Spirituality in the Pub
Last night I went to 'Spirituality in the Pub', temporarily renamed for this occasion 'Spirituality in the Club'. The speaker was Justice Michael Kirby, one of the most senior High Court judges in Australia, a homosexual in a partnership of 37 years, and a man whom I've long admired for his forthrightness and simple refusal to be anything other than he is.
His message was simple: hatred of or discrimination against any minority, although our topic concentrated primarily on homosexuals, simply for being what they are is irrational, and will eventually right itself. You can't stand in the way of rationality; it's the human condition to try to figure things out, and when things don't make sense, that's just what they do. homo sapiens - the ones who reason.
"We each have a journey to make", in terms of this rationality. Some people have made it, and some haven't. Those that haven't may never do so - but they will eventually pass on, and their children will make it.
The relevant passages from the Bible were of course mentioned: the infamous Leviticus 18:22 in particular. It was contrasted to another passage from the Bible: Matthew 27:25, "His blood be upon us and on our children", where the Jews accept responsibility for the death of God. This passage has been credited with the rise of anti-semitism in 1930s Germany, and by extrapolation, the second World War. But it's only a sentence, for God's sake, in a book over 1500 years old. It is now generally accepted amongst Christians of all denominations that anti-Semitism is unacceptable. and so it will be for us and Leviticus. Already, the majority of that book has been discarded as irrelevant. Why people hang on to that passage, I have no idea.
It was an uplifting and affirming speech, one which proposed a gentle but persistent pressure against discrimination, simply by being who he is. His partner accompanies him on many state trips and to many functions. "Her Majesty was completely underwhelmed", he said, upon being introduced to his partner. "It's boring", he said, and so it should be. Same sex partnerships should attract no more attention and no more comment than heterosexual partnerships.
I know I'm bored by heterosexual couples holding hands in the street. It's boring, humdrum, run-of-the-mill. When same-sex partnerships are viewed in the same light, we will have reached a major milestone. We have to make ourselves boring.
posted by Escheresque at 10:01 am
3 Comments:
Go Rationality! I've always been a big fan, though what is rational to one person can be irrational to another.
Speaking of ancient texts being used to justify crazy acts, apparently the Nazis used eastern fighting philosophies in a similar way to warping the Bible.
There is a concept called "Mushin", which translates as "no mind". In eastern warrior texts this means clearing your mind of distractions and focusing on the fight. The Nazis twisted it to mean "kill without thinking" and promoted it heavily to the soldiers so they would feel better about the atrocities they were committing.
It is easy to twist words. Hence why actions are so important. Your actions will always mean more than your rhetoric.
Rationality and religion are often antonyms. For a purportedly peaceful endeavour (as most religions claim to be), religion has caused a lot of pain.
In a book the size of the Bible, there's a lot of stuff that can be taken to mean pretty much whatever you want. The challenge is to approach it in an appropriate manner; to interpret it with the broader goals in mind.
There are many old laws in the Bible that are no longer observed, even by the staunchest Catholics. How they can pick and choose the way they do is beyond me.
Remind me to give to Pratchett's Science of Discworld where he discusses the concept of barbarian and tribal cultures. it has some interesting sociological commentary on how religious beliefs emerged as an attempt to understand the world we live in and religious insitutions emerged as ways of establishing social rules for mutual benefit, but got a bit warped along the way.
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