Recently, I found a link to this story in Dan Savage’s blog. The story is just begging to be discussed on Religious Freaks. Phil Magnan, director of Biblical Family Advocates, spoke out against the hypocrisy of condemning homosexuality when many Christians’ own bed sheets are not clean.
“How can we as Christians have any moral credibility before God and man when we are practicing the very thing we condemn in the form of immoral marital practices?”
He points to a 2001 Barna Group study that found that 30% of Christians practice cohabitation (the horror!) and that divorce rates are the same for Christians and non-Christians.
While I give Mr. Magnan credit for recognizing and working to prevent Christian hypocrisy, I could not bring myself to categorize this post under ‘Good Freaks’. This is because Mr. Magnan’s ‘solution’ is not to encourage acceptance of homosexuality, but to hate common heterosexuality! He goes on to say:
“Until we show as much hatred for our own sin in our churches and demand repentance we will continue to destroy the sanctity of marriage, even more than same-sex marriage proponents.”
Sorry Mr. Magnan, but 90% of Americans have premarital sex. This includes both sexes and all age groups, even those born in the 1940′s, the supposed ‘good old days’ for ‘traditional’ values. If you want to hate that behavior, you’ll have to hate the vast majority of Americans’ choices.
I have never understood religious people’s vehement hatred for human sexuality. Why do they care so much about this class of ‘sins’ more than many others, like gluttony?
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I think the reason is that religions were instituted by men who didn’t get any. They were lonely and sad about this, and dealt with this by trying to equal the score.
@Joakim:
+1
I mean have you *seen* the guys who make up the priests/ministers/mullahs/spiritual-healers? These are the ones who have the most to lose in a competitive market.
Religious freaks, on average, make even I.T. guys look like serious competitors :-/
Well, originally, Christian clerics could still get married and stuff, because their Jewish rabbinical forebears could. But in a theocratic society, with a constant tug-of-war between religious and secular authorities, it must have been just too tempting for the ordained to pass their robes on to their sons, complete with lands and wealth attached.
I’m gonna go watch the Penn and Teller “Bullsh*t” episode about the abstinence movement now, and see if the whole “sex-is-shameful” idea gets clarified at all.
Lord knows I certainly grew up with that attitude.
“I have never understood religious people’s vehement hatred for human sexuality. Why do they care so much about this class of ’sins’ more than many others, like gluttony?”
I wouldn’t say we hate human sexuality. We certainly have a fair amount of rules and guidelines regarding it, but to say we hate it isn’t quite right. That’s been my personal experience, anyway.
What is wrong with a group of people hating the “vast majority of Americans’ choices?” A bunch of people do/have done a thing so now we should just be ok with it? I don’t follow.
Of course, hating a choice a person makes and hating the person himself are different things. I’m perfectly ok with someone hating a choice that I have made or activity that I enjoy…but if that ever bleeds over into hating me as a person, then I get offended. So your title to this post isn’t a very accurate summary. This guy isn’t (in this article, at least) admonishing anyone to hate heterosexual sinners. He’s admonishing us christians to stop being dicks to homosexuals when we can’t even follow our own rules.
Personally, I don’t get riled up about non-christians having premarital sex, homosexual or otherwise. You never agreed to follow our rules, so why should I be surprised or angry when you don’t. That’s not to say that I don’t like our rules or think that they aren’t worth following; if you ask me, “Hey, UncleMidriff, should I have lots and lots of premarital sex?” I’ll tell that I don’t think it’s a good idea…but if you go and do it anyway, what business is it of mine?
These irrational attitudes to sex seem to have originated in Judaism and been carried forward with its offspring. No rhyme nor reason, just the dynamics of human societies where every daft idea that gets stuck hangs around until something even dafter drives it out.
As for the “unnatural” argument people use about homosexuality, I never see a reason to single out sex when almost everything man does is unnatural. If it came from those living naked in woods and subsisting off snails and roots one might respect the argument.
Hello UncleMidriff,
It’s been a while.
Perhaps ‘hate’ is too strong of a word, but the religious right sure do make a lot of noise over sexuality. What I guess I was really asking is why do they focus primarily on sexuality? The example I gave, gluttony, is a much bigger problem in the US. Since the preoccupation is evident, what is the motivation if not hate? Disgust? I seriously don’t know.
You are right, there is nothing wrong with condemning a behavior that is practiced by most people. ‘Everybody is doing it” has never been adequate moral justification. I just wonder if he’s willing to acknowledge how widespread this ‘sin’ is. It seems to me that taking a hard line on premarital sex would alienate many Americans from Christianity.
Again, we find ourselves in agreement. It’s the old ‘hate the fundamentalism, not the fundamentalist’ idea, and one that I subscribe to.
I think that a big part of the reason for the focus on sexuality is a few basic issues.
1) At the time of writing, gluttony was a rare sin. How many people could AFFORD to be gluttous? Sure, overeating is a sin… but when 98% of the population is effectivly malnutritioned, it’s not an issue. But everyone has bodies; sex is always going to be a commin issue.
2) Sex is very powerful. Not only does it promote the exchange of bodily fluids (a common way to exchange disease), but it’s the primary mode of producing families and has a very large built-in incentive. So if you want to keep people safe and give them time to think about their paths, the only way (at the time) to do so was to restrict sex.
So, the old books focus on sex for a reason. Now, it messes up a lot more people now than it helps, but it helped a lot more people then than it messed up, IMHO.
@Sid:
“It’s the old ‘hate the fundamentalism, not the fundamentalist’ idea”
That line is pure quality, that is :)
Can I say “hate the religion, not the believer” instead?
Face it, sex is here to stay, as are homosexuals, who fall outside the “America choice” thing mentioned by Midriff.
Homosexuals can only enjoy homosexual sex. Period. Christians have placed gays in a catch 22 perdicament. They say premarital sex is a sin, and they won’t allow gays to marry. So gays are damned if they practice homosexual sex, or damned if they go along with the Christian viewpoint, marry straight and NOT enjoy their sex.
Why else besides hateful spitefulness would Christians do this to a large group of people? Christians have forever forced gays into a life of perpetual sin.
Like everything is in religion (and life). It’s about money and power. I tend to believe the stricture against pre-marital sex stems from daughters being property to be bartered. A daughter with a child won’t bring as many chickens and goats.
As for homosexuality, I haven’t a clue why it arose. Possibly as a method to distinguish themselves from the Greeks? As enjoyable as sex may be it really only serves one major purpose. I’m purposely ignoring the pair-bonding and whatnot as they’re all precursors to ensuring the survival of the species.
“Why do they care so much about this class of ’sins’ more than many others, like gluttony?”
You couldn’t have asked a better question. Maybe the “sins” of gluttony and slander hit too close to home. It is a lot easier to preach about “others” and “their sins” than to face reality. Plus, you can’t preach about those sins in your congregation, it would cause you to lose tithe.
It is a sad commentary of Christianity that the movement is marked more for what they are against than what they are for.
Dave said:
“Maybe the “sins†of gluttony and slander hit too close to home. It is a lot easier to preach about “others†and “their sins†than to face reality.”
I’d agree with that. People in the churches I have attended have a profound lack of understanding when it comes to homosexuality. They can understand wanting to eat a little too much at the next church pot luck dinner, but they cannot fathom the desire to have same-gender sex. Thus, it’s easy for them to rail against homosexuals as they eat their fifth piece of fried chicken. :-)
All the seven big ones can easily be found in church and amidst the attendees but for some unknown reason they need to go out of their way to find something which is comparable to a footnote in the bible as reason to judge people. I never understand the logic of that.
I’d say it’s about time for people to stop worrying so much about homosexuality and start worrying about all of these fucking cult-like religions (namely Christianity … mostly Southern Baptist)who seem to have nothing better to do than to attack people for their own personal beliefs (might I point out that in doing so, they are going against the word of their own “god”). I mean, who the hell are they to decide what is wrong and what is right. Not everyone believes in “god” or “Jesus”. In fact, quite a large amount of people denounce Christianity. Besides, whether someone be homosexual or heterosexual, it’s no one’s business but their own and whomever they decide to share their preference with. If you ask me, all of these sanctimonious sons of bitches should burn for trying to destroy innocent people simply for living their own lives how they see fit. And I don’t mean burn in “hell” as that I don’t personally believe in purgatory. As long as people aren’t physically hurting anyone else, they should be left to their own devices. And with that, I’m off.
All the seven big ones can easily be found in church and amidst the attendees but for some unknown reason they need to go out of their way to find something which is comparable to a footnote in the bible as reason to judge people. I never understand the logic of that.
It’s nice when I can answer questions without actaully thinking about them. ;)
Eh, alcari? I’m afraid I don’t follow. Lemme put down my fried chicken and anti-gay picket sign…ok, you were saying? ;-)
ES2x13:
There are various theories as to why homosexual behavior came about from an evolutionary stand point. I just wrote a paper about the biological basis of homosexuality, so I’m going to be lazy and copy and paste a section from it (sorry):
“Different evolutionary theories have also been formulated to explain this phenomenon. Camperio-Ciani conducted a study of 98 homosexual and 100 heterosexual men and over 4000 of their relatives. The study confirmed previous signs of increased number of homosexual males in the maternal lineage of homosexuals. More importantly, however, the study showed that female maternal relatives of homosexuals had significantly higher reproductive rates than the female maternal relatives of heterosexuals, and no differences were observed in the paternal relatives. A gene or set of genes can have different effects in different sexes. The increase of fecundity in females evolutionarily “makes up for†the loss of reproduction in males. As long as the advantage for females was worth more than the disadvantage for males, the gene would persist in a population (Camperio-Ciani 2217-2220).
Another theory dealing with reproductive rate advantages is that of adaptive bisexuality. In a study by Baker and Bellis, bisexual women were found to be more fecund than heterosexual women. Male homosexuality could possibly be a maladaptive side effect of this system. An additional theory proposed by Miller is based on female mate choice. The sexual selection of nurturing personalities would increase feminizing alleles that could lead to homosexuality. Miller’s research showed women prefer feminine qualities in men, and gay men were more emphatic and less aggressive. Another theory is that of kin altruism. Homosexual men, while not producing children of their own, could help siblings rear their children, thus indirectly passing down shared genes. This is supported by the increased empathy of gay men and similar altruism found in other species. Also, homosexuality could be a maladaptive extreme of same-sex affiliation that reduces violence between males. Studies of primates have shown that same-sex bonds increase survival, supporting this theory (Rahman 1343-1347).”
Sorry for the shameless plug, but if you’d like to read the rest of the paper, it’s in my emo…I mean, livejournal: http://jennifurret.livejournal.com/101554.html
@ Jenni
I appreciate the knowledge, I already accept homosexuality as evolutionary in origin. I guess I wasn’t very clear, I was wondering how the BIAS against homosexuals arose.
And I will read your paper.
I still say it’s an aspect of the historical accessability of the sins. Everyone has the required parts to have sex, so everyone could do that. Not everyone had the money or resourses required to be a glutton, so not everyone could do it. Are you going to rail against something that nobody is doing? “It’s wrong to fly under your own power!” “It’s a sin to walk through walls!” “God hates you because you eat rocks!”
Of course not. Nobody cared about those sins because as far as the common world was concerned, they didn’t exist. So nobody who wrote the ‘good book’ cared enough to worry about them. Even if the ‘good book’ was written by God. Why the hell would he write about that 2000 years ago? It was never an issue then. He’s going to write about stealing your neighbours sheep or wife or land. Not about abortion, euthenasia, gluttony and such. And if it’s written by the hand of man (gasp! ) they’d have no way of knowing what would be a big thing in the future.
Hello The Outsider,
Okay, let’s see. About 80% of Americans are overweight, 55% are obese, and only about 2% are homosexual. It seems to me that most Americans do have the resources to be gluttons and the percent that are come awfully close to the percentage that have premarital sex. Also, the overweight number far outweighs all other sex related ‘sins’. America is a society where most people have the resources to be gluttons and homosexuals. Most choose to be gluttons, very few ‘choose’ to be homosexual. Yet it is in America where we find fundamentalists screaming about the evils of homosexuality and not about the evils of gluttony to their mostly fat congregations.
Oh, they had gluttons in ancient times. By and large, they happened to be the rich and powerful, a class commonly targeted for ridicule by the disenfranchised masses for their sinful behaviors. Jesus himself spent most of his time preaching about the sins of power and wealth. Why not pile on the condemnation by adding the sin of gluttony?
Finally, I’d love to know where the ‘good’ book specifically condemns abortion and euthanasia. I’m not familiar with the verse(s).
“Finally, I’d love to know where the ‘good’ book specifically condemns abortion and euthanasia. I’m not familiar with the verse(s).”
I think you’d have to move up the timeline to find abortion and the like. Augustine for sure, maybe even earlier. Just remember, it doesn’t have to be in the Bible to be Biblical :)
Condemns abortion? God endorses and also performed abortions in the bible.
Not in the NT but then again, the scope turned from the chosen people to individuals making it troublesome to me to understand why people keep using OT when jesus was supposed to be a new beginning, would that not mean the old rules were to be ignored and people should follow the new set from there upon?
On euthanasia, god does not have mercy, bible is full of accounts where god mercilessly kills or orders people to kill others. There is no specific mention of euthanasia but apparently god is against mercy.
sidfaiwu:
Maybe I misread what The Outsider said, but I don’t think he was implying that the bible condemned abortion or euthanasia. What you wrote makes me think you thought he was implying that…if I’m mistaken, I apologize.
Anyway, I don’t know of any verse in the bible that specifically condemns either of those things. The closest thing I know of being used by pro-lifers is Psalms 139:13-14,
“13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ”
They use that verse to imply that a fetus is, even at such an early stage, a creation of God and, as such, should not be destroyed; they argue that life begins at conception.
As for euthanasia, I have no idea what verse might be used to argue against it. I know that Catholics really frown upon suicide, and euthanasia would probably fall under the same category, but I don’t know what specific verses they use as a justification for prohibiting it.
You are right sidfaiwu, I was just having a bad day and even worse discussions about how god forbids abortion even if mother is in danger, touchy subject at the moment.
I have been running on a slightly elevated levels of emotions and just whipped out those verses without following my normal rules of never writing nor saying anything while agitated, sorry.
But in bible, in OT, children under the age of one month are not counted by god. If a miscarriage happens due acts of another man in an accidental fashion and mother is unharmed even if baby aborts, then in gods eyes everything is alright. Should the mother die, then one is allowed to follow the life for a life punishment.
I cannot recall any exact wordings in the bible which would allow euthanasia but suicide is preferable to being killed by a woman Judges 9:XX (cannot recall XX exactly but was around 45-55) also suicide when you kill enemies is also considered to be good thing.
In Judges 16:29-30 the story of Sampson would actually justify christian suicide attacks.
Only reference I recall on top of my head which is against suicide is in Revelations but that is about god preventing people from avoiding torment by god. Not really about suicide now but during the end of the days.
Sorry, meant UncleMidriff. Still running too hot.
Sidfaiwu, I think you missed my point. What I was saying was that, 2000 years ago, gluttony was a rare issue. Now, it’s a common issue. But people are looking at a 2000+ year old document for guidance, and this is the result. What they view as important is 2000 years out of date.
There is nothing in the bible that specifically talks about abortion, euthenasia, or similar issues. That was my _point_! The reason? Nobody lived long enough through terminal illnesses to worry about euthinasia, for instance, for it to be an important issue. Abortion was not only uncommon, but would have commonly killed the mother as well (considering the medical technology at the time).
The same thing can be said of gluttony. 2000 years ago, very few people had the resources to be gluttons. Even among the rich there were not too many gluttons, as it was still rare to have more than simply a healthy amount of food. (Never mind the fact that, if everyone around you is starving, you tend to eat something less as you see a normal amount of food as ‘lots’…) Sex, on the other hand, is something that everyone can do. And, considering that early Christians were surrounded by Greeks and Romans (whom it is commonly thought were quite OK with homosexual behavior), they most likely encountered a lot of behavior that went against this particular belief.
…
This is something a bit different, just to show you how I’m thinking…
As an aside… It makes me think, maybe, part of the reason christians have such an issue with homosexuality may derive from this early exposure to a homosexually-charged society… In many late pre-Christian Roman documents, homosexual behavior is exalted even above heterosexual behavior. Perhaps what we see in Christianity is simply a backlash against that kind of thing?
Hello The Outsider,
Sorry about my misinterpretation. I’m glad UncleMidriff caught it as well. Thanks for the clarification and the thoughts. Historically, the focus makes sense. I guess this is just an illustration of why it’s a bad idea to take a 2000 year old book and apply it to modern times.
I am a firm believer that the more a person protests against homosexuality, the greater the likelyhood that they am likin’ the same sex lovin’ themselves.
I am straight up straight, I like the women, all my porn is lesbian porn :) However, I am able to appreciate the male form too. I have no problem recognizing when a guy is hot. Doesn’t mean I want to sleep with him. I am comfortable with my sexuality and homosexuals don’t threaten me. My brother and a cousin (by marriage) are gay. If I guy hits on me, it doesn’t offend me. I am flattered. You know why? I know where I stand. And I am comfortable with it.
Frankly all this hand wringing the christians do over gayness is asinine. I would go so far as to say at this point in our evolution homosexuality is important for us, it curbs our exponential reproduction rate somewhat. I say, damn it, we need MORE gays. Us breeders are filling the damn place up and with the believers being so anti-science and starting so many wars we will fill this planet to the point of overflowing before we move out into space. Guys, face it, believers are the greatest threat facing the human race today!
No-one seems to have mentioned something – I think the preacher is talking also about anal sex when he mentions “immoral marital practices”. Fundamentalists definitely believe that sodomy is a big no-no. I have moved to the Bible Belt (a smallish town I often call “Godforsakenville”) from a large, cosmopolitan city. OMIGOD – these people are unbelievably indoctrinated!!! They come from a poor and isolated background, and far too many are still locked in their old-timey “boxes”. They have never really been out in the larger world. They all ask you to come to their church (yes, they still assume that everyone here is Baptist!). I think I’ll have to write a book.
Love this site. It’s an oasis in this desert of reasonless, knowledgeless robots. (Well, there are SOME people here who have more of an overview and some experience with life outside “Godforsakenville”, so they help. If you wonder why I stay – I fell in love with a big-hearted mountain man/country boy who works with his family here. I just get away when I can.)
yeh well the old testement encourages incest… so they can’t realy say we’re weird
I have a girl in my class that hates me so much, that she will do any thing to distroy my life. I have never saw any one so full of hate. I have never even said one word to her. I don’t know her other they she was in a few of my classes. Her fear and hate over her sexuality are like none I have ever seen. I have done nothing to her and am sure that I am not her only victam.
Being of a sexual orentation does not give you the right to hate and come after people who are not like you. I have a right two live my life with out your stuff making me come home and cry.
This story is crazy!! all those christians preaching “god is love” ….but in reality they hate everything, including themselves im sure. they just say one thing- calling athiests and homosexuals (and naughty heteros too!!) evil sinners but they are commiting a terrible sin in the eyes of their convoluted religion…what happened to “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”…? they dont even listen to themselves when theyre spouting this ridiculous bullshit!! fuck that
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