Christians Really Need To Step Up Or Shut Up About Gay Rights

I’m a Ghanaian and I support gay rights and it amazes me to no end to know my countrymen absolutely suck at something that should simply be a matter of common sense.

Why do I support gay rights? Well, for starters they’re human beings, they’re not hurting anyone, and they’re just doing what their body tells them to do- you know, just like the rest of us. Did I mention that they’re human beings?

Why do Ghanaians hate these people so much? Is it the anal s*x that grosses you out? A lot of heteros*xual couples do it and enjoy it immensely. Ghana is a country of s*xual prudes who somehow indulge in all kinds of ‘s*xual immorality’, yet somehow we draw the line at gay people having s*x. I guess so long as you sin with the opposite s*x God doesn’t really care that much.

A lot of the arguments made against gay people are really laughable. They’re sinning, what they’re doing isn’t natural, that’s not what God intended. etc. One and three are really the same thing, and two is just factually incorrect; but then religionists in general are not people to let facts get in the way of a good bout of self righteous indignation.

Let’s tackle that accusation first, because the one about sinning is really my target with this piece. What is natural, if not what occurs in nature? Homo sapiens being the only species to develop higher thinking faculties (other animals have it, but it’s fair to say not to our level) does not mean we get to determine what nature is. Nature exists independently of our brains and our consciousness and our silly little constructs, and it is what it is. If one day we drive ourselves extinct in our religious fanaticism, nature would continue to roll on unabated.

In the natural world, homos*xuality occurs without any prejudice. This is a cold hard fact. Many animals exhibit homos*xual tendencies, including several of our close primate cousins. We are a part of nature, so part of our population exhibits tendencies that are ubiquitous throughout nature; what could be more natural than that? The only reason you would reject this is because you have cultural and religious reasons not to believe this scientific fact, same as it is with evolution by natural selection. But belief ≠ fact.

But the main gripe driving this piece, and why I say Christians need to step up or shut up; concerns the one reason you always hear in this debate, the one about homos*xuality being a sin. The injunction against being gay appears in Leviticus 20:13, and reads in full…

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

There are other injunctions, but it is fair to say this came first, and thus influenced all subsequent ones.

Hey Christians, how about some honesty here. Leviticus calls for killing all gays, so are you willing to go out and slaughter every gay person you meet? It’s in the bible, you know, so why don’t you step up or shut up.

What else does Leviticus tell us to do? Don’t touch any unclean animal, and certainly do not eat them (5:2, 11:4-7). You know one very famous unclean animal, the pig. I know a lot of Christians who love pork. Step up or shut up!

Leviticus bans many other ridiculous things, like keeping your hair bushy or wearing a cloth with mixed fabrics or getting tattoos or planting two crops in one field- and many others I do not have the time to list but which you can just read about here. And don’t even get me started on Deuteronomy!

People choose the ones they like and discard the rest, like it is a matter of choice. If there is a god and he is really watching you, then you have to seek out all his commandments and follow them. Just picking and choosing is not really going to work out for you.

Usually it is around this time that you hear of some story about the New Testament and grace and new convenant or something along those lines. But Jesus never said anything about banishing the old laws, in fact he said he came NOT to banish them (Matthew 5:17). He told the story about how following the commandments is what would get you eternal life (Matthew 19:16-20). Besides if the Old Testament has been superseded by the New- then why the brouhaha about the Ten Commandments all the time?

Also, if one takes this theory of grace, then why is that not accessible to gay people? If they are living in sin, but seek forgiveness for it every Sunday, as the rest of you do; what makes you so different from them? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, no? So their sin is a different colour than yours, who are you to judge? (Matthew 7:1-3)

I’m getting a little tired of people taking edicts from a book that endorses slavery (Exodus 20:2, Ephesians 6:5), genocide (Deuteronomy 7:2, 20:16), rape (Numbers 31:17-18, Deuteronomy 22:20-29), killing children (2 Kings 2:23-25, 2 Samuel 12:15-18), incest (Cain and Abel, who did they marry, yo?, Abraham and his half-sister/wife), and global annihilation (Noah) ; and beating the rest of us over the head with it for being immoral. If I believed someone with the above track record was good, and the source of all things good- then you would absolutely have an obligation to call me immoral.

It is a simple argument I’m making, that the bible has a lot of ‘sins’ in them, which a lot of people ignore, yet concentrate on that of others (in this instance gay people). One commonly held thought in Christianity is that all sins are the same, none is bigger than the other; so why do people feel the need to condemn gay people so much, just for the fact that they have chosen a sin different than the one you indulge in? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone- and all that.