The Encyclopedia of World Religions

208 S homosexuality and religion

and people can rise up to glimpse the divine. These “doors and windows” are the province of religion, for they are the words, scriptures, mysti cal or visionary experiences; the shrines, temples, RITUALS , sacred dances, holy days and sacred sites, which communicate what is holy to the world. homosexuality and religion Religious attitudes toward sexual relations between persons of the same sex, and the ways in which religions have used those relations. In the United States during the late 20th century, homosexuality was a con troversial issue in both politics and religion. In the 1990s the state of Colorado passed a referendum against granting “special rights” to homosexual men and women (gays and lesbians). The Supreme Court overturned it. In the same decade a commit tee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America presented a draft of a statement on sexuality that urged love and respect for homosexuals. Contro versy forced the draft to be withdrawn. The Christian church has generally opposed homosexuality. Indeed, C HRISTIANITY has at times seen all sexual behavior as tainted by SIN . Many Christians see homosexuality as a disruption of the order that G OD created. They also point to pas sages that condemn homosexuality in the B IBLE : Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13 or Romans 1:26–27. Traditional Christians certainly reject any sugges tion of homoeroticism—love between two persons of the same sex—in the relationship between, for example, D AVID and Jonathan in the Hebrew Bible or J ESUS and the disciple “whom he loved” in the G OSPEL of John. There have, however, been other voices within the Christian community. Some point out that Chris tians blithely ignore other injunctions in Leviticus, such as the dietary laws. Some suggest that the proper Christian attitude should be governed by God’s love, which extends to all people. By the end of the century some academic theologians were actively writing gay and lesbian THEOLOGY . Other religions besides Christianity have tradi tionally condemned homosexuality. In J UDAISM and T ALMUD and later law books ( see HALAKHAH ) have

repeated and even strengthened the Bible’s injunc tions against homosexuality. In I SLAM the Q UR ’ AN rejects the sexual practices of Sodom and Gomor rah (26.165–173); this has generally led Muslims to dismiss male homosexuality. (Muslim tradition does not say much about female homosexuality.) During the 20th century, more liberal Jews and Muslims, like their Christian counterparts, began to rethink traditional attitudes. Not all cultures and religions have had nega tive attitudes toward homosexuality. Some cul tures and religions have made positive use of it. In many cases, the meaning that the word “homo sexual” often has in the United States is too nar row. Homosexual may not refer to a person but to behavior. The same person may be expected to engage in both homosexual and heterosexual behavior. The hero Achilles, at right, bandages his wounded friend Patroclus in a red-figure scene on an Athenian cup, c. 500 B . C . E . The painting conveys Patroclus’s distress and Achilles’ sympathetic concentration. Although the Iliad never portrays Achilles and Patroclus as lovers, the Greeks after Homer came to view the pair as models of aristocratic military male homosexuality. (Margaret Bunson)