A Basis For Modern Day Homophobia?-The Roots Of Homophobia Are Fear-Matthew Shepard

PART 2 (page 15 of 34)
A Basis For Modern Day Homophobia?
Should The Word Homosexual or Homosexuality Even Be In The Bible?
Remembering Matthew Shepard

It Is An Outrage That The Words Homosexual, Homosexuals or Homosexuality Appear In Any Modern Translation Of The Bible
In my opinion (Gary Lynn), these shameful translations may rise to the level of blasphemy because these texts have been used as a sledgehammer against us in the LGBT community which has caused unending harm including dispiriting and grinding discrimination, which compels some of us to kill ourselves, and driving others to murder us, much of it in the name of God. To assume that the authors of the Holy Scriptures are against our model of homosexuality as it exists today (defined as two people of the same sex living in long-term committed, monogamous, loving relationships) is in my judgment a violation of intelligent thought, an ability that God gave to us in abundance. It is clear that the Bible was written with only heterosexual behavior in mind, not homosexual orientation. The word homosexual (as defined as a separate class of human being) wasn’t invented until 1869 in German (1) and 1892 in English. None of the ancient languages, Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic ever contained a word corresponding to the English or Spanish “homosexual” because the whole concept of orientation is a modern day understanding. The writers of the Bible had no concept of long term committed, monogamous, loving relationships between two men or two women. So to see it used in some of the most widely used translations of the Bible beginning in 1946 (Revised Standard Version-English) is at best very strange and disingenuous (giving a false appearance of simple straight thinking and fairness) and at worst has provided a basis for modern day homophobia which is an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals by the religious and non-religious. Read on below to see what homophobia has caused in our society.

And I'm not alone in the above belief. In The Church and the Homosexual, John J. McNeill writes, "Can one merely accept what is referred to in English translations of the Bible as homosexuality as representing in the mind of the biblical authors what we refer to today by the same term?" (2) And going one step further, John Boswell concluded in his 1981 award-winning book Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: "In spite of misleading English translations which may imply the contrary, the word 'homosexual' does not occur in the Bible: no extant text or manuscript, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, or Aramaic, contains such a word." This quote was found at: http://www.gaylibrary.com/area/GLbelief.htm.

More
The term "homosexual" dates from the late 19th century, when human sexuality first began to be studied as a science. There is no term that means homosexual orientation in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts of the Bible. The authors of the Bible did not understand sexual orientation and thus did not write about it. Thus, when you see one of these words in an English translation of the Bible, it is important to dig deeper and find what the original Hebrew or Greek text really means. I have done that here on on Page 5. http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibi.htm

Even More
The Reverend Mel White, author of Stranger At The Gate - To Be Gay and Christian in America writes on his website Soulforce "In 1958 [actually it was 1946], for the first time in history, a person translating that mysterious Greek word [Malakoi] into English decided it meant homosexuals, even though there is in fact no such word in Greek or Hebrew. But that translator made the decision for all of us that placed the word homosexual in the English [and eventually Spanish] language Bible for the very first time.
http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian

Revered Translations of the Bible?
According to the research I did on BibleGateway.com and http://bible.oremus.org, the following English translations of the Bible (in their latest versions) have the words, homosexual(s) or homosexuality at least once and up to 4 times in the New Living Translation:
New King James Version [1982] (1 Cor. 6:9)
New International - U. K. [1984] (1 Cor. 6:9)

        New International Version [1984] (1 Cor. 6:9)
        Amplified Bible [1987] (1 Cor. 6:9)
        New American Standard Bible¨[1995] (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10)
        Contemporary English Version [1995] (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10)
        New International Reader's Version [1998] (1 Cor. 6:9)
        English Standard Version [2001] (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10)
        Holman Christian Standard Bible [2003] (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10)
        Today's New International Version [2005] (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10)
        New Living Translation [2007] (Lev. 18:22; Lev 20:13; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10)

The following English translations of the Bible do not use either the words homosexual(s) or homosexuality:
        Wycliffe New Testament (1382)

        The King James Version (1611)
        The Darby Translation (1890)
        Young's Literal Translation (1898)
        New Revised Standard Version (1989)
        The 21st Century King James Version (1994)
        The American Standard Version (1995)
        Worldwide English New Testament (1998)

And remember that it is in the verse, 1 Cor. 6:9 that I covered on Page 5, where the Bible experts can't agree as to what the key Greek words “malakoi” and “arsenokoitai” mean. And yet by going along with the decision to use these controversial and questionable translations from the original Greek to the English words homosexual(s) and homosexuality in these verses, it puts these "revered" translations out on the proverbial limb. But what they are going to find out is that the limb is slowly but surely being cut off and a bit of their reputations with them. As noted above, more and more scholars are now agreeing that the use of the modern English words homosexual(s) and homosexuality in translating these ancient documents is highly inappropriate.

Also what is really ironic is that even to this day I personally prefer the New Living Translation of the Bible in spite of its being the worst offender when it comes to using either the word homosexual(s) or homosexuality. It just seems to be more in tune with the modern way of speaking than the other translations, except on the one huge area of disagreement. I vigorously throw out the dirty bath water, but not the baby, so to speak.

To read about the other important reason that the word homosexual should never appear in the Bible Click Here.

Remembering Matthew Shepard and the Results of Homophobia - Hate Crimes
If you want to remind yourself of what homophobia does to a society, all you have to do is remember the brutal beating and murder of a gay college student named Matthew Shepard. Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, 21-year-old Shepard met Aaron James McKinney and Russell Arthur Henderson in a gay bar in Laramie, Wyoming. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car. Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, pistol whipped, tortured, tied to a fence in a remote, rural area, and left to die out on the freezing prairie. Still tied to the fence, Shepard was discovered eighteen hours later by a cyclist, who at first thought that Shepard was a scarecrow. At the time of discovery, Shepard was still alive, but in a coma. Shepard suffered a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Shepard never regained consciousness, remained on full life support and passed away on October 12, 1998 at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Wyoming. McKinney and Henderson were found guilty of felony murder and kidnapping and will spend the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole.

To understand the pain and tragedy of Matthew Shepard's murder from the point of view of his mother, you just have to read Judy Shepard's account of how it all happened, "The Meaning of Matthew - My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed". Once I started reading this book I really had a hard time putting it down. It was so heart-wrenching to read how these two animals masquerading as humans could be so calculatingly cruel and brutal to a gay college kid they had just met. At times life is truly not fair.

Click Here To See the Video about Joining the We Give A Damn.org Campaign to Reduce Hate Crimes against members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community

The roots of homophobia are fear. Fear and more fear. - George Weinberg *
The consequences of homophobia is to stereotype gay people and then to define them in negative ways and when we do that we are able to treat them negatively and brutally because we then fear them. Fear does terrible things to a society. When people are afraid they have to find scapegoats and then they want to get rid of those people who [they think] are the bad guys any possible way. And the cheapest way of getting a feeling that we’re a group, a family, a unit is to make an "other". Throughout history, with all different groups, civil rights with the blacks, anti-Semitism with the Jews, is to have an "other" and homosexuals are unfortunately are the new "other". There is something about human nature to always look for an outsider, something that is different, and something that is indeed different we do have tremendous fear about and of course also ignorance about. (3)

Are We Still Living In Small Nomadic Tribes?
Fear of the other probably had survival value at one time. If you were living in or among small nomadic tribes you might have a fear of other people that was based on the reality and not only among yourselves, but also from the more settled communities along their path. Everybody who wasn't from your tribe was a threat and merited fear. So this is why to some extent we should have sympathy for people who are prejudiced against others and understand that maybe a basically rational response to this deep feeling of alarm in us is exactly what it is [and no more] so we shouldn’t become equally prejudiced against the people who carry these prejudices. So the idea is to get them to see that their fear is really groundless. (3)

Fear and Sexuality
So, it’s about fear and not understanding what love is about. And a component of love is sexuality. But sexuality can be very scary if you take a moment to think about your own experiences with it especially in your adolescence - and this is true whether you're a homosexual or a heterosexual. As Bishop John Shelby Spong says in his book on page 23, Living in Sin-A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality, "No aspect of our humanity is invested with more anxieties, yearning, emotions, and needs than is our sexual nature. So, sex is a major arena in which the prejudice of human beings finds expression." . . . ."[And] behind prejudice there is . . . fear. We reject [out of fear] that which we cannot manage. We condemn [out of fear] what we do not understand. We set up means of control to render powerless those dynamic realities we know to be powerful [like sex]. . . . . . This fact accounts for the anger and even the violence that erupts when sexual control mechanisms [set up by the majority] are publically challenged. Those [in the minority] who organize their lives differently [like the new "other", the homosexuals], who adopt values that violate the prevailing sexual taboos [or controls], are subject to hate, threat, even attack, and sometimes murder." These prejudices against people who organize their lives differently, homosexuals, provide many people [with] their security, and when they are threatened, it unsettles them in a very deep way and they respond violently and hatefully. (3)

Our Fears Can Unfortunately Become The Basis For Our Understanding of God's Will

And the problem with homophobia is aggravated when we confuse these fears and lack of understanding with God's will. On page 157, Bishop Spong in the above cited book goes on to say that "human fears erect barriers that we identify with God's will. Then our prejudice, instructed by these barriers, rejects the people or things that are outside our barriers or our understanding." (3)

What Man Would Want To Be Treated Like A Woman?
And the thing that frightens men about homosexuality is that they think about a man allowing himself to be treated like a woman and there’s nothing worse, flying in the face of patriarchy, than for a “privileged” man, being male instead of female, to allow himself to be treated like a female. Their thoughts are “Who would want that?” So following this line of thought, many would say that it is the hatred of women (misogyny) which is the fuel for homophobia. Why does it always work when the college football coach berates and humiliates his players by calling them a bunch of “fifth grade girls?” It is because the worst thing that you can do to a man is to call him a woman. Men who are not men in whatever way a patriarchy wants us to be threatens masculine power and it’s seemingly too much to bear. (3) . . . G. Rattray Taylor, in his book "Sex in History", finds a universal phenomenon in patriarchal cultures: these cultures always tend to combine a strongly subordinating view of women with a repression and horror of male homosexuality. Whereas cultures based on matriarchal principle are inclined to combine an enhancement of the status of women with a relative tolerance for male homosexual practices. (4)

A Soldier In The Army For The Lord?
So for men, if you combine our fear of the other, fear of sex and fear of being feminine, homophobia is well grounded in our psyche. Think of the brutal beating of killing of Matthew Shepard [as described above] and so many others over the decades and beyond and you can see the results of homophobia, how it legitimizes violence and discrimination. Because the church teaches that homosexuality is a perversion, it’s wrong, it’s sinful, it creates an environment in which gay people become victims and become abused. People feel empowered by violence against gays and lesbians and they will always say that it’s in the Bible; therefore I’m executing God’s will. They say that “they’re a soldier in the army for the Lord,” that “they have to purge this land of these abominations”. The Archbishop Desmond Tuto said “we have very perversely used “difference” to justify cruelty of the most viscous sort. I compare homophobia to the injustice of apartheid and that is all contrary to the heart of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (3)

So the sin with which we should be concerned is not homosexuality, since it isn’t a sin. But the sin however, is homophobia which is so despicable, because it is authored in the name of Holy Scripture by religious people. The Bible is an incredibly powerful weapon – people use it as a weapon to justify violence, torture and death. So we have to be very careful about this scripture that people hold tight to and be clear that the Bible is about compassion and love, because otherwise The Bible will be used to cause so much havoc. (3) [Click Here to read more about homophobia or the Homophobic Agenda.]

How Our Own Fears Become a Paranoid Hatred of Anything Different

Jim Forest [sometimes misspelled as Forrest] in a wonderful article on the meaning of Christmas entitled "Be Not Afraid" [Sojourners, December 1983, pages 14-15] recounts an old rabbinical story about the meaning of the night. The rabbi asks one of his students, "When can one know that the night has ended and the day has begun?" "Is it," one student suggests, "that moment when you can tell the difference between a sheep and a dog?" "No," says the rabbi, "that isn't it." "Is it," asks another, "when you can see the difference between a fig tree and an olive tree?" "Not that either," says the rabbi. "Rather," he says, "it is that moment when you can look at a face never seen before and recognize the stranger as a brother or sister. Until that moment, no matter how bright the day, it is still the night." [Same story paraphrased in the sermon "Always Beginners"]

Most of us, Forest adds, live in that night most of our lives. We are trained to accept that night by our families, schools, country, and often by the church itself. We are carefully schooled not to recognize brothers or sisters but rather to see friends or enemies, us versus them. We are trained to see labels that allow us to dehumanize and dominate others: chauvinistic labels like Jap or geek; racist labels like kike or nigger; sexist labels like dyke or queer. Our own fear, anger and distrust become a paranoid hatred of anything or anyone different. (5)

*George Weinberg's pioneering book Society and the Healthy Homosexual first published in 1972, sent ripples of shock, disbelief and plain hostility through the community of professional American psychologists. George challenged the conventional notion of homosexuality as a disease and gave gay men and lesbians everywhere a solid theoretical basis for dignity and pride. The Oxford English Dictionary credits George Weinberg with coining the term 'homophobia' which is now a recognized term in the vocabulary of social theory and gay activism alike.

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Footnotes:
(1) According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on the Internet, Karl-Maria Kertbeny coined the term homosexual in 1869 in a pamphlet arguing against a Prussian anti-sodomy law.

(2) McNeill, John J., "The Church and the Homosexual", Boston, Beacon Press, 1976, 1993, page 38.
(3) This section is based on commentaries from the Documentary "For The Bible Tells Me So." The commentators are: Reverend Dr. Laurence Keene, Christian Church-Disciples of Christ; Brian Zachary Mayer, MAHL, Reform Rabbi; Reverend Peter Gomes, Harvard University; Reverend Steven Kindle, Clergy United; Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate-1984; Reverend Susan Sparks, American Baptist Church; Reverend Dr. Mel White, Founder of Soul Force; Right Reverend Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh (Ret.); Reverend Irene Monroe, Harvard Divinity School; Rabbi Steven Greenberg, Orthodox Rabbi; Reverend Jimmy Creech, Faith In America.
(4) McNeill, John J., "The Church and the Homosexual", Boston, Beacon Press, 1976, 1993, page 145.