I was also reminded of a documentary example of spiritual violence that I have taught in some of my American literature classes at the University of Pittsburgh. Like anti-gay biblical interpreters today, Jacobs' preacher ignored the larger literary, historical, and spiritual context of this problematic verse. And like today's anti-gay preachers, this minister used his position of power as a way to impose his narrow interpretation on an audience. Fortunately, many Christians of that era were able to effectively counter the spiritual violence of the pro-slavery preachers. And today, forward-thinking individuals of all religious persuasions are working to counter contemporary spiritual violence.
Spiritual violence is a problem of great concern to lesbians and gay men, and to their loved ones.
But it should also be of particular concern to Latinos regardless of sexuality. Today's diverse Latino communities are the product of centuries of genetic and cultural blending of these four races. And tragically, most of the encounters that have so produced today's Latino peoples have been marked by both spiritual and physical violence. Conquerors and inquisitors regularly held the scourge in one hand, and the Bible in another. So as the son of a Puerto Rican mother, as a proud Latino who is aware of the many holocausts that lie in his ancestral past, I refuse to tolerate any type of spiritual violence.