Rev. Steven F. Kindle, a straight minister, of Clergy United shared his personal story about how he changed his mind on the issue of homosexuality and the Bible. Rev. Kindle passionately spoke defending gays and lesbians and countered religious bigotry used against them.
He started out by repeating his introduction, “being gay is just one of the inconsequential aspects of the ‘human experience’”. He then went on to say, “Log Cabin is the most vital gay and lesbian organization in America today”. His point that the Church is not quite responsible for begining but for maintaining homophobia throughout the centuries was appropriately received the by the crowd.
Rev. Kindle suggested that there were two reasons why the “moveable middle” don’t get involved with gay rights. He said that misinformation was one reason while other reason was that they had no reason to abandon their stance. He went on the adamantly state that the best way to overcome these two reason was for gay and lesbian people to “COME OUT!”. The strongest thing that can be done to help those who “know what is right” to “do what is right” was for all people in the sexual closet to come out.
When he spoke about biblical literalists and fundamentalist, he said that proof-texting the bible was not a theology but that it was a ideology of hatred. “No one is a literalist when it comes to the bible” he said, “otherwise Christians would not play or watch football or buy gasoline on Sundays”. Kindle said that the literalists and Christian fundamentalists only believe that “there is absolute truth” suggesting that the Creator couldn’t understand His creation, because “anything that is absolute cannot be confined in a vessel that is finite”.
Kindle suggested that we all come to the bible with human eyes and preconceived notions because of our humanity. He went on to suggest that there are two ideals about the bible being a “canon within a canon”. First the Fundamentalists believe that this canon is “sin or obedience” while the more liberal readers believe that this canon is “Love”. He stated that most Fundamentalists read the bible unreflectively.
Kindle made the point that Patriarchial ideology was responsible for the maintainence of homophobia throughout the ages because that mind thinking is that men should not be the “penetrated ones” in their thinking and that those heterosexuals needed to maintain dominance and power over others.
Rev. Kindle went on to passionately and emotionally make the point that it was he himself who had become a student of the gays and lesbians he knew simply through their “witness of integrity” or “being out and themselves in a hostile environment”. His point that “the love and devotion of the oppressed (ie his gay and lesbian friends) COULD NOT be handed out with a marriage certificate”.
Rev. Kindle ended by suggesting that the best way to defeat biblical literalism was by appealing to a higher source - Love. He adamantly suggested that we as gays and lesbians should COME OUT of their closets and let their straight friends get to know them as they are and as God created us. He is hopeful that by our doing this, by standing up to the far right we would be able to keep them from replacing the US national constitution with the law of Leviticus.
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