You've every cause to doubt me

[sovay]

So . . . despite getting up for it at six-thirty this morning, we still don't have a bed. We have part of it upstairs. After several phones calls to the delivery service and the company we ordered it from, we are waiting for the rest. And hoping. And very tired. If we slept a combined total of three hours last night, I'd be surprised. I have said I'll be at home, awake, and near my phone until this situation is sorted out, however, so I think that's the rest of my day.

Some other things make a post.

1. Auditions! Upcoming! The Post-Meridian Radio Players are holding theirs next Monday and Tuesday for Tomes of Terror: Nevermore and Theatre@First at the beginning of September for The Trojan Women. Do you like Edgar Allan Poe? Do you like Euripides? I am afraid I cannot offer a crossover, but you could audition for both shows and it would almost count. Seriously, sign up now. Theater in Somerville this fall is going to be great.

2. Can I get someone with a liberal Christian perspective on this issue? (Called to my attention by shirei_shibolim, who wanted to double-check the Latin for "argument by shrimp." I believe we settled on argumentum a squillis.)

3. Robot Hugs says intelligent things about harassment. Also about scheduling and identity, but I kind of want to see the harassment one reblogged everywhere as a PSA. Also, because it never gets old: Cativan.

4. It wasn't on the dollar rack, but the Harvard Book Store has now furnished me with a used copy of M. John Harrison's Viriconium (2005), the omnibus. I faintly feel ashlyme was responsible.

5. Thanks to the AV Club, I am intrigued by the pilot of Outlander. Cunnilingus in a castle.

There had better be a bed and some sleep soon. I am tired of making lists.

Comments

[rinue.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I do find the argument by shrimp silly and unpersuasive. I think if you're making a religious argument in favor of homosexuality, you need to make a religious argument in favor of homosexuality, rather than "religion says silly things all the time!" That's just bad rhetoric. But not because undermining the Bible undermines Christianity. It's a sacred text in the way the Constitution is: changeable and elastic, and limited in its ability to define what it means to be American.

[sovay]

I think if you're making a religious argument in favor of homosexuality, you need to make a religious argument in favor of homosexuality, rather than "religion says silly things all the time!"

I don't think the people who argue by shrimp are trying to make a religious argument in favor of homosexuality; I think they are trying to make an argument—of whatever nature—against employing religion against homosexuality. A religious argument in favor of homosexuality would look quite different; I am sure they exist; I'd love to be pointed toward one. (Just don't point me toward one that affirms male homosexuality at the expense of women, because I've read the secular versions and they aren't helping.)

[rinue.livejournal.com]

This is what I most often hear, in one variation or another:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-shore/the-best-case-for-the-bible-not-condemning-homosexuality_b_1396345.html

Which basically boils down to "the Bible has little to say about homosexuality and an awful lot to say about being compassionate, so cut it out, jerks."

If you're really curious for something in depth, I can ask the minister of my church, who is gay and whose husband is also a minister. The Massachusetts Episcopal diocese has been a real front runner in ordination of gays and women, and I'm sure there are a lot of canonical arguments that are way above what you hear from the laity. Here's the summary I could find on my own:

http://www.integrityusa.org/archive/FAQs/index.htm

[sovay]

"the Bible has little to say about homosexuality and an awful lot to say about being compassionate, so cut it out, jerks."

That strikes me as eminently practical. The point about the accepted degrees of sin in all cases but homosexuality is especially interesting to me. There's some argument-by-shrimp—"Clearly, we no longer follow any such laws"—but it's not the whole of the argument.

If you're really curious for something in depth, I can ask the minister of my church, who is gay and whose husband is also a minister.

I am curious; I feel I hear much more about the condemnatory side of this debate than the welcoming. sairaali mentions Radical Love, upthread.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

Here's what I wrote to the pastor of my church:

"I have a friend (who is queer and Jewish) who has been feeling upset lately because of some hateful things some Evangelical Christians have been saying. Knowing that the Episcopal church, particularly in New England, is very much on the side of gay rights, she wanted to know why we support the full rights and humanity of gay people even though some other branches of Christianity don't.

The best I could say was roughly "because human beings!" I said that Jesus was very clear about loving each other and that nothing else comes close to that in importance, and also that by our traditions we aren't bible-bound - that we are a living faith of which scripture is just one pillar, that we are guided by the holy spirit. I knew enough to be able to link to Integrity USA's FAQ. But is there another resource you can think of that I should point her to?"

His response:

"Excellent that you referred her to Integrity. I’m not aware of another official source to which you could refer her, though surely resolutions passed at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church demonstrate a historic movement (from the early 1970s) toward full inclusion. The theological principles which undergird full inclusion of LGBTQ folk centers on the incarnation and the trinity. The former is all about Jesus’s humanity and divinity, and Anglicanism has long held a very high regard for humanity in all its expressions (e.g. “because human beings). The latter is all about relationships—and just as there’s diversity in God’s own self, there is diversity among God’s people."

(The Integrity link above does detail some of these resolutions.)