Christian SLASHER
Sep. 24th, 2006 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_galOkay, 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?
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?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-24 08:08 pm (UTC)And though there are millions of intelligent, kind-hearted and empathic Christians like you, somehow the few that validate that quote are always the loudest.