{"id":23710,"date":"2010-03-23T07:09:16","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T13:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/affirmation.org\/?p=23710"},"modified":"2021-10-03T16:30:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-03T22:30:04","slug":"in-gods-name-the-treatment-of-homosexuals-by-the-christian-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/affirmation.org\/es\/en-nombre-de-los-dioses-el-trato-de-los-homosexuales-por-la-iglesia-cristiana\/","title":{"rendered":"En el nombre de Dios: el trato a los homosexuales por parte de la iglesia cristiana"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Christian

Photo: Hash Milhan\/Flickr<\/a> | Some rights reserved<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

by Terry Hiscox<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was pulled from internet archives and was originally published in 1998. Some edits and updates have been made to the original text. It’s possible information this article treats as current is out-of-date and readers are encouraged to verify with more recent sources. If you believe an update should be made to this text, please let us know<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Terry

Terry Hiscox<\/p><\/div>\n

Over several millennia, homosexuals (or any other appellation ascribed to this community) have enjoyed various degrees of acceptance or tolerance within broader society. During the golden age of Greece, acceptance would likely have been the correct terminology. During the early Middle Ages tolerance may have applied, and later hatred came into vogue. Coming to the closing decades of the twentieth century, acceptance of homosexuality is gaining momentum again. However, for almost two millennia, one large and powerful institution has been vociferous in denouncing homosexual practices. This institution is the Christian church. Of course, there are some exceptions to this broad generalization, but, in the main, overall condemnation continues to hold sway.<\/p>\n

This paper delineates atrocities, committed in God\u2019s name, against the homosexual community. A cross-section of Christian groups is named, and particular practices, both from their past and contemporaneously, are laid bare. Sampling is proffered from the Catholic, Protestant, and Mormon Church traditions.[1] In particular, this paper examines some traditions of the \u201cearly\u201d church, and the vitriolic rhetoric promulgated by the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas citing the scriptural imperative that dominates their thinking militated against homosexual behavior.<\/p>\n

Following this analysis, this paper will explore, from early Christian history, scholarship suggesting that the early church solemnized same-sex marriage, and then will examine the views of contemporary Christendom. Of particular interest will be the current political posturing by various Christian groups against the potential legalization, in 1998, of same-sex marriages in the State of Hawaii. Moving from same-sex marriage, an explication of the efforts by certain Christian groups to \u201cconvert\u201d gay people into heterosexuals is scrutinized. Various \u201cex-gay\u201d ministries are reviewed together with their claims of success.<\/p>\n

This paper concludes with an explication of the treatment of gay and lesbian students and teachers on the campus of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. This university commonly referred to by the Mormon community as the \u201cLord\u2019s\u201d university, is wholly owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon or LDS Church. From the late 1950s to the present, the LDS Church has had a continuous policy to root out all unrepentant homosexuals on its campus, leading to psychological trauma and suicide \u2014 all of which will be critiqued. In addition, the strident efforts of the Mormon Church to, using another\u2019s term, \u201ctorture\u201d adherents into a heterosexual orientation are examined.<\/p>\n

Germane to this paper is a review of the theological underpinnings of Mormon dogma that is necessary so that the reader may understand the particular trauma that a homosexual acolyte of that particular faith may undergo because of their belief. A brief history follows: In Mormon lore, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the \u201crestored\u201d gospel and church government established by Christ originally. They accomplished this through a \u201clatter-day\u201d prophet named Joseph Smith. The Mormon church\u2019s explication of how this came about has been canonized into scripture in a book called The Pearl of Great Price under the rubric of \u201cJoseph Smith, 2.\u201d In this book, the reader finds the story of Smith\u2019s \u201ccalling\u201d as a prophet. Smith explains that God and his son Jesus, in their respective persons, visited him in answer to his prayer of what church he should join. According to Smith, God advised him, in 1820, that he must join none of them because all the churches of Christendom were an \u201cabomination in his sight\u201d because of their creeds and that all their ministers were corrupt.[2] This history goes on to state that Joseph was the instrument that God ordained to \u201crestore\u201d the gospel of Christ in its original purity.<\/p>\n

From The Pearl of Great Price, one learns that in Mormon theology all Christian churches are of the Devil and that the Mormon Church is Christ\u2019s one-and-only \u201ctrue\u201d church through which one\u2019s salvation can be gained. This dogma has great power over those that believe in the gospel as established by Joseph Smith. For example, if the Mormon Church excommunicates a believer for homosexual activity they are doomed for eternity. To quote a modern-day prophet of the Mormon Church, Spencer Kimball states, \u201cAs an excommunicant [sic], he is in a worse situation than he was before he joined the Church. He has lost . . . his claim upon eternal life. This is about the saddest thing which could happen to an individual. A true Latter-day Saint would far prefer to see a loved one in his bier than excommunicated from the Church.\u201d[3]<\/p>\n

Although patriarchy is nothing new to Christendom, the Mormon Church perhaps represents the apogee or ne plus ultra in top-down management. Women have no standing in the hierarchical management of the church. The priesthood is solely a male function often referred to by female Mormon liberals as the penishood. The president\/prophet of the Mormon Church, his two counselors, and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are the presiding authority in this church. The membership sustains them as \u201cProphets, Seers, and Revelators.\u201d[4] It is a commonly held belief, by rank-and-file Mormons, that the Saviour meets with this illustrious group of men in the Salt Lake City temple weekly and conducts the affairs of His Church \u2014 such is Mormon folklore.<\/p>\n

Joseph Fielding Smith, one of the twelve apostles and later church president, said in 1945 to all members of the Mormon Church: \u201cWhen our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan \u2014 it is God\u2019s Plan. When they give directions, it should mark the end of controversy, God works in no other way.\u201d (my emphasis).[5] A more contemporary church apostle and member of the First Presidency said in 1979, \u201cWhen the Prophet speaks the debate is over.\u201d[6] These statements are an epiphany to those that study Mormon psychology. In effect, they expect ordinary Mormons to abrogate any pretense towards critical thinking and subrogate their agency to that of \u2018the Prophet\u2019. Based on these statements, it is easy to see how a homophobic leadership could easily influence anti-gay thinking among true believing members of this church when they construe their prophetic pronouncements to be the mind and will of the Mormon god.<\/p>\n

The aforementioned thinking and theological dogma have brought forth some interesting musings by various church apostles and prophets that many members of this church accept as the \u201cgospel\u201d and must be practiced to be in full fellowship with the Church. To wit, Apostle Bruce McConkie wrote, \u201cLoss of virtue is too great a price to pay even for the preservation of one\u2019s life \u2014 better dead clean, than alive unclean.\u201d[7] What McConkie is referring to is that dying while trying to defend oneself from a rapist, is better for a woman than to submit to her attacker and lose her virtue. McConkie continues in his book, Mormon Doctrine, to quote other Mormon apostles and prophets. Quoting from Joseph F. Smith\u2019s book, Gospel Doctrine, Smith said, \u201c\u2018We hold that sexual sin is second only to the shedding of innocent blood in the category of personal crimes. . . .\u2019\u201d[8] It is hard for most rational humans to understand a mindset that equates sex as second only to murder if done outside of the bonds of matrimony.<\/p>\n

Into this miasma of guilt comes Spencer W. Kimball, another apostle and later a long-serving prophet\/president during the 1960s and 1970s. He wrote a book, published in 1969, called The Miracle of Forgiveness. This book is long on condemnation and has a paucity of anything much related to the forgiveness of sin. The book enumerates a litany of crimes against the so-called gospel of Christ and His Church. From chapter six, which falls under the rubric \u201cCrimes Against Nature,\u201d one finds the following theological gems to contemplate. After a long treatise on the evils of masturbation, Apostle Kimball posits that masturbation \u201coften leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation \u2014 practiced with another person of the same sex \u2014 and thence into total homosexuality.\u201d[9]<\/p>\n

Kimball calls homosexuality \u201ca sin of the ages\u201d and suggests that \u201cperhaps as an extension of homosexual practices, men and women have sunk even to seeking satisfaction with animals.\u201d(my emphasis)[10] Continuing his rant against homosexuality, he denounces those homosexuals who \u201cattempt to justify oneself in this perversion\u201d by stating that \u201c\u2018God made them that way.\u2019\u201d He calls this blasphemy, saying that man is made in the image of God, and that God is not a \u201cpervert.\u201d[11] Speaking of other perversions in another section of his book he denounces immodesty in dress, stating that this is analogous to exhibitionism.[12]<\/p>\n

The Mormon Church has long believed that it has been persecuted for its beliefs. This is not without some justification, inasmuch as they were run out of the United States into the territory now known as Utah for some of their peculiar religious practices such as polygamy. However, it is interesting to hear the contemporary views of one of its apostles and a prophet Boyd K. Packer of the Council of Twelve. In May 1993 he gave a speech to the \u201cAll-Church Coordinating Council.\u201d In this speech, he outlined the greatest threat to the Church today. Subsequently, this talk has gained fame as the \u2018Three Enemies Speech\u2019. Packer said,<\/p>\n

There are three areas where members of the Church, influenced by social and political unrest, are being caught up and led away. I chose these three because they have made major invasions into the membership of the Church. In each, the temptation is for us to turn about and face the wrong way, and it is hard to resist, for doing it seems so reasonable and right. The dangers I speak come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals.[13]<\/p>\n

It was clear from this address that these three distinct and diverse groups do not enjoy favor within Mormon culture.<\/p>\n

Against these antecedents respecting the theological underpinnings of the Mormon Church, it is expedient to move onto a cursory view of the early Christian church and how homosexuals were treated in that earlier period.<\/p>\n

Early Christianity<\/h2>\n

In speaking to the issue of homosexuality in the early church John Boswell, an assistant professor of history at Yale University, makes some interesting observations about the source of early Christian ethics in his 1980 book Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. It should be noted that most Christians today, in their advocacy against homosexuality, quote only the handful of scriptures in today\u2019s Bible that speak to homosexuality. Boswell reminds his readers that the Bible, as contemporary society knows it, only came into existence in the sixteenth century. Therefore, the \u201cBible\u201d was not the main or only source of early Christian morality. He posits, \u201cIt is, moreover, quite clear that nothing in the Bible would have categorically precluded homosexual relations among early Christians.\u201d[14] He explains that \u201cthe word \u2018homosexual\u2019 does not occur in the Bible: no extant text or manuscript, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, or Aramaic, contains such a word.\u201d[15]<\/p>\n

Boswell acknowledges that the famous story about the destruction of Sodom in the Old Testament has been interpreted as punishment for homosexual behavior by the inhabitants of the city. However, he notes that interpretation is of relatively recent in origin and that the destruction was based on the \u201cinhospitable treatment of visitors sent from the Lord.\u201d[16] To buttress his argument further, Boswell points out that \u201cSodom is used as a symbol of evil in dozens of places, but not in a single instance is the sin of the Sodomites specified as homosexuality.\u201d[17]<\/p>\n

In the book of Leviticus, which does proscribe against mankind lying with a man as with a woman, Boswell states that this is a misinterpretation of the original text and that the meaning is culturally specific.[18] As he states, \u201cAlmost no early Christian writers appealed to Leviticus as authority against homosexual acts.\u201d[19]<\/p>\n

Concluding his book, Boswell makes the following observations: Roman society in the first century did not make any particular distinction between gay and straight sex. It was just part of normal sexuality. He posits that the early Christian church did not pay any particular attention towards homosexual behavior. It was only from the third to the sixth century, as the Roman Empire deteriorated, that hostility towards homosexuality became noticeable. Boswell states that homosexuality enjoyed widespread acceptance by the eleventh century and then waned during the twelfth century and then degenerated further during the times of the Crusades and the Inquisition of the thirteenth and fourteen centuries.[20]<\/p>\n

Having inadequately covered almost two millennia of Christian attitudes towards homosexuals in a few short paragraphs, it is time to move to modern twentieth-century attitudes, or at least the attitudes of a particular Protestant denomination in Kansas.<\/p>\n

Westboro Baptist Church<\/h2>\n

Repeating the thesis of this paper, it is an exploration of the treatment of the gay community by the Christian church. It is this writer\u2019s opinion that the Westboro Baptist Church does not represent mainstream Christian thought, but, certainly, it represents one of the more vociferous views and is therefore worthy of scrutiny. This church takes great pride in having had their views presented on such shows as \u201c20\/20″, \u201cEye on America,\u201d \u201cRicki Lake,\u201d and on PBS, Fox, BBC and a litany of worldwide electronic and print media. This church states,<\/p>\n

Perceiving the modern militant homosexual movement to pose a clear and present danger to the survival of America, exposing our nation to the wrath of God as in 1898 B.C. at Sodom and Gomorrah WBC [Westboro Baptist Church] has conducted some 10,000 such demonstrations during the last five years at homosexual parades and other events (including funerals of impenitent sodomites).[21]<\/p>\n

In this church\u2019s published tracts, they freely state that the Christian god they worship \u201chates fags,\u201d that fags are \u201cfreaks of nature,\u201d that AIDS is \u201cgod\u2019s cure for fags\u201d and that the homosexual lifestyle is both soul-destroying and nation-destroying.[22] The obvious comment, \u201cIs not God a god of love and that one should love one\u2019s neighbor as oneself\u201d is discounted in this church. The leadership of the church states that the Bible preaches hate. They excoriate preachers that are soft on homosexuals. They believe such rhetoric to be \u201cdamming this world to hell.\u201d[23] They suggest that these preachers are telling their listeners what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. In their view, what is needed to be heard is that \u201cGod hates people, and that your chances of going to heaven are nonexistent, unless you repent. What you need to hear is a little fire and brimstone preaching, like Jesus preached.\u201d[24]<\/p>\n

The Westboro Baptist Church believes that AIDS is a gift from God. It is God\u2019s will and even people who contract AIDS from a blood transfusion, including babies or other innocents, should not complain because it is God\u2019s will and the populace must understand that God\u2019s ways are not our ways. They point out that God is not to be held to \u201chumanistic standards of justice.\u201d[25]<\/p>\n

According to Westboro Baptist Church\u2019s Web page, this group revels in picketing the funerals and grave sites of those that have died of AIDS. When asked if they have any evidence of \u201cfags\u201d having repented as a direct result of their picketing a spokesperson replied, \u201cWho cares? Our job is to preach, and by our preaching we hope that people will be saved. However, Jesus is the Savior, not us. He will call His sheep.\u201d[26] They go on to point out that, \u201cWe\u2019re not saying \u2018We hate fags\u2019 \u2014 we\u2019re saying \u2018God hates fags\u2019.\u201d[27] This appellation became the name of their Web site.<\/p>\n

There is no empirical way one can measure how much influence this group has. However, given the amount of media coverage this group \u201cenjoys\u201d it makes one fear for the homosexual community. This leads to the next subject of interest \u2014 gay marriage. It may not fall within the sanctity of the church, but it may fall under the purview of the law in 1998.<\/p>\n

Gay Marriage: Is It a New Phenomenon of the Late Twentieth Century?<\/h2>\n

Many people believe that gay marriage is a phenomenon of the 1990s. According to the scholarship of Yale professor John Boswell, this paradigm is not true. In the August 11, 1998-edition of the Irish Times, writer and historian Jim Duffy reviews some findings of John Boswell from Boswell\u2019s book The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. According to the Duffy article, Boswell posits that same-sex marriage was solemnized by the early Christian church. Boswell points to a religious icon in a Kiev art museum that came from a monastery on Mount Sinai. This icon depicts the image of two Roman Christian martyrs, St. Serge and St. Bacchus being married in the Christian tradition. In addition, \u201cthe icon has Christ himself as their pronubus, their best man overseeing their \u2018marriage\u2019.\u201d[28] Duffy goes on to state that Boswell \u201chas discovered that a type of Christian homosexual \u2018marriage\u2019 did exist as late as the 18th century.\u201d[29]<\/p>\n

In addition, Boswell has found that the sacrament of marriage \u201chas not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has evolved both as a concept and as a ritual.\u201d[30] Besides finding documentation about heterosexual marriage rites he also found documents relating to certain ceremonies under the rubrics of \u2014 \u201cOffice of Same-Sex Union\u201d from the tenth and eleventh centuries and the \u201cOrder for Uniting Two men\u201d dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries.[31] He also lists the details associated with these same-sex unions emanating from ancient liturgical documents.[32] Not only did he find evidence of same-sex union in Kiev but from archives in the Vatican, St. Petersburg, Paris, Istanbul, and from the Sinai. These archives are from the eighth through the eighteenth centuries.[33] Duffy concludes his Irish Times article stating, \u201cThat evidence shows convincingly that what the modern church claims has been its constant unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is in fact nothing of the sort.\u201d[34]<\/p>\n

Despite the findings of John Boswell, it is not likely that mainstream Christianity will readily accept this evidence. Moving to the twentieth century, this paper will examine the potential of same-sex marriage in the State of Hawaii being proclaimed into law, along with the political machinations surrounding this initiative. To provide a brief chronology of this issue in the Aloha state, Richley Crapo of Utah State University gives insight into the position of the LDS Church from his 1997 paper titled, \u201cLDS Doctrinal Rhetoric and the Politics of Same-Sex Marriage.\u201d Following this chronology, the position of the Hawaii Christian Coalition is examined which is fronted by well-known television evangelist Dr. Pat Robertson of the 700 Club.<\/p>\n

Crapo points out that a number of denominations\/religions, such as certain branches of the Buddhist religion and Judaism perform same-sex marriages. The Metropolitan Community Church and the Unitarian Universalists will solemnize same-sex unions. Even two offshoots of the Mormon Church will perform same-sex marriages.<\/p>\n

What precipitated the current imbroglio was a 1990 court case in Hawaii where Baehr vs. Lewin filed a suit in Hawaii to get the state to recognize marriages where the partners are of the same sex. Initially, the Circuit Court found against their petition but on appeal, the Supreme Court of Hawaii set aside that decision stating that unless the State of Hawaii could show \u201ccompelling state interest\u201d against same-sex marriage such marriages would be legal. The state was unable to prove compelling state interest; this determination brought the matter before the state legislature.<\/p>\n

In 1995 the LDS Church sued the Circuit Court in order to be named as a co-defendant in this case. The church claimed that its church membership would be adversely affected by a ruling in favor of same-sex unions. The Circuit Court dismissed this suit as did the Supreme Court upon appeal. Now that the process has reverted to the political realm, the Mormon Church is lobbying hard in trying to defeat the motion in the State Legislature. November 3, 1998 the people get to decide this issue on Election Day.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> The voters of Hawaii opted to give the state legislature the power to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples. By the time the issue was considered by the Supreme Court of Hawaii in 1999, the court upheld the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. A civil union law for same-sex couples was passed in the state in 2012 and legislation making same-sex marriage legal was passed in 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n

Crapo found that it is ironic that the Mormon Church is relying on the government to impose its view on marriage, which is in keeping with the values of the Mormon Church. Only a century before, the Mormon Church had vigorously opposed the authority of government to impose its peculiar definition of marriage and to limit the Church in its practice of polygamy. Even in LDS dogma, secular marriage has no effect in the eternities unless performed by the LDS Church in one of its temples, which is only available to certain \u201cworthy\u201d members of its congregation. In effect, the Mormon Church does not recognize secular marriage as efficacious before God.<\/p>\n

Still, the Mormon Church fights the state-sanctioned same-sex marriage proposal in Hawaii. In 1996, Gordon Hinckley, the current Mormon president\/prophet, made a special trip to Hawaii to rally the faithful in helping to defeat this legislative proposal. Hinckley \u201ctold a meeting of 20,000 people that they were enough to stop unwanted social change in Hawaii.\u201d[35] Hinckley also curried the favor of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Hawaii, Francis X. Dilorenzo, in a private meeting to plot a common campaign against same-sex marriage. \u201cAffirmation,\u201d a gay and lesbian support group, found irony in this meeting pointing out that \u201cthe Catholic church officially refuses to recognize the power of the state to perform valid marriages or even to grant divorce, yet it purports to tell Hawaiian citizens what marriage and family in the civil sphere should be about.\u201d[36] Chastity Bono, a prominent lesbian activist, succinctly states the gay community\u2019s view of Christianities bias towards same-sex union: \u201c\u2018People even think of the actual word \u2014 marriage \u2014 as a straight institution.\u2019\u201d[37]<\/p>\n

In February 1996 the Mormon Church engaged a Hawaiian marketing agency, Hill and Knowlton, to serve the church as its official lobbying group. To maintain the pretext of the separation of church and state, the LDS church used its wholly-owned property management company, Hawaii Reserves, to actually contract the Hill and Knowlton agency. They gave this lobby group \u201c\u2018unlimited funds\u2019\u201d to conduct their business on behalf of Hawaii Reserves a.k.a. the Mormon Church.[38]<\/p>\n

Not only did the Catholic and Mormon churches commit to a common front against same-sex marriage in Hawaii, but the aforementioned Pat Robertson\u2019s group is also conducting their own campaign. In an open letter to Christians, the Hawaii Christian Coalition is campaigning hard to raise $1,200,000 with which to mount a media blitz to fight this \u201cmoral decline.\u201d[39] Their literature delineates five reasons why good people should contribute to the fight. The reasons are \u2014<\/p>\n