This was great! It reminded me of someone I recently met. I was at a conference for writers and this Author was signing books. She is married to a man but proudly confessed to me a complete stranger that she was BI, I was amazed, impressed and taken back. WOW some people are more than ally's they are queer people living in a straight world. Luckily it is who you fall in love with not what gender. I'll stick to that till my dying day! thanks!
I love how determined you’ve been to see the true light.
As a lapsed-Christian-now-now-Pantheist, I want to strike someone (not really; I’m not violent) when I hear about any religion, but especially Christianity, teaching condemnation of anything other than het-cis. I’ve studied Biblical scripture much more thoroughly from the safe distance of no longer believing in the Christian doctrine, and I’ve learned that there is no scripture that actually condemns homosexuality. The word didn’t even exist until around 1890, and it didn’t appear in any Bible anywhere until 1946. No one alive when any book of the Bible was written had any concept of sexual orientation.
Did scripture condemn male-male sexual behavior? Sure. It had to. They “knew” that all the essentials for new life were contained in ejaculate, and that the woman’s only contribution was “baking” the child and caring for it. It belonged to the father; hence the phrase “widows and orphans,” which implies that any fatherless child is an orphan, regardless of the mother’s presence. “Spilling seed upon the ground” and “wasting seed” was tantamount to murder, so two men together killed two people at once. There was only one condoned way to have sex. Now we know that the mother’s contribution to a child far outweighs the father’s, biologically and chromosomally.
Interestingly, with the exception of Romans, which had to address the conversion of a particular kind of Paganism, you won’t see a condemnation of female-female sexual behavior in any book of the Bible. If no man was involved, no sex was happening.
The way I see it, I can take pride only in the things I have accomplished. I can’t claim credit for being female, or American, or for having any of the attributes I was born with. I can claim credit for what I’ve done with those attributes. However, I fully support the idea of gay pride; I see it as less pride in being gay than it is a fight against the shame society has heaped upon the non-het/cis for millennia.
Thanks for this background, it's really interesting! It's crazy how little historical context the average "Bible-believing" Christian has for understanding this text. We're great at presuming our own cultural lens must be universal, even though concepts like marrying for love are completely modern inventions.
"Pride is about standing up for ourselves and for each other." Yeah, this really landed. Even though I regularly "pass" for cis male now, I feel it more important than ever right now to own my trans identity as an act of solidarity. Thank you for this, Katharine...and happy Bi Visibility Day to you! And Troy, thank you as always for lifting all LGBTQIA+ voices here. Love seeing these queer related book links, too! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
No, Sweetie - Pride is not the antidote to shame. Being LGBTQI is a very neutral, basic, factual thing. It is the sex, or sexuality, or your brain's expectation of what your body should be like. It just is. There is nothing to be ashamed or proud of - it just is. Let's try a better question - one with the possibility of an answer! I promise this will be much more satisfying. Welll... it will in the end but the process... another matter. Here we go. Before you can find the antidote to shame you must know what poisoned you in the first place. Otherwise, you'll die trying antidotes that don't work, right? Soooo.... "What poison did you take? Or, what poison was given to you... or forced on you?" That indoctrination into shame had a process and until you stop taking the Shame Poison, and then work your way through the antidote... maybe even antidotes... you can't get free of shame. The door into shame is usually the door into the closet and most of us have discovered that the only way out is through the same door we came in... and worst part of that discovery is that THE DOOR WAS NEVER LOCKED! We could have... but most importantly...we CAN just walk right through it anytime we're willing to let go of our shame. We must let go of our attachment to the lie that we can't exist without the poison. The poison always turns out to be a lie. Look for the poison, the lie, and the source that scared you into the shame in the first place - the door is right behind that. I promise.
Katharine, thanks for making such a good point I hadn't ever considered. If one is bi and solidly ensconced in their life why would it matter if they came out? I love your comment that it would allow us to be fully seen by those we love. Yes. But, perhaps most importantly it would allow us to be fully seen by ourselves. I appreciate you making me look inside a little deeper.
This was great! It reminded me of someone I recently met. I was at a conference for writers and this Author was signing books. She is married to a man but proudly confessed to me a complete stranger that she was BI, I was amazed, impressed and taken back. WOW some people are more than ally's they are queer people living in a straight world. Luckily it is who you fall in love with not what gender. I'll stick to that till my dying day! thanks!
I love how determined you’ve been to see the true light.
As a lapsed-Christian-now-now-Pantheist, I want to strike someone (not really; I’m not violent) when I hear about any religion, but especially Christianity, teaching condemnation of anything other than het-cis. I’ve studied Biblical scripture much more thoroughly from the safe distance of no longer believing in the Christian doctrine, and I’ve learned that there is no scripture that actually condemns homosexuality. The word didn’t even exist until around 1890, and it didn’t appear in any Bible anywhere until 1946. No one alive when any book of the Bible was written had any concept of sexual orientation.
Did scripture condemn male-male sexual behavior? Sure. It had to. They “knew” that all the essentials for new life were contained in ejaculate, and that the woman’s only contribution was “baking” the child and caring for it. It belonged to the father; hence the phrase “widows and orphans,” which implies that any fatherless child is an orphan, regardless of the mother’s presence. “Spilling seed upon the ground” and “wasting seed” was tantamount to murder, so two men together killed two people at once. There was only one condoned way to have sex. Now we know that the mother’s contribution to a child far outweighs the father’s, biologically and chromosomally.
Interestingly, with the exception of Romans, which had to address the conversion of a particular kind of Paganism, you won’t see a condemnation of female-female sexual behavior in any book of the Bible. If no man was involved, no sex was happening.
The way I see it, I can take pride only in the things I have accomplished. I can’t claim credit for being female, or American, or for having any of the attributes I was born with. I can claim credit for what I’ve done with those attributes. However, I fully support the idea of gay pride; I see it as less pride in being gay than it is a fight against the shame society has heaped upon the non-het/cis for millennia.
Thanks for this background, it's really interesting! It's crazy how little historical context the average "Bible-believing" Christian has for understanding this text. We're great at presuming our own cultural lens must be universal, even though concepts like marrying for love are completely modern inventions.
Good one Keith
"Pride is about standing up for ourselves and for each other." Yeah, this really landed. Even though I regularly "pass" for cis male now, I feel it more important than ever right now to own my trans identity as an act of solidarity. Thank you for this, Katharine...and happy Bi Visibility Day to you! And Troy, thank you as always for lifting all LGBTQIA+ voices here. Love seeing these queer related book links, too! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Thanks, Keith! All the best to you
Appreciated your post. Thanks. Fondly, Michael Horvich
No, Sweetie - Pride is not the antidote to shame. Being LGBTQI is a very neutral, basic, factual thing. It is the sex, or sexuality, or your brain's expectation of what your body should be like. It just is. There is nothing to be ashamed or proud of - it just is. Let's try a better question - one with the possibility of an answer! I promise this will be much more satisfying. Welll... it will in the end but the process... another matter. Here we go. Before you can find the antidote to shame you must know what poisoned you in the first place. Otherwise, you'll die trying antidotes that don't work, right? Soooo.... "What poison did you take? Or, what poison was given to you... or forced on you?" That indoctrination into shame had a process and until you stop taking the Shame Poison, and then work your way through the antidote... maybe even antidotes... you can't get free of shame. The door into shame is usually the door into the closet and most of us have discovered that the only way out is through the same door we came in... and worst part of that discovery is that THE DOOR WAS NEVER LOCKED! We could have... but most importantly...we CAN just walk right through it anytime we're willing to let go of our shame. We must let go of our attachment to the lie that we can't exist without the poison. The poison always turns out to be a lie. Look for the poison, the lie, and the source that scared you into the shame in the first place - the door is right behind that. I promise.
Love this, Katharine. To enable ourselves to evolve and become more and more fully who we are is a gift!
Thank you and thank you, Troy.
Yessss! Thank you, Holly <3 Maybe pursuing wholeness is the point of spirituality?
Maybe so!
Katharine, thanks for making such a good point I hadn't ever considered. If one is bi and solidly ensconced in their life why would it matter if they came out? I love your comment that it would allow us to be fully seen by those we love. Yes. But, perhaps most importantly it would allow us to be fully seen by ourselves. I appreciate you making me look inside a little deeper.
Thanks Troy for another excellent newsletter💕
I loved this! Thank you!
Thanks for sharing this with us!