Digital Analogue

Register-Mail letter

I got another letter published in the Register-Mail today:

This letter is in response to David Johnson's in last Saturday's Register-Mail. One of his main theses appears to be that some churches' acceptance of homosexuals is due to political correctness, or a desire to avoid hurting feelings.

It never seems to cross his mind that it might be because accepting homosexuals is just the right thing to do.

The Bible is the written component of a long and ever-changing tradition. Parts of it were written more than three millennia ago, in the context of a Middle-Eastern community that is rather different from the modern Jewish faith. Other parts of the Bible were written in the first few centuries A.D., again reflecting the lives of a community quite different from any in existence today.

Even considering the Christian faiths of just a few centuries ago, the bar of acceptability has changed somewhat. Interest-bearing loans, one of the cornerstones of the modern middle class, would have been roundly condemned as usury. Now, though, we realize that as long as the interest rate is not exorbitant, the practice benefits everyone involved and is not at all immoral. Is this a "deviation"? Are interest-bearing loans something that "renders that faith ineffectual"? Other topics, such as dancing, drinking, divorce, and birth control, vary among the various Christian faiths and are judged either more or less moral than they were fifty or a hundred years ago---but in all cases had Biblical support on both sides.

Even the most literal sola scriptura interpretations of the Bible are just that: interpretations. We may each find our own interpretations without outside influence, or perhaps under the guidance of our respective ministers and priests, or faith-sharing groups, or any number of other places. But one thing's for sure: when it comes to people who have the dubious distinction of being attracted to members of the same sex, we can treat them nicely without any sort of recourse to political correctness. For our gay friends, and gay coworkers, and gay family members, we can let them unapologetically love whosoever they want, just because we now know it's the right thing to do.

"The etiquette of symphony concerts is that the only muscles that may be moved are the ones needed for turning to glare at those who dare to breathe too loudly. What is done to toe-tappers is too horrible to mention." --Miss Manners