lit_gal ([personal profile] lit_gal) wrote2006-09-24 10:08 am

Christian SLASHER

Okay, I got an odd email, so it's off to ranty land for me. After all, I'm not going to all this work just to send it off to one person. The email asked if I had "seen the light" since my slash is slowing down and I’m starting to write more het/gen (Necessary Evil, my Firefly Jayne/River, Shadows of the Past).


I sat and stared at the email in a little bit of shock. First, I'm exploring other characters, and so that may or may not lead to het/gen writing. Second, I don't have to "see the light" because I am Christian and I am a slash writer and I am okay with being both at once. Before you go casting those stones, I really want to talk about the soul searching I did when I first decided I couldn't "fake" being straight. I really had to consider how my faith and my sexuality "fit."

The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah
Let's start with the biggie: Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord did say of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah, "their sin is very grave." So, what were they doing? They were raping and committing adultery and ignoring the Lord (all sins pretty much worthy of hell and brim fire without homosexuality being involved at all).

Besides, I refuse to take that story as a moral on how to live a moral and virtuous life. The hero of that particular story was Lot, a man who, in order to save two strangers from being raped by the crowd, offers his "two daughters who have never slept with a man." Sweet. The crowd's refusal saves his daughters, but this is not a man I care to emulate. Then again, he later sleeps with both his daughters. Yes, in the Biblical story, his daughters get him drunk, but if he is sober enough to get it up and impregnate not one but two women in a night, he's sober enough to know the women are his daughters.

Direct Biblical Condemnation of Homosexuality
So, what about Corinthians and Romans where the bible says "homosexual offenders" will not inherit the kingdom of God and condemns the act?  Well, I might be more impressed if not for the translation difficulty. One bible translates that same line as "those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex" another as "nor abusers of themselves with mankind" Now, even assuming that I accept the translation as being specific to homosexuality, I still don't take this as the ultimate argument.

See, the Bible bans a lot of different activities. Leviticus says that a man who touches "carcasses of unclean wild animals or of unclean livestock" is guilty and must be condemned, even if he did not realize the beast was unclean. The Bible specifically bans eating camel, rabbit, pig, and rock badger because they do not have "a split hoof completely divided and [chew] the cud." The Bible even requires circumcision to show faithfulness.

I take these Biblical condemnations (which are not part of the 10 Commandments or one of Jesus' teachings) as practical protections since people back then didn't understand how disease spread from a carcass or how to avoid the worms in pork and circumcision avoided infections in people without regular access to water. I do not believe that you go to hell for touching a carcass accidentally or eating pork or for having a foreskin. The condemnation of homosexuality strikes me as very similar. The anal canal simply doesn't have the immune system protections of the vagina, and so there is a greater chance of disease UNLESS a person knows how to reduce that risk. Yep, the condom. So, just like pork was once danger and banned, homosexuality was once dangerous and banned. That time is gone.

My Writings
So, I have no problem sending Blair to a monastery where he reads Proverbs, talks to a monk about God, and decides to go back to Jim's arms (Finding Home). I find nothing irreligious about homosexuality or heterosexuality or bisexuality. Sure, I don't have many of my characters going to church, largely because none of the characters I use are big church-goers, but I am perfectly comfortable being a Christian slash writer. Get over it.

So, will I write gen and het stories? Sure. I actually have a weird little Xander/Harmony bunny that keeps chewing on my shoes. Will I write slash? Yep. I consider Learning Curve and Trickster open universes, and the Spangel bunny I didn't get to this summer is in the corner sulking and glaring at me.

If you don't like that or if you think that makes me evil, GO AWAY. Oh, and why were you reading me in the first place?

[identity profile] doingsoso.livejournal.com 2006-10-04 05:40 am (UTC)(link)
"When God created the world, He wanted man to populate it, and quick...Ecclesiastes states that man's purpose on the planet is to worship God...therefore, no people, no worship...in many ways, that is why any sexual deviance (including masterbation and withdrawal for birth control *see the story of Tamar, Judah, and Onan for that one*) were considered sinful because they were misusing the direct purpose of the sexual act--populating the world..."


Yeaho the same problem after the flood. That's when the so called Noahide laws went into effect.

Hmmm, A couple of other points too. Adam and Eve had two sons, who then had kids, who did they mate with? Their sisters? Incest city, man! There are people who will argue that that was before the commandments so it wasn't a sin then, buttttt.

A lot of christians run around talking about how they hate the Devil, but there's not one word in the Book that says God hates Lucifer. In fact Lucifer boldly walked into heaven and had an argument with God over Job.

One has to stop and ponder things like that. Including the fact that David was a womanizer and committed adultery, then had the woman's husband killed because he got her pregnant and was trying to cover it up. He was supposed to be the apple of God's eye.

I don't think I would have liked the apostle Paul too much. He didn't seem to like women or have a lot of respect for them. Sigh. Oh well.

The way I look at it is this. I have to account to God for what I do. Not for what everyone else does. It's not my business to mind someone else's soul, it's my business to mind my own and I have enough trouble tending to mine to try to tend everyone else's too. It's too bad a lot of christians think that forgiven means perfect and therefore they have a right to tend your conscience and your soul for you. I think Jesus said it best.

"Why are you trying to pull the splinter out of your brother's eye when you have a log sticking out of your own. Go get the log out of your own eye first."(Paraphrased)

"Those who haven't sinned, cast the first stone." (Paraphrased)

Heeee, a lot of people can't seem to figure out what that means:)




[identity profile] dedra.livejournal.com 2006-10-04 05:53 am (UTC)(link)
Actually, another point of thought when you brought up Lucifer...

Lucifer actually means bringer of light...he was the most beloved angel of God and He favored him above all of His other angels...so much so that it's the reason that Lucifer believed that he was equal with God and actually tried to take over Heaven...

When God had to cast him out of Heaven to maintain the peace, it truly broke His heart to lose his favorite angel...

And Paul...Paul was misogynistic to the extreme, plus there have even been theories that he himself was gay...there's a part in the NT (don't remember where) when he talks about the weakness of the flesh--that particular phrase was usually used when they were talking about homosexuality...and he was using it to describe his own situation...