Pope and Protestant leaders denounce anti-gay laws

[Vouthon]

A milestone ecumenical moment for the Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian traditions, and the cause uniting them could not be more important or timely.

Let's pray that their common witness, united front and words resound throughout South Sudan, the African continent, and the wider world wherever LGBT people are currently being legally discriminated against and repressed:

Pope and senior Protestants denounce anti-gay laws - BBC News

Pope Francis and the leaders of Protestant churches in England and Scotland have denounced the criminalisation of homosexuality.

Speaking to reporters after visiting South Sudan, the Pope said such laws were a sin and "an injustice".

He added people with "homosexual tendencies" are children of God and should be welcomed by their churches.

His comments were backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland.

Archbishop Justin Welby and Iain Greenshields, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, travelled with the Pope to South Sudan where they jointly called for peace in the war-torn country.

It is the first time the leaders of the three traditions have come together for such a journey in 500 years.

Archbishop Welby and Dr Greenshields praised the Pope's comments during a news conference with reporters on board the papal plane as they travelled from Juba to Rome.

"I entirely agree with every word he said there," said Archbishop Welby, noting that the Anglican church had its own internal divisions over gay rights.
​

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Now to see if the Far Western Churches (Catholic and Protestant leaders in America) will take up that call as well. The Dioceses here tend to treat the Vatican like a college kid treats their parent's house, only going over every holiday to do laundry and get free food.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I have to admit I feel a bit of unease seeing the Church of England dictate to African clergy what they should endorse or reject considering the troubled history between Britain and Africa (where such dictates were quite common from the British side), but I also see no better way to go about this. It was necessary and timely.

I wish the Catholic and Protestant leaders success with this. They have used their influential voices in the best possible manner.

 

[PureX]

What I find sad about this is that these religious representatives are the moral sheep grudgingly following the culture toward tolerance and compassion when they could have and should have been leading the way.

And they should be ashamed of this ... but they aren't.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

What I find sad about this is that these religious representatives are the moral sheep grudgingly following the culture toward tolerance and compassion when they could have and should have been leading the way.

 

[Debater Slayer]

What I find sad about this is that these religious representatives are the moral sheep grudgingly following the culture toward tolerance and compassion when they could have and should have been leading the way.

And they should be ashamed of this ... but they aren't.

They're still doing far better than Orthodox churches that rigidly cling to dehumanizing dogma. Better late than never.

 

[Rival]

I have to admit I feel a bit of unease seeing the Church of England dictate to African clergy what they should endorse or reject considering the troubled history between Britain and Africa (where such dictates were quite common from the British side), but I also see no better way to go about this. It was necessary and timely.

I wish the Catholic and Protestant leaders success with this. They have used their influential voices in the best possible manner.

Well, many are part of the Anglican Communion so it's the CofE's right, lol.

 

[Vouthon]

What I find sad about this is that these religious representatives are the moral sheep grudgingly following the culture toward tolerance and compassion when they could have and should have been leading the way.

And they should be ashamed of this ... but they aren't.

Well, that's only a partial truth. Consider:

In the 1960s, the Catholic Church supported the call of the Wolfenden report to introduce legislation to decriminalise homosexual acts in England and Wales.

Words of Mr. Kenneth Robinson in parliament on the Wolfenden report (Part Two) Volume 625 "The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Church Assembly, the Methodist Conference and the Committee set up by the Roman Catholic Church to study the same problems as those studied by the Wolfenden Committee all support the same recommendation.", 29 June 1960​

 

[Debater Slayer]

Well, many are part of the Anglican Communion so it's the CofE's right, lol.

I know. That's why I said it was still necessary despite the historical tension. They did it in their capacity as religious leaders from the same denomination, not as foreigners imposing a political agenda on another country (as was the case in many past instances).

 

[Vouthon]

Well, that's only a partial truth. Consider:

In the 1960s, the Catholic Church supported the call of the Wolfenden report to introduce legislation to decriminalise homosexual acts in England and Wales.

Words of Mr. Kenneth Robinson in parliament on the Wolfenden report (Part Two) Volume 625 "The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Church Assembly, the Methodist Conference and the Committee set up by the Roman Catholic Church to study the same problems as those studied by the Wolfenden Committee all support the same recommendation.", 29 June 1960​

And to put this in perspective, I'm 30 years old and my father wasn't even born yet when the above recommendation was delivered to the UK parliament by the churches, on the Wolfenden Report to decriminalize homosexual sex.

 

[Debater Slayer]

And to put this in perspective, I'm 30 years old and my father wasn't even born yet when the above recommendation was delivered to the UK parliament by the churches.

You need to stop posting such things. I get all of my info about religion from Redditors, and they said an anti-theist YouTuber was actually the first person to propose decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969. Unfortunately, he had to drop the idea to focus on the mission to explore the Moon.

 

[PureX]

They're still doing far better than Orthodox churches that rigidly cling to dehumanizing dogma. Better late than never.

The issue isn't one of timing, but of intent.

 

[Vouthon]

The issue isn't one of timing, but of intent.

Which is, quite evidently, to speak up for the rights of a sexual minority population that is being discriminated against and unjustly penalised for mere expression of their innate sexuality, no? Surely that's good intent back in 1960 and now in 2023?

The intent, I would venture to say, is quite clearly motivated by respect for fundamental human dignity on the part of the respective church leaders.

It's important to bear in mind too, in this discussion, that as with the discovery of evolutionary science courtesy of Darwin's Origin of the Species in the nineteenth century and of genetics itself, the realisation that "sexuality" is an innate and unchangeable quality of a post-pubertal human being's psychosocial constitution, was only scientifically defined by an Austrian psychiatrist, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, in his book Sexual Inversion in 1897.

This was not the paradigm of the classical, medieval or early modern worlds so far as their approach to human sexuality is concerned. So as the new scientific knowledge spread the churches had to adapt to it like the rest of society.

 

[PureX]

Which is, quite evidently, to speak up for the rights of a sexual minority population that is being discriminated against and penalised, no? Surely that's good intent back in 1960 and now in 2023?

The intent is quite clearly motivated by respect for fundamental human dignity on the part of the respective church leaders.

No, i think it's quite clearly motivated by social pressure, both in the 60's and today. They have to be dragged into a position of compassion rather than encouraging it in advance of the culture.

 

[Vouthon]

No, i think it's quite clearly motivated by social pressure, both in the 60's and today. They have to be dragged into a position of compassion rather than encouraging it in advance of the culture.

I highly doubt that in 1960, when homosexual acts were still criminalised in most of the world's states, this was the case.

That was an enlightened and progressive stance at that time, cutting edge socially.

Also, FYI and to take but one example,
in medieval England 'sodomy' (not homosexuality but contravening dominant/submissive sex 'roles' given this was the sexual paradigm of the day) was at odds with the ethical codes of that religious society but it wasn't concretised into a civil or criminal offence until the 16th century when Henry VIII instituted the Reformation, rather it had been a 'spiritual' offence coming under the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts (who could only impose 'penalties' like, go to confession; obligatory fasting and mortification for a period and so on, no 'crime' at the state level):


gay rights movement | Definition & History

Religious admonitions against sexual relations between same-sex individuals (particularly men) long stigmatized such behaviour, but most legal codes in Europe were silent on the subject of homosexuality. ​

Sexuality, in the bronze age Near East, had to do with inviolable sex 'roles' for intercourse (penetrative, dominant and active - male; receptive, submissive and passive - female) and the Levitical code is indicative of a culture steeped in ideas of ritual purity and pollution vis-à-vis the temple which, in the gender domain, is highlighted by the mitzvot (law) against cultic cross-dressing: "A man’s item shall not be on a woman, and a man shall not wear a woman’s garment; whoever does such a thing is an abhorrence unto Adonai" (Deuteronomy 22:5).

For a male to be penetrated was deemed 'defiling', not because he was being physically intimate with another male but rather because he was considered to have emasculated himself by adopting a female social role (one of receptivity in the sexual act). The second century extra-canonical Christian text, Apocalypse of Peter refers to men "who defile their bodies, behaving like women" and women "who have sex with one another as a man with a woman" as the 'thing' that is objectionable.

Consider also:

How far did medieval society recognise lesbianism in this period? - Medievalists.net

Until the Constituto Criminalis Carolina there does not appear to be any secular European legislation acknowledging or forbidding female same sex relations​

Note, its not primarily about the gender of your sexual partner and certainly not to which sex your attracted - rather, its all about 'masculine' and 'feminine' sexual roles (which we'd far more inclusively call "dom/sub" today in BDSM sexual roleplay). It was about penetrators and penetrated, not sexual orientation and attraction.

They had no awareness of our scientific understanding of sexuality from 1890s onwards.

Thus, the verse in Leviticus re male sex with males is not a reference to gay people as we define them today and neither did medieval theologians reading it understand Leviticus that way either (because they too had no conception of sexual "orientation" as we do today). What it evidences is an ancient cultural prejudice against the subversion of assigned 'social roles' in sexual intercourse, that is a woman being sexually 'dominant' by penetrating or a man being sexually 'submissive' by being penetrated.

It has 'nothing' to do with our contemporary, scientific understanding of "homosexuality", inasmuch as its not the gender of the sexual partner that is especially in view and certainly not orientation/attraction but rather the retention of masculine and feminine sexual roles.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Well, many are part of the Anglican Communion so it's the CofE's right, lol.

Duty, even

 

[Jimmy]

What I find sad about this is that these religious representatives are the moral sheep grudgingly following the culture toward tolerance and compassion when they could have and should have been leading the way.

And they should be ashamed of this ... but they aren't.

Well catholicism is against homosexuality but it's a step in the right direction

 

[Jimmy]

I do

No, i think it's quite clearly motivated by social pressure, both in the 60's and today. They have to be dragged into a position of compassion rather than encouraging it in advance of the culture.

I don't think the church feels pressure from following what god says about homosexuality. I think it's religious leaders following Jesus and not judging.