Saturday, March 30, 2013

My Biblical Argument for Marriage Equality (and against both homophobia and trans*-phobia in general)

Please open your bible to Galatians 3:28:
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
You might have slightly different translation, for example if you're King James only you'll read, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."  The difference in translation isn't important to us at this moment.  The bit about there not being male and female is.

That's the whole of my argument.  Seriously.

Now context, or just reading the last two words of the verse, will show that this is talking about Christians, but since Christians are so concerned about what effect (basically none, for the record) marriage equality will have on Christian marriage they should probably be concerned with what the Bible says about Christians.

Try to say marriage should be between a man and a woman, and only that, without using the concepts of male or female.  It really can't be done.  Strip away the concepts of male and female and, "Marriage should be between a man and a woman," becomes, "Marriage should be between an adult person and another adult person."  A position otherwise known as marriage equality.

Homophobia requires definitions for, at the very least, heterosexual and not-heterosexual (bi-phobia tends to fall under homophobia) but try to define those terms without using the concepts of male and female.  If male and female are treated the same then there's no difference between a man who is attracted to women, a man who is attracted to men, and a man who is attracted to men and women.  And if they're treated the same there's no difference if I substitute the word "woman" for "man" in the previous.

Right now if a woman wants to get married the test in places without marriage equality that doesn't exist in places with it is to ask, "Is her partner male or female?" with the response being, "She can get married," if the partner is male, and, "She can't get married," if her partner is female.  But for Christians, at least according to the Bible, there is no distinction between male and female so that question (Is her partner male or female?) can't be asked.

Transphobia requires one to believe that there are people who should be male or female but are instead acting/presenting as/being/whatevering female or male respectively.  Just try to find a way to argue for transphobia that doesn't use the concepts of male and female.  It can't be done.

Similarly for those who don't fall on the gender binary, how would one be able to argue for discriminating against them if there is no gender binary?  If they're Christian than their holy book says that there isn't one.

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Secular arguments for discrimination of minorities of a gender related type (non-heterosexual people, non-cis people, non gender binary people) are all crap and fall apart at a glance like the space ships in the abandoned port on Brontitall*.  The religious argument is all people have to fall back on.  Most of those people are Christians.  Yet, if one is a Christian then there is neither male nor female for all are one.  Which, if followed, would make gender based discrimination (whether based on the gender of the people one is attracted to or one's own gender) impossible.

So that's my biblical argument.

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*
ZAPHOD:  Hey. Hey look at this. Look what we found man!
FORD: Amazing!
ZAPHOD: It- it’s a derelict spaceport.
FORD: Looks like no one’s been in for centuries. All these amazing old ships…
ZAPHOD: yeah.
FORD: Just rust and wreckage.
ZAPHOD: Yeah. Spooky man. Like, um… what are those things eggs come out of?
FORD: Birds.
ZAPHOD: No, no, after that.
FORD: Eh?
ZAPHOD: What do they come out of the birds in?
FORD: Eggshells?
ZAPHOD: Ah, that’s it! Just like huge, broken eggshells. And all the dust man, and the huge cobwebs.
FORD: And where you get huge cobwebs you get -
ZAPHOD: Yeah-
SPIDER: Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
ZAPHOD: look out man!
[Thud]
SPIDER: ‘Scuse me.
[He scuttles off]
ZAPHOD: One huge spider.
FORD: Polite though.
ZAPHOD: Trans-Stellar Space Lines. Must’ve been real groovy ships once, but now -
FORD: One look and they’d fall apart. I mean look at that one.
[A crash]
ZAPHOD: It fell apart man!

1 comment:

  1. If my memory isn't confusing me, Brontitall never made it to the books: it exists only in the radio series*. I can hear it now, reading that script. The acting was superb.

    TRiG.

    * Disclaimer: I've not yet watched the TV series, and have successfully blocked most of the film from my memory.

    ReplyDelete