation is becoming increasingly Westernized and progressive, and less tradition-bound. To an outsider, it appears almost militaristic in its demand of unquestioning obedience and conformity to social mores.
• Africa—and here I’m trying hard not to be conscious of making generalizations or value judgements—is a continent that seems largely dominated by violence, ignorance, poverty and fear. That’s also true of many societies, but I look with sadness at the genocides and ethnic cleansings of even the recent past in Rwanda and the Darfur, and the apparent utter disregard for human life in the ongoing slave trade. That AIDS continues to ravage the continent because men largely refuse to practice safe sex, or believe that the rape of a virgin will cure them, is another symptom of a continent in desperate need of enlightenment.

Africa and Asia are two continents where any of the monotheistic religions haven’t had much historical presence, which is why I singled them out, and why I’m not surprised that the cultures would be strongly homophobic. For hundreds of years, the Americas have had a strong Christian dominance, and the Middle East is home to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Islam. Both began as largely tribal societies and religions, their religions reflecting the dominantly patriarchal hegemony of the culture.

Okay—brief excursus on sexual politics in the ancient world (which is very relevant to the discussion here) and we’ll get back on topic. Gender roles were rigidly enforced in the ancient world as social stability required that everyone know their place—and free males (those who held military or monetary power and property) were masters of that world, all others (women, children, slaves, foreigners) subservient to their wills. Consequently, because males were at the top of the social ladder, it was logical that their God was male too since he must be a bigger, stronger and invisible version of human males. And so God, like a freeman, becomes a homophobe.

Sex was often the politics of the ancient world, and a freeman’s social dominance often expressed itself through sexual dominance as well. A freeman could have sex with anyone—so long as he wasn’t violating the property of another freeman. Penetration is the key word here. A freeman could penetrate (i.e., dominate) anyone of a lower social rank—women and girls (all females were considered property of males), boys and male slaves. It was shameful for one freeman to penetrate (i.e., dominate) another since that other male was either taking on the role of a non-dominant (i.e., a woman or slave) or proving himself unworthy as a freeman by being soft or weak. Inevitably theology was woven into all of that, and it became a sin for two men to have sex since God, the überman, like any freeman, doesn’t like the idea of one man penetrating another.

Sorry, this is a huge idea to tackle in one blog post, and I must sound absolutely batshit insane and sex-obsessed, but bear with me. Fast forward a couple thousand years. At the core of every Christian pastor and politician’s polemic against gays and calling for the protection of “family values” is that same ancient meme, passed down like a collective virus that shapes and defines the culture around it.

And now I’m getting to Europe, which we purposefully haven’t talked about yet.

For over a thousand years the Roman Catholic Church was the dominant reigning power in known Western world. It dictated the thoughts and beliefs of everyone with an iron fist, from kings to serfs, holding the threat of damnation and often torture and death for heresy and unbelief—but it too was infected with that same cultural god meme that had come up through the same tribal Hebrew culture from which Christianity sprang.

Douglas Adams wrote, “There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions.”

It was around the middle of the 18th century that people started having brilliant new thoughts, and the new meme of rationality began to take hold like a anti-virus in what came to be known as the Enlightenment. Suddenly it wasn’t okay to just blindly accept whatever you’d been taught or held to be true. We could understand the world and life through logic and rational thinking. And it took several hundred years, but eventually someone questioned whether our belief that it was unnatural for “man to lie with man” or “woman with woman” was right.

And that happened in Europe—just as the Enlightenment happened in Europe.

So if you’re still tracking, I don’t think it’s by accident that Europe is less homophobic, or that it thrives in places where rationality doesn’t. It is by employing reason that we move forward (in what I believe Dawkins considers a next stage in human evolution), for it was by employing reason that we abolished slavery in the Western world, developed science and medicine, recognized basic human rights and that women were the equals of men, and first got a glimpse of our place in this vast and incredible universe.

And now back to the idea of God.

… remember God?

Supposing there is a God, but we’ve created an idea of him in our image—male to boot, in all his jealous, raging, egotistical glory (and I don’t think it’s coincidence either that most theologians were males)—and built an entire civilization around that ancient meme. What must that God think of the amazingly ape-like creatures who go around stuffing each other or themselves into artificial moralistic boxes, or even going around killing each other, based on how they think he wants them to live.

What if God is like the curator of the Louvre, seeing all the silly Puritanical visitors obsessing about how furniture is arranged instead of enjoying the artwork?

53. journaling

Hi friends. Sorry, it’s been a while so any readership I once had has probably drifted on to more active pastures. As far as a quick update for those of you who care, I’m currently temping at a company in Minnetonka processing mail and customer rebates and for a couple of weeks while their receptionist is out sick. It’s thrilling. But it’s a job.

Let’s see, what else. I’m in the middle of the fall piano teaching semester and being challenged by my more advanced students, and am feeling slightly inadequate. But it’s good, and keeping me honest.

I’m gearing up for this year’s NaNoWriMo, trying to work on a few other short stories before NNWM commences, and kicking around two plot ideas for the Big Write. Got a few leads, but we’ll see what happens come November 1st. 50,000 words in 30 days. If the math is correct (and yes, I can do basic math, friends), if I consistently write about 1,700 words a day I should be able to meet the challenge, with extra time left over for editing. But for sure it’s going to kick my ass. Writing short stories is one thing; being able to hold a reader’s interest for an entire novel is a horse of quite a different colour. If you’d like to add me as a writing buddy, please do! My user page can be found here.

As you might have gathered from my last post, I’m venturing into queer theory and gender studies. Sociology and psychology have always been serious passions of mine, which led to my becoming a storyteller; but given some recent conversations I’ve had over the past couple of months, GLBT studies is (are?) becoming a real area of research interest for me, especially coming at it from a Christian perspective. I want to be able to better understand and articulate my own experience and relate it to my faith, as well as really plumb the depths of my own experience, put it into context, and not take anything for granted; challenge my assumptions—or, as Rumi put it, plow the earth and get moving.

My entry point was suggested by my friend Sand who writes over at his blog, FuckTheory: Judith Butler’s seminal treatise, “Gender Trouble.” I just started it today and haven’t even finished the preface yet, and am already astounded. She writes at the beginning (this is her writing in 1999 on the original 1990 text):

As I wrote it, I understood myself to be in an embattled and oppositional relation to certain forms of feminism, even as I understood the text to be part of feminism itself. I was writing in the tradition of immanent critique that seeks to provoke critical examination of the basic vocabulary of the movement of thought to which it belongs . . . In 1989 I was most concerned to criticize a pervasive heterosexual assumption in feminist literary theory . . . It seemed to me, and continues to see, that feminism ought to be careful not to idealize certain expressions of gender that, in turn, produce new forms of hierarchy and exclusion.

This very much echoes my current sentiments about the gay rights movement right now, that a good part of the movement has a dominant heterosexual framing.

So that’s the start. I’m also getting into Eve Sedgwick’s “Between Men.” This feels like learning to read all over again.

52. the locus of language in sexuality

I was just asked about this tonight, and thought I’d write a quick post about it:

“Are you a top or a bottom?”

This is probably the most frequent question that comes up amongst gay men when entering into a sexual relationship. It helps to define sexual roles and lay out expectations about who will be, for lack of a better word, fucking who; who will be “dominant” and “submissive.”

For me though, this type of language and labelling isn’t very helpful, and is more indicative of the hetero-proxy sexuality that has permeated the gay community since it came into the mainstream back in the 1960s. Without going into a lengthy discussion of Eva Sedgwick or Judith Butler, I posit that this sort of boxing of gay sexuality into “top” and “bottom” is a mere co-opting of existing and established heterosexual roles rather than the fostering of a true and authentic expression of the Mars/Mars interaction that takes place between men in a sexual relationship. It assumes that one partner will play the part of the “man,” and the other, by extension, the part of the “woman”, which by inference presumes that “gay sex” = “anal sex”, when there are far more expressions of eros than the few we make do with. Many gay men have no interest in that at all.

Furthermore, such language limits and suppresses exploration between partners, and locks them into predefined roles such as “dominant” or “submissive,” bolstering the idea that a “bottom” is naturally the passive partner in the relationship, and that such a pairing is one of domination and  subjugation rather than an egalitarian one built on mutual love and respect.

This is not to say that we can’t or shouldn’t have preferences for one thing or another, sexually speaking. There are some guys who truly enjoy being “tops” or “bottoms.” What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be defined and labelled by those preferences, just as I personally don’t think that I should automatically be labelled “gay” for having a preference for men, and more than mixed gender persons should be labelled “straight.”

Language like this has only served to divide us and promote stereotypes and misunderstanding. As Martin Luther King, Jr said, “Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.”

48. bias

The assumption of male gender superiority is a significant aspect of the historical and cultural context of the biblical passages that seem to discuss homosexuality. Old Testament scholar Martti Nissinen has concluded from his cross-cultural research that “ancient Near Eastern sources in general are concerned with gender roles and their corresponding sexual practices, not with expressing a particular sexual orientation.” Thus, generally in the ancient Near East, sexual contact between two men was condemned as a confusion of gender roles. The cultural emphasis on male gender superiority also appears in Old Testament narratives and laws. Old Testament scholar Phyllis Bird concludes, “In the final analysis it [prohibition of homosexual behaviour] is a matter of gender identity and roles, not sexuality.” The same attitude is present in the New Testament, reflecting its Greek and Roman cultural context. New Testament scholar Victor Paul Furnish states that Romans 1:26–27 presupposes “that same-sex intercourse comprises what patriarchal societies regard as the properly dominant role of males over females.

Rogers, Jack. (2006). Jesus, the bible, and homosexuality. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Pr.

024. form

In the way of an introduction to this post, one of my long-time celebrity crushes: Channing Tatum. Don’t ask me why, but I just think he is a fine specimen of the male species. Some people disagree with me, but I could honestly care less.

Yesterday I came home after a four-hour car ride by myself and without A/C. My pioneer ancestors would probably think that’s hilarious since they had nothing in the way of climate control amenities when they had to go somewhere, so I really shouldn’t complain.

I got some lunch and was turning the corner for the garage when I passed by the house on the corner…

And saw neighbour guy in his garage, working on his car.

Shirtless.

And drop-dead gorgeous.

Holy Moses.

And I just found out thanks to my housemate and his shameless flirting with my next door neighbor that her housemate recently moved to be with his (future?) husband. And I just caught a glimpse of him too the other day. Also gorgeous.

And apparently gay.

Damn it all: where were these guys earlier this year when I decided to go on the market (regardless of the fact that back then I couldn’t have approached anyone to save my life)?

That is a moot point though… I am now happily off the market, and have an amazing guy who is coming to see me in two days (and consequently am getting exponentially more nervous by the hour)!

All of that was in the way of introduction.

I’ve asked this question before: What makes a guy confident enough to show off his body, regardless of how developed (or even undeveloped—e.g., Sanjaya and other emo boys like him) his physique is? What makes him so comfortable in his skin that he feels the need to go about shirtless, or practically naked? From art history we see that males have traditionally been less modest in terms of dress, opting for bare torsos, arms and legs—the Greeks and Egytpians come to mind.

From an evolutionary biological standpoint this makes sense. Males have to be more exhibitionistic in order to attract mates. They have to show that their genetic material is superior to the competition—that they are stronger, faster, and more virile. But that’s in animals who are purely about procreation. No matter what Disney tells you, there is nothing romantic about it.

So what in a human male’s set of experiences leads him to feel that not only is it acceptable to show off his body, but that he has something worth showing off?

Discuss.

– Muirnin

015. pov

This past weekend I played for the wedding of a friend of mine. It was pretty conventional, albeit a tad too casual for me. The bride, my friend, looked lovely. Brides usually do. The guys, on the other hand, looked like they just sort of rolled out of bed, threw on quasi-matching polo shirts, and showed up. The bridesmaids, of course, were lovely. Women usually manage to look smashing, regardless. There are some exceptions, of course (the Jerry Springer Show comes to mind), but girls typically look so put-together. Guys today instead generally come out looking like teenage boys who still need mom to take care of them.

The straight ones anyway.

But the twist came when the pastor commented on how the groom should really be the best man at his wedding, because Christ is the only perfect husband who will love perfectly, never fail, and gave himself sacrificially for both the bride and the Bride. She should grow to love Him more every day, just as the husband too should be loving Christ more, and that bringing them closer and together in their mutual love for each other and for G-d.

Of all the weddings I’ve done, that was a first. My sister’s wedding was fairly Christ-centred, and the wedding of another friend of mine blew me away theologically and emotionally.

It made me think though. Traditional marriages are supposed to point us to the relationship between Christ and the Church, and are even to be living parables of that divine marriage. They aren’t perfect, by any means, and that’s the point. G-d doesn’t expect perfection. He expects us to be open-handed with him, acknowledging our creaturely need for him, and to admit that don’t have it all together. Even the ladies who look like they do, and especially the guys who don’t.

But marriage, especially the Biblical model, is supposed to be an example of women displaying the submissiveness to their husbands that the Church is to show to Christ (Ephesians 5:22-33). Men fail miserably here, in not being the shining examples of masculinity that a woman would want to submit to. And amidst the resurgence of goddess worship our culture encourages women to assert their feminine dominance, usually over men, taking back the power that for so many centuries was denied them by the patriarchal status quo.

However, if we look at the Biblical model, that is not what is even marginally hinted at:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (Ephesians 5:25-29, ESV)

Guys have it much harder in marriage if they are to follow this model. They are to follow Christ’s example of living sacrificially, even if that calling leads to death. This isn’t Fiddler on the Roof, where the man claps his hands and his wife falls into line. He is to look out for her needs first.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22-24, ESV)

A woman then, in response to this sacrificial lifestyle that her husband is presumably displaying, acknowledges his leadership through submission. So what happens is hopefully this mutual submission, where each partner is putting the other first in the relationship and each is likewise submitting to the ultimate authority of Christ.

So.

How does that look in a homosexual relationship, where it’s two men or two women who are partnered and are equals (egalitarian versus gender-structured pairing)? Because this is not the same relationship that Paul was talking about in Ephesians; and regardless of what you may think of the Apostle (e.g., that he was a chauvinistic misogynist), he drew some marvellous paralells between earthly and divine marriage.

Men were not designed physically, psychologically or emotionally to submit in the same way to other men that a woman was designed for a man, and likewise women for other women. However, as Virginia Mollenkott said on Speaking of Faith in 2006, “Apparently the Creator likes diversity a lot more than we human beings do.” So I believe the relationship can still thrive and that it can teach us something about G-d and about faith.

So what can we learn from same-sex relationships from a Biblical or theological perspective?

The floor is open.

Shalom to you.

006b. story part iii

So apparently a few people were concerned about my state of mind after reading the McDonagh story. Rest assured, I am not depressed or suicidal or anything. I chose to begin with that because of the overall theme of The Pillowman—if, knowing what pain and heartache we will go through in the journey to growing into adults, we would choose that path anyway; if the pain now is part of the happiness then.

If I shared with my happy seven-year-old self that one day he would grow up to be a gay man and all that means; experience the confusion and anguish of disappointing your parents, your friends, your church and G-d; and spend many dark years feeling like a freak, not knowing who or where you are as an individual—would he still go through with it? Is the pain now part of the happiness to come?

Picking up where I left off—college. This’ll go a bit faster.

Going to a conservative Christian college poses its own unique challenges. It has its own culture, just like any place. At a secular university, I probably would have been spotted right away by the GLBT crowd, thrown out of the closet and begun my college life as a gay student. And gotten into a lot of trouble that would have probably led to me losing my faith entirely through essentially sinful living.

Instead, though unsaid, the pressure is to hook up with someone of the opposite sex as quickly as possible. “Ring by spring” as the saying goes. I discovered a bevy of distractions though—working as an accompanist and piano teacher; taking as many credits as possible each semestre; and joining too many music ensembles (which made for some interesting Christmas concerts logistically).

The hardest thing about that college was how many attractive guys there were. In fact, most of them were. Walk into a classroom and there’s eye candy everywhere. Not that there weren’t plenty of attractive women as well, and that should have been a dead give-away—that it was the guys that my eyes were drawn to instantly. One summer I took tennis and spent most of it outside with several very muscular (and incredibly sexy) guys who, naturally, had to lose their shirts. I won’t tell you how I managed to deal with all that pent up sexual frustration.

By my sophomore year, I had a clue what was going on. I wanted desperately to tell someone, to find out if this was normal, if I could be “fixed.” But I also knew that I rant he risk of being kicked out if they found out that I was gay. So I did what any conscientious Christian guy with same-sex feelings would do. I hid. I tried hard to be attracted to women; tried fantasising about girls in an attempt to force myself straight. But invariably a guy would enter the mental picture and it was all over.

The next two years were a blur of activity and productivity. I wrote two full-length operas in that time span, and scores of other pieces for my musical friends. Self-medicating with busyness works well until you have to stop. By the end of my college career I was so burnt out that I couldn’t stand music any more and had resolved that my educational stint was done.

In 2005 I visited a friend in England who I had a bit of a crush on as an undergrad. She was doing post-grad work there, and of anyone I could see myself possibly marrying her and white-knuckling it. However, upon spending time with her I realised that it was the idea of her that I loved—the intellectual artist-philosopher that I idealised. But I wasn’t attracted to her.

By this time most of my friends were married or on their way. I lost my job in April of 2005 and about the same time was involved in a major accident (that wasn’t my fault), so much of my energies were directed toward survival and making ends meet. G-d provided both a job and a new car, and for a few months saw a shrink to deal with my anger. Surprise, surprise, my parents were at the centre of a lot of it, but there was also the issue of unvalidated feelings. You’d think that there, in the confidentiality of that setting, I could feel comfortable telling my therapist that I was having feelings for men. It wasn’t until journaling one day that I really grasped the idea that I could be gay. And that scared me so much that I quickly shut the door and never went back. Probably a big mistake, but I picked up a lot of valuable tools, such as cognitive therapy and metacognition.

Got back into theatre with a friend of mine who I’d done some work with in 2004. With a few of his friends we founded a theatre company and put up a couple of productions that weren’t the greatest, but it led to some more work with the same director. That all eventually led to the work that I’m doing now, writing for companies and theaters throughout the Twin Cities.

Fast forward a couple of years to February of 2008. I got laid off again due to budget cut-backs and was once again jobless. That previous summer I’d come out to a girl friend of mine who expressed her own feelings for me, and in that moment I knew that I couldn’t lead her on any more. It was hard because several weeks earlier I’d attended a session on spiritual healing with another friend of mine and was actually prayed over by a husband and wife. That was the first time I’d told anyone that I struggled with same-sex attraction, and I thought it was over. But the feelings were still there, and I was just as attracted to guys as ever. So, at 25, I told my friend that I was gay.

At that point I still held out hope that I might just be bisexual. I had feelings for another friend of mine, and one night after a rehearsal actually told her so. She confessed that she too had feelings for me, and like a complete dolt left it at that. So she was probably very confused—but then, so was I! I had a major crush on one of the guys in the cast. Then she started dating a mutual friend of ours, and I was super busy stage managing so again I let it go.

So back to the summer of 2008. I’d just moved into the apartment I’m at now, and had been job searching and applying anywhere there were openings. A lot of friends were kind enough to help financially and I never would have survived without that. I’d come out to a few more friends, at least telling them that I was 99.9% sure that I was gay. But it wasn’t until working overnight at Target, when I had scads of time alone, to think, and surrounded by some very attractive males, that it really sank in—I’m gay.

It wasn’t until that point that I even considered some of the theological ramifications of this realisation. The Bible condemned homosexuality. I’d been taught that my entire life, so therefore the Bible was now condemning me and my feelings. I didn’t choose to be gay. I’d fought it for years, and couldn’t anymore. The Bible condemns sin, and I am definitely a sinner; but there was no way out of this. Was G-d testing me to see how much He actually mattered to me—whether I could be willing to live a celibate life to His glory, alone? But then why allow me to have these desires in the first place? From the first post, I think I’ve made it clear that it wasn’t like I woke up one day and said, “I think I’ll try being gay.” I’ve always had feelings for men. It wasn’t until adolescence that they became sexual.

So I set out to try and figure it out. I knew that I didn’t fit the stereotype of a gay male, and had no desire to either. Culturally, I identified as a straight man. (From my very first post, I now identify as “mainstream gay,” practically indistinguishable from straights.) I wasn’t promiscuous and had no desire to be. But I wanted to be with men, physically.

That’s been the past few months. I’ve been having a conversation with a now good friend from another blogging site. His insights have been invaluable in accepting and learning to love myself again, and gaining right perspective on my own orientation. I made the decision early on that I wasn’t going to let the gay culture define me. It was the subculture-orientated gays who ran contrary to the Bible—sex addictions, multiple partners, drugs, alcohol, cross-dressing.

G-d made me a man (and not a woman) was my reasoning. I’m male, and am going to embrace everything about that. So apart from the Biblical condemnation of homosexuality there seemed to be no reason why I couldn’t be attracted to other men and still be masculine, provided that I follow the same guidelines that straight Christian guys do—don’t lust after another man, treat guys with respect as brothers in Christ. The only difference is that the Bible advises men and women to marry rather than “burn with passion” (1 Cor 7:9). There is no such provision outlined in Scripture for gays.

When it came to getting a handle on this theologically though, there was absolutely no consensus among scholars. The conservative Christians sounded too dogmatic, and the liberals seemed too open-minded. There had to be a balance somewhere because I was stuck in the middle wanting to not be condemned to hell for liking guys and also not wanting to live the life of a celibate monk. Because let’s face it: I was not granted that gift.

One of things I addressed was my frustration with masculinity as it is currently expressed by most western males. It seemed equally fragmented and distorted as the campy subculture-oriented drag queens; so I started researching the history of masculinity as traced by sociologists and anthropologists. That will be another post.

One final thing I’ll add is that it’s incredibly lonely being a Christian who is gay, and that’s one of the most crippling things of all—not being able to tell your Christian straight friends that you’re not like them after all. So several weeks ago I joined what is known as the Gay Christian Network. Its mission is to “serve Christians who happen to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender and those who care about them.” I’ve found that a lot of guys have a similar story to mine in terms of a conservative religious upbringing and then coming later to realise their same-sex feelings and the confusion that arises from that. So it’s been incredibly helpful. Still haven’t found much in the way of off-line community here though.

One guy on there pointed me to a ministry called Inclusive Orthodoxy, founded by a fellow by the name of Justin Cannon. There’s a booklet on there titled The Bible, Christianity, and Homosexuality. It’s an in-depth study of all the famous references to homosexuality in the Bible, going back to the original texts and looking at them in the context of word usage and the culture in which the documents were written. It helped me come closer to terms with who I am right now and the possibility of being in a committed relationship with a Christian guy.

I haven’t looked, but I’d be curious to read a response to Cannon’s study from the reformed theological community: D.A. Carson, Os Guinness, R.C. Sproul, John Piper and the like—all theologians I admire and respect.

If you have questions about any of this, please feel free to ask. There are probably many holes in this story, things I’ve left out or unaddressed.

One more thing. Unlike many gay Christians, this issue does not define me. I’m not looking to identify with the gay community, even the LGBT Christian community. This is a very private thing for me, so don’t expect to see me in gay documentaries or publishing gay literature. It doesn’t interest me and there are more important things to spend time on or campaign for.

Shalom aleichem,
Muirnin