From: tdbear@dvorak.amd.com (Thomas D. Barrett)
Newsgroups: soc.motss,soc.bi
Subject: Re: Responding to Bible quotes
Date: 11 Jan 93 00:10:46 GMT
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.; Austin, Texas

In article <1imsl8INNqcg@plts.uucp> tal@warren.mentorg.com writes:
>A friend is getting a lot of shit from his Bible banging sister.  You'd 
>think I would have been smart enough to save one of the many "The Bible
>and homosexuality" FAQs and FAQ-like(tm) postings.  However, I
>haven't. 

It won't really do any good... unless your friend is a bible scholar,
he has little chance of going head to head with her (assuming she is).

Is your friend a believer is something godlike... besides maybe you :)
It helps to hit a Bible thumper head to head with a firm and
unyielding belief equal to the thumper (Hey, do we have wormsign
yet?).

It really freaks some people out when you relate to them that the
transcribers of England as well as the original Scribes imparted their
own beliefs into the Word (how else are there so many versions of the
Bible).  It is not the words that is the Bible, but rather the Story
and the Meaning of those words.  One has to rely on his/her inner
Truth to see through the crust of ancient fears and prejudices.

For instance, the story of Sodom and Gamorroha (don't kill me for
spelling)... The first thing a thumper points out is that the men of
S&G wanted to have sex with the angels.  Fine... who said angels had
a sex?  The Truth was that sex was all that anyone in S&G really cared
about.  These weren't just druggies, prostitutes, etc. like you find
around the country... these are people who had truely lost all sight
of what it meant to be human and what life really meant. These were
the people that most societies nowadays would have eventually locked
up or killed because of some violance or other crime against society.
These folks were not human... save for Lot and his family, of course.
Of course Lot's wife looked back (a metaphor for longing to return to
S&G's fun) and was destroyed along with her partners in crime (the
other residents).  The story of S&G has NOTHING to do with
homosexuality.  That assumption was made by some poor ignorant fool or
yesteryear... and to assume that it is the word of God is an
indication of not knowing the true word of God and an indication that
one is worshiping words in a book rather than THE WORD.

The rest of the arguments fall away similarly.  Tell your friend to
not be discouraged even if she doesn't acknowledge that her belief
system might be flawed by her belief in a certain version of the
Bible... sometimes it takes a while for them to really start listening
to the Whispers of Truth over the roar of old bigotry and
misunderstanding.

If the rest of the family feels the same, it may be a little tough...
but if the rest of the family is more tolerant and open, then it is
best to just make stern corrections to her as necessary (like if she
drops a quote or two).  My favorite statement is to say that it is
comments like that which cause thousands of g/l teens and yound adults
to want to take their own life, many thousands more to be seen as
open-targets to good Christian teens out for a good time gay-bashing
and rapeing, and reason for up to 500,000 teens and young adults to be
kicked out of their loving families each year.  That usually shuts
them down or makes them defensive... if the get defensive, NEVER let
them go.  THey have to take responsibility for their own deeds, and
the blood that they help cause to be spilled!



-- 
|Tom Barrett (TDBear), Sr. Engineer|tom.barrett@amd.com|v:512-462-6856 |
|AMD PCD MS-520 | 5900 E. Ben White|Austin, TX  78741  |f:512-462-5155 |
|"No is yes, And we're all free" ---Tracy Chapman, "Why?"              |
|My views are my own and may not be the same as the company of origin  |