I don’t think it’s necessarily the “best” way but rather it was and sometimes continues to be the easiest. It’s a nice sound-bite and it makes sense if you don’t think too deeply. I don’t think it’s been all bad. It started a conversation, and it brings people together. I just hope that the narrative changes a bit as time goes on, and I think it will.
This brings up an excellent point. Many men have had sex with other men yet do not see themselves as homosexuals. It can be due to opportunity (or lack of) or just having sex with another man. Yet these men see themselves as heterosexual, not even bisexual, and don’t see a connection with their sexual practices and self-identification.
And even if it is a choice, why is that so important to Carlson. If you can discriminate against people because they choose to be gay, then why not be able to discriminate against people for being evangelicals (and most of our founding fathers believed in discriminating against evangelicals)?
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Duh, lesbians are sexy. God said so by not saying anything.
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So, if we build enough prisons, we can turn everyone gay, and finally get this population problem under control.
LOGIC!!! 
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Yeah surgeons aren’t known for critical thinking, just critical slicing.
No we do not.
The Talmud contains a couple thousand years of commentary, debates and readings of the Tanakh (which largely corresponds with the Old Testament) going back to when biblical Hebrew was still regularly used. There is plenty on Leviticus.
That James decided to ignore it has nothing to do with our knowledge of biblical Hebrew then or now. There were full blown additions and changes made that are not in the original text to Christianify it.
Let me help you out:
…Presidential Candidate Scam artist grifting old, stupid people for campaign donations and book sales…
I seriously doubt Ben Carson believes a 10th of the shit he says. Whether he’s explicitly lying, or simply doesn’t have a faculty for caring about whether things are true or not I don’t know, and am smart enough to not care.
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So did Carson choose to be a douchcanoe or was he born that way?
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Like hipsters choosing to “slum it” indicates that living in slums is a choice.
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Tip from a straight guy: If you think you could choose to be gay, you aren’t straight.
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Why not? Because most of the things Obama’s doing that are bad are things the Republicans also do. He didn’t close Gitmo, which they opened. He didn’t stop the wars they started. He didn’t kick the TSA out of our airports, which the Republicans put there. He said things about the Feds not interfering with state decisions on medical marijuana, which are similar to things Republicans say about small government and states’ rights, and kept the Drug War on track, like the Republicans do. He didn’t arrest the banksters who defrauded their customers in ways the Republicans let them. List keeps going on.
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TBH, explanations like “it was really against anal sex” don’t seem to work at all. It may not be a prohibition from all homosexual acts, but essentially it’s saying that it’s forbidden to do something with a man that would be normal with a woman. If that’s anal sex (and it’s completely forbidden for everyone), why is it also considered normal between a man and a woman? If it’s prohibited for both, then it sounds a bit like Anatole France’s comment “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” It is an ambiguous text though (like most that are interpreted as condemnations of homosexuality). Apparently one possible interpretation would be “you shouldn’t have gay sex on a woman’s bed”.
There are similar claims about some of Paul’s statements, such as that he was talking about ritual male prostitutes (who wouldn’t necessarily be able to give consent, so hardly worthy of condemnation) or heterosexuals having gay sex against their nature (which seems like ad-hoc reasoning, especially as sexual orientation wasn’t really recognised at the time). While a lot of these condemnations are probably talking about other things (particularly sacred sex and moral failings), I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that the writers/speakers were presenting their limited culturally bound understanding as God’s law. Some explanations can help to show that the writer wasn’t a complete bigot or to show the cultural context of the statements, but a lot of the time it seems futile to make a coherent liberal reading of some fairly essentialist statements.
As you say, he came from a poor upbringing. That means that social and political issues probably wouldn’t have been part of family discussion from an early age, and he would have been focussing on building his career and getting his credentials in his narrow field. This is also how it is possible to have people like semiconductor engineers and rocket scientists from Muslim or Protestant backgrounds who believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old.
I get annoyed myself with educated people who continue to believe the nonsense they were taught by religious leaders when they were growing up, but I have my educated middle class background to thank for that, and that is because my father, who came from a relatively poor background, had the good fortune to go to a very progressive school on a scholarship and then be commissioned into the Navy. Luck matters just as much as, if not more than, talent in determining who we turn out to be.
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I would find it totally impossible to come up with any other explanation.
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“We” as in non-Jews, which I guess is what the writer means, know more about Biblical Hebrew than did the creators of the KJV. But that’s because they didn’t discuss it with the Jewish scholars of their time. Let’s not go into why, just observe that this Presidential candidate seems to think he too is qualified to tell us something without actually consulting the experts. It’s a human failing to assume that nobody else might know a lot more about something than you do.
Meanwhile, the KJV is still treated as the “original” Bible by a few of the weirder sects, and a source of wry amusement to any Jewish scholars who care to read it.
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That first quote, about limited culturally-bound understanding made remember something slightly off topic.
I remember in high school, when I and my peers were still figuring out our identities. There was this, almost, consensus by all these straight guys. When asked what they think of gay guys, they’d always answer something like “They’re whatever, I don’t have anything against them. But if a guy hits on me, I’d [insert violent act]”
And it always struck me as really just weird. Why not just take the compliment? A lot of these straight guys would hit on girls repeatedly who weren’t into them, did these guys never understand that their unwanted advances are similar situation? I knew I was different early on, but didn’t “feel gay”, and it took me a long time to realize I was bi, because that was “for girls”, and that “there are no bi guys”. It was just strange.
Now I’m just imagining that kind of culture. What if that hairtrigger intolerance was allowed to flourish. “Gay people are fine, but I’d kill a guy who hit on me”. Maybe that attitude has existed a long time…
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It’s a self-propagating culture - many young teens (especially a decade or more ago) didn’t really have a lot of exposure to gay people (I was probably in my 20s before I met someone who was explicitly ‘out’ - thinking back though, it’s clear that they were obviously there). These kinds of aggressive statements just mean that people will often present themselves within the acceptable bounds, even if they are much more complex. In turn, very little feedback will reach other young people. It’s one of the great things about the internet that you’re not limited to your social circle any more, which reduces the power of these feedback loops.
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This would be why we are fucked.
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This brings up an excellent point. Many men have had sex with other men yet do not see themselves as homosexuals.
Many women have sex with other women and do not see themselves as bisexual, let alone lesbian. This isn’t just a man-only thing. But society doesn’t really care (as much) about women experimenting with other women. It’s almost seen as normal for women to do this, but abnormal for men to do the same thing. It’s complicated (and fucked up). Women are expected to “experiment” while in college and still remain straight. Lots of men want to have threesomes with their girlfriend and another girl, but don’t expect their girlfriend to identify as lesbian, or even bisexual. Etc. This is a normal narrative for women in our society, it seems.
And even if it is a choice, why is that so important to Carlson. If you can discriminate against people because they choose to be gay, then why not be able to discriminate against people for being evangelicals (and most of our founding fathers believed in discriminating against evangelicals)?
WORD. thumbs up
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And then there’s the prejudice of wanting-to-be-like-a-man = good (who wouldn’t want to be masculine rather than feminine, amirite?), whereas wanting-to-be-like-a-woman = what’s wrong with you?
This explains why men who “receive” (act like a “passive” woman sexually) are judged more harshly then men who don’t. Even men who receive from their wives.
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