Gay-Hatin’ Gospel

Fred Clark of Slacktivist unpacks some of the reasons the christian right targets homosexuality so harshly. This is about homophobia, but I don’t believe it’s possible to completely disentangle transphobia and homophobia; evangelical Christianity applies these arguments to us without really considering transgenderism and transsexualism as orthogonal to sexual orientation:

Theory No. 1: The Safe Target - Here, he explains how homosexuality is a “safe” sin, because most of the congregation never feels the temptation to engage in it.

Theory No. 2: Inner Demons - This one is about closeted homophobes.

Theory No. 3: The Innocent Backlash - Blaming the victim - “If you weren’t so insistent on being treated like human beings, we wouldn’t try to smack you down so much.”

Theory No. 4: The Exegetical Panic Defense - I’ll use Fred’s words here:

“We see through a glass, darkly,” St. Paul said, warning against the temptation to chase the will-o’-the-wisp of certainty. But American evangelicalism is largely based on the idea that certainty is not only possible, but necessary. Mandatory, even. This certainty can be achieved thanks to the one-legged stool of the Evangelical Unilateral.

That’s a made-up term, but it describes something real. It’s a play on the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” — an approach to theological thinking that relies on the four foundations of scripture, tradition/community, reason and experience.

The evangelical approach to theological thinking is exactly like this Wesleyan method, except it doesn’t include tradition or community. Or reason. Or experience.

Theory No. 5: It’s the Politics, Stupid - Discusses why, of all biblical prohibitions, those against homosexuality are emphasized.

This isn’t an attack on Christianity in general. It’s specifically an examination of the homophobia from the evangelical christian right - something that is an undeniable cultural influence in present-day America.