"An unfounded obsession with homosexuality"

It is not good that many Christian groups are obsessed with their members' sexual conduct. I remember several sessions in my Bible study class as a teenager and as a new convert to Christianity where the aura of guilt hung heavily in the air as our group leader told us to refrain from masturbation and to not succumb to homosexual temptations. I may not have had the second, but almost everyone, male and female, masturbates. I was no different. That guilt stayed with me for a long time.

The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina is moving to expel churches that "affirm", "approve" or "bless" same-sex relationships. There are apparently a dozen of them. From the Washington Post article below, "The growing acceptance of gays in popular culture and the fact that homosexuality has powerful advocacy groups made the stance necessary, Baptist leaders said." Mark Harris, the head of the committee that proposed the measure said, ""In our day and time, no other sin marches so defiantly across our national landscape."

I had no idea that the use of hallucinogenic drugs was so widespread among Christian conservatives. Let me give you another example of sin. Americans allowed their administration to engage in war, based on fabricated evidence, and against international law. According to the Iraq Body Count (link below), between 48,000 to 54,000 Iraqi civilians have died based on newspaper reports of deaths; the British medical journal Lancet estimates as many as 100,000. As of today, 2,879 American servicepeople are dead and officially, over 22,000 are wounded. Some estimates that the sanctions that preceded the war, which were instituted by President George HW Bush and continued by Presidents Clinton and Bush Jr, killed as many as half a million children under 5. Madeleine Albright said that those deaths were justified. Americans apparently only just woke up and realized that the casualties (at least, the American casualties) were actually not all that justified. The military keeps no official body count. Many Republican leaders expressed contrition for the war, but it sounded more like they regretted being caught lying rather than actually regretting the suffering they had helped inflict. Many Democrats waffled between pro-war and anti-war for political gain.

There is indeed sin marching across the American national landscape. There's the war, there's the blaming the poor for their own plight and the refusal to provide universal healthcare. There's the cutting of taxes for the rich while eliminating programs that provide a safety net to the poor. And by the way, Mark Harris, whatever you're smoking, it's probably illegal too. There's an article (link below) about how the president-elect of the Christian Coalition had to step down because he wanted to broaden their agenda to include poverty reduction and fighting global warming. Imagine that - Christians supporting poverty and environmental destruction. And these are the Christians who have the gall to question other Christians' legitimacy because they differ on issues of sexuality. These are the Christians whose obsession with sex produces wilfull blindness to what's actually going on in the world.

I'm not saying we should all just go at it like rabbits without regard to the consequences. We do need sexual/reproductive ethics that addresses reality: that teenagers will have sex whether or not they are taught about birth control; if they're not taught, the result is unwanted teen pregnancy. That pronatalism among Roman Catholics and some conservative Protestants is harmful to an already overburdened planet - and that it helps keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. That birth control should not be seen as a sin. That human personhood should not be seen as beginning at conception, but that embryos are indeed forms of human life and should be treated with dignity. That abortion rights should be protected, women and men informed of the choices and the potential consequences, and trusted to make the right decision based on their own sense of ethics and personal situations. That lack of abortion rights means that women will go to desperate measures to get one, jeopardizing their lives, and that attacks on abortion rights are at best potential attacks on womens' equality.



3 Christian groups move to condemn gay sex: Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111401337_pf.html

The antigay obsession: Boston Globe (may require registration)
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/11/18/the_antigay_obsession/

Pastor chosen to lead Christian Coalition steps down in dispute over agenda
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/us/28pastor.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Iraq body count
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/