Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
And gays are called to a life of celibacy. So that's the story? That is what some religions would have the world believe. Love the sinner, hate the so called sin. What is the sin? Love? Commitment? A life shared with love and concern?
The sin is whatever torrid and horrible manifestation these errant religious zealots can concoct in their feeble minds. Not as concerned what the acts straight people do in their bedrooms or the back of cars, they imagine what gay people do (and all gays are supposedly guilty of whatever that is by the way). These people have no fear of intruding into others bedrooms or households to define and regulate what is proper physical love and support offered by a loving partner or spouse. Allegedly because God says so. Based on what word you might ask?
One of the primary sections of scripture used is found in Genesis, the story of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah. If you read it though it is nothing about love and commitment between a same sex couple. It is not the loving story of David and Jonathan found in the book of Samuel. What it does show is townspeople wishing to rape two male guests. The last time I checked rape can in no way be equated with love or a loving relationship. What else does the Genesis passage offer us? Well, it gives us a glimpse of Lot offering the mob his very own two daughters for rape in place of the two men. Wow. Now doesn't that seem like a good action to emulate?! Based on that alone I am not surprised that Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed.
But wait, what is this talk of Genesis? The reading today is from Isaiah? The xenophobes that seem content to misuse the passage from Genesis as the basis for their anti-gay slurs and thoughts are corrected in today's passage. As if it really isn't apparent that being inhospitable and offering up your daughters is a sin of the greatest magnitude, this passage in Isaiah really spells out the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Loving relationships is not among those listed.
The list includes a great many things that major churches seem to have a penchant for. Perhaps it is no wonder they wish to turn the message around and deflect the judgement from themselves onto a marginalized group of people who only wish to love and live as good and decent a life as the next person. Sacrifices? Incense? Solemn assemblies? These are not bad per se but if this is what you are offering to God and not loving then God will cease to listen to you. God will destroy you or you will destroy yourselves - voila, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
So what is it that God does want? Is celibacy for gays on the list? The list in Isaiah doesn't seem to go there to clarify the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Here's a partial list from Isaiah, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
The only thing that I would have added to the list in Isaiah would have been the heresy of using God's word and message as the basis for misinformation and hate. To mistranslate and mis-inform the world (the faithful) that looks to you for information and love and replace the words with a fowl message of sexual fixation and hate is a real abomination.
The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;
bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation-- I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil,
learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
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