Homophobia is a Socially Constructed Sin
What I mainly want to urge at the moment is that homophobia is a socially constructed sin, one that is built into us as part of our socialization. Part of what makes human beings socially ‘challenged’ is our limited imagination. We feel that we can mount and manage only a limited number of social roles. We are schooled to fill a selection of these from earliest childhood. In how many ways did the powers that be, the adults in charge of us send the message: we will be allowed a share of the common good, if and only if we are perceived to pull our oar. Societies reasonably feel that they have a desperate interest in institutionalizing ‘the means of reproduction’. In Jewish law, commandments orbit around the desideratum of maximizing reproductive potential to secure the perpetuation of Jewish tribes. Bestiality and male homosexual intercourse waste valuable seed. Rape and adultery undermine the common good by stealing fields in which other tribal males are entitled to sow.
“Shaking the Foundations: LGBT Bishops and Blessings in the Fullness of Time,” a paper delivered by the Rev. Canon Marilyn McCord Adams at the Chicago Consultation, Seabury-Western Seminary, December 5, 2007.
There hasn’t been a lot of gay bashing in this year’s campaign, but I imagine once the primaries are over there will be more of it. And with all of the talk about the Christian right and which, uh, candidate they prefer, it’s nice to be reminded of other, less rigid, Christianities. Adams offers a cogent, even moving defense of tolerance. Perfect on a cold, snowy Monday morning. Thumbs up for the Daily Episcopalian blog.
a legacy of languages, poems, histories
We own a legacy of languages, poems, histories, and it is not one that will ever be exhausted. It is there, always.
We have a bequest of stories, tales from the old storytellers, some of whose names we know, but some not. The storytellers go back and back, to a clearing in the forest where a great fire burns, and the old shamans dance and sing, for our heritage of stories began in fire, magic, the spirit world. And that is where it is held, today.
Ask any modern storyteller, and they will say there is always a moment when they are touched with fire, with what we like to call inspiration and this goes back and back to the beginning of our race, fire, ice and the great winds that shaped us and our world.
Nobel Lecture, Dorris Lessing, December 7, 2007
I can’t overstate the influence Dorris Lessing has had on how I see the world. There were days, even weeks, at several points in my life when I was simply possessed by her language and ideas. There was the Golden Notebook, of course, but also the Four Gated City. There are the series of science fiction novels, Canopus in Argos: Archives, then the Diary of Jane Somers,and The Good Terrorist. I didn’t read half of the dozens of things she wrote, I could never keep up. She is always years ahead of all of us.
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Get my book at Southern Illinois University Press, Amazon, or Powell's Books.
The C.C.C.C webpage, A Taste for Language: Literacy, Class, and English Studies includes a short podcast interview with me along with links to these reviews:
... by Victor Villanueva in CCC 62.4 (June 2011)
... by Chanon Adsanatham in Teaching English in the Two-Year College 38.3 (March 2011)
... by Scott McLemee in Inside Higher Education (17 Feb 2010)Note: you need to be a member of NCTE, and a subscriber to the relevant journal, to read the reviews by Villanueva and Adsanatham; the review by McLemee is available to the general public.