Bad arguments about religion: part 2: homosexuality and mixed fibres: the Bartlet gambit

[nameandnature]

To give the impression that I'm fair and balanced, this time round I'm looking at a bad argument which is usually used by atheists.

There's a scene The West Wing where President Bartlet tears a strip off an evangelical Christian talk radio host. In the scene (you can see it on YouTube, or read a transcript), the evangelical tells Bartlett that the Bible says homosexuality is an abomination. Bartlet then launches into a series of rhetorical questions, asking how he should carry out other Old Testament rules which we'd now find ridiculous, if not downright evil: "My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?"

Let's call this the Barlet gambit: the President's argument seems to be that it's inconsistent for evangelicals to say "homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so", because they're not also keeping these other rules which are also found in the Bible. The gambit is a favourite with people who argue with evangelicals about homosexuality: sometimes they even quote Bartlet.

Unfortunately, the Bartlet gambit fails as an argument.

What's wrong with it

Evangelical Christians have reasons why they're not keeping the Old Testament laws despite regarding the Old Testament as scripture. The question comes up in the New Testament itself, once we reach the Acts of the Apostles, where we read of the first non-Jews converting to Christianity (up to that point in the story, what will later become Christianity is still a movement within Judaism, although a few Gentiles are impressed with Jesus in the gospels). The Council of Jerusalem ruled that Gentile Christians are allowed to eat shrimp and wear mixed fibres and, luckily for penis owners, don't have to be circumcised.

So, according to Acts (which, like the rest of the Bible, is inerrant, remember), Christians sorted this stuff out in the first century AD. They aren't going to worry about atheists calling them hypocrites for wearing cotton/polyester blend while "hating the sin and loving the sinner".

Perhaps Barlet is specifically objecting to the evangelical's use of Leviticus, which does put homosexuality on a par with things which aren't kosher, rather than with things which are morally evil. Alas, even without Leviticus, there are other Bible passages which can be pressed into service against the gay, and you can rely on evangelicals to know most of them, because the issue has become a defining feature of evangelicalism. We could argue that these passages don't apply to modern committed homosexual partnerships, but evangelicals don't find these arguments impressive.

What to do instead

In the UK, many rank-and-file evangelicals are educated professionals. They didn't get into religion to give gays a hard time, and, unless they've completely disappeared up their own sub-culture, they tend to be a bit embarrassed by the anti-gay stuff. Still, because it's "what the Bible says", they feel they're obliged to go along with it anyway, even if the Guardian wouldn't approve (the evangelical jargon phrase for that sort of thing is that it's a "hard teaching" where you'll just have to "trust God").

If I were a gifted orator like Barlet, I think I'd appeal to their sense of justice. Is there perhaps something odd about the way churches accept straight couples who are openly in their second or later marriage (something about which Jesus had some strong words to say), but wouldn't be happy with an openly gay couple? Some hypocrisy there, maybe?

Or we might try empathy. There's the problem that, as Valerie Tarico says, evangelicalism "can re-direct our mother-bear instincts away from protecting vulnerable individuals and toward protecting the ideology itself. Believers may come to feel more protective of their religion than they are of actual human beings." Still, it might be worth a go: is it fair to say that gay people cannot form committed romantic relationships? Imagine yourself in their shoes. If you obey the evangelical rules, it seems rather a lonely place.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know anything about evangelicalism in the rebel colonies, really. As I said, I'm not even an Anglican, so foreign evangelical groups are doubly outside my orbit.

Though, isn't Uganda in Africa? What has that to do with America?

So were there any UK groups you were thinking of, or not?

S.

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Though, isn't Uganda in Africa? What has that to do with America?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=uganda+evangelical+christians+anti-gay

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, three Americans evangelicals went to Uganda. Right, that's the connection, obviously.

So, leaving aside two foreign countries, which were the UK groups you were thinking of?

S.

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

I never said anything about limiting this to "UK groups" - religious extremism seems to care very little about national boundaries.

And your caricature of the US religious right's apparently highly successful campaign to get gay people forced into the ccloset, or into ex-gay programmes in Africa, under threat of imprisonment or death as "three Americans evangelicals went to Uganda" is frankly offensive and does you no credit.

The point remains that nobody is doing anything like this when it comes to divorce. Your implication that they're equally frowned upon is absurd. Any minor disapproval of divorced members of their own flock is in no way equivalent to the systematic and organised campaigns of abuse and persecution directed at LGBT people by Christian churches around the world, but especially in the US.

And regardless of whether that takes the form of highly damaging "reparative" "therapy", into which people are duped and coerced, active campaigns to deny us marriage rights, colonial lobbying in 3rd world countries to enshrine the persecution of LGBT people in law, or just plain going out, finding a few gay people and beating the crap out of them, if you had a shred of human decency and integrity to you, you'd at least try to do your bit to encourage your religion to own its shit over this, rather than playing dumb.

I'm done here.

[(Anonymous)]

'Around the world' but not, apparently, in the UK, unless you're thinking of some UK-based groups but deliberately not mentioning them for reasons of your own?

I'm not entirely sure how I can be held responsible for the actions of some unknown citizens of a foreign county in a third country, but if it helps you to hold me so, go for it.

S.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, and 'Three Americans went ot Uganda' is what came up when I clicked on your link. If you wanted me to see something else maybe you should have linked to it?

S.