In America, Nigeria and Uganda: Religious Freedom is denied when the Civil Rights of the LGBT community are limited by the government on the basis of religious belief

by Rev Stephen Parelli
Other Sheep Executive Director
Williamsburg Plantation, Williamsburg, Virginia
December 27 & 28, 2011

"There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it"

-Albert Barnes

Minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia from 1830-1867

Monday, while visiting Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Jose and I, reading a plaque commemorating the 1777 "Act Establishing Religious Freedom" in Virginia, were reminded again how fortunate we are to live in a country where an establishment of religion and the state cannot legally be wedded.

Plaque commemorating religious freedom in Virginia. The commemorative plaque is displayed on the walls of the Burton Parish Church, Colonial Williamsburg, VA (Episcopalian)

Even so, there are those in America who would (and already have by state amendments) impose their religious beliefs as the "law of the land" in matters of civil rights as it pertains to marriage equality. (For just one example, view this film documentary on the Mormon church and Proposition 8.)

Burton Parish Church (Episcopalian), Colonial Williamsburg, VA, where the commemorative plaque on religious freedom in Virginia is found.

Uganda and Nigeria are present examples where the civil rights of the LGBT minority are limited on the basis of the religious beliefs of the heterosexual majority. Yet, not all religious leaders (be they Jewish, Christian or Muslim) are in agreement that marriage equality and the homosexual lifestyle are in conflict with belief in God. Where true liberty is the objective, government has the obligation to protect the free exercise of all its people in matters of belief and practice, including minorities who may adobt a belief and practice different from the majority.

Since its inception in 1992, Other Sheep has, in good conscience and by disciplined academics and Biblical scholarship, shown how, in our opinion, Christianity is not in conflict with a homosexual lifestyle. While respecting the individual rights of those who would differ, I find it un-American, inhumane, and contrary to worldwide human rights principles, for heterosexuals, based on their understanding of God, to limit the civil rights of homosexuals through the enactment of laws and constitutional amendments.

Ugandan LGBT human rights activist and martyr David Kato, left, with Steve Parelli discussing the interfacing of religious freedom and human rights, Kampala, Uganda, 2007

The UN, in its November 17 historic report (released on Dec. 15) on LGBT human rights violations cites, in its section "Applicable international standards and obligations," the right to religious freedom as a basic human right.

While the emphasis of the UN study is on discrimination based on sexual orientation, I would like to highlight that discrimination against homosexuals is by-and-large, as I have observed it, rooted in a discrimination against others based on religion. This abridgement of religious freedom through the enactment of civil laws by the heterosexual majority in America, Uganda and Nigeria, strikes at the very core of Western liberties and ideals where the state and religion are each separate in their sphere of operation and office of authority.

For America, Uganda or Nigeria to enact laws against homosexuals based in a sacred text of "thus saith the Lord" (the Torah, the Koran, the New Testament or some other) is the height of religious discrimination. It is an immense step backwards in the progress of human dignity. Each individual has the God-given right to live before his or her Creator according to one's own understanding of God and what God may or may not be saying.

Merry Christmas Muslim Style

Merry Christmas Muslim Style - Our 2011 Christmas Letter

Written November 28, 2011

by Rev. Steve Parelli

Just two days ago, from the hospital bed where my daughter Rebecca lay, with a bit of an alarm in her voice she asked me a question that put a smile on my face. “Don’t you wonder what they are talking about!” she asked. “No,” I said, “not the least bit. I know Jose,” I said, “and I know he’ll say just what needs to be said and in a manner and tone that is consoling, reconciling.” Rebecca was referring to a phone conversation that Jose, my legal husband since 2008, was having in the hospital hallway with my estranged daughter Jennifer who was at the moment very, very upset with her father.

For Rebecca, there was some wonderment in my statement. In effect, I was saying they may be talking about me, but no worry. After all, Jose – the school guidance counselor that he is, and the parents and students of the south Bronx that he deals with on a daily basis – well, what’s there to fear or suspect or doubt! And besides, I know he always has my best interest at heart. He’s the perfect spouse for when “children” may turn to the other parent when the first parent is being “difficult.” I was witnessing again just how happy I am in this now 14-year relationship where the key to a happy marriage is by-and-large good communications and, certainly, respecting one’s spouse as the primary relationship.

So good is Jose as husband and . . . well, father . . . that Rebecca has come to refer to me and Jose as “my two dads.” That’s how she introduced us to the nurses and doctors who cared for her. “These are my two dads.” Which leads me into the meaning of 2011 for me. Two family-related events occurred in 2011 that were unique to just this year alone since 1997 when I first began living with my life partner. For the first time since 1997 I was (and Jose, too) invited to a family celebration – my nephew’s wedding; and for the first time since 1997 one of my own family – Rebecca (her husband was in Egypt) – celebrated a major holiday with Jose and me on the actual date of the holiday itself (on Thanksgiving day). I felt as happy as Scrooge having dinner with family on Christmas day. I wept when Rebecca said she was coming to spend Thanksgiving day with her father.

Oh yes, 2011 had all the usual wonderful adventures. There was a spring cruise originating from San Juan, Puerto Rico, for seven days in the Caribbean (I saw Martinique again for the first time since 1970). Our two months (July and August) in Asia this past summer with Other Sheep was remarkable. See www.othersheepexecsite.com for our stories from being threatened by police, to the unveiling of a new publication in Malayalam, to a spontaneous distribution of books with a nun at a Catholic college, to our TV interviews in Goa and the two page article on us in India Today a national weekly news magazine, and more. Back home, the Abington Journal of my college home town (Baptist Bible College of Clarks Summit, PA) did a front page story on Jose and me and our work with Other Sheep.

But the significant, unique events of 2011 were the “firsts” for me with my immediate family, i.e., celebrating with them on special occasions as an openly gay man in a gay marriage.  There’s a message in all of this. Manny, Rebecca’s husband who is Muslim, strongly disapproves of Jose and me as a gay couple. He has told us so. Nonetheless, he has also told us that we are Rebecca’s father and her father’s spouse and will be respected and always treated as family. And he does just that without any reservation! Recently, Rebecca made this observation contrasting her husband and the majority of her family members. She said, “Dad, my husband is Muslim yet he shows more Christian love in accepting and respecting you and Jose – though contrary to his Muslim convictions as it pertains to homosexuality – than do my own family to their own flesh-and-blood son/sibling/father – and they are Christians.”

Which has caused me to think at times: What is the Gospel message? Perhaps it is wrapped up in the verse we call the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Perhaps that’s the Christmas message. At this stage in my life it appears that way to me.

Mark Twain once said that the passages in the Bible that give him the most difficulty are not the ones he doesn’t understand but the ones he does understand. Perhaps the golden rule is one of those difficult passages: easy to understand but not so easy to put into practice. It is a difficult passage for me at times. I hope I’ll do better in loving my neighbor in 2012. It certainly feels great to be loved in tangible, memorable, family ways. In 2012 I
need to forward to others the love I’ve received from Rebecca and her husband, and from my brother and his wife and their family, and make it a Merry Christmas throughout the year so that 2012 may be as unique and special to someone else as 2011 has been to me.

Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson asks Other Sheep Steve Parelli to comment on Leviticus 18 and Romans 1 in view of Rev. Donald Spitz's "hateful comment" that gays, according to the Bible, should be criminalized

By Rev. Stephen Parelli
December 21, 2011
Bronx, NY

Today, OUTTAKE posted my comments on Lev. 18 & 20 and Romans 1 with the following title and introductory remarks:

"REV. DONALD SPITZ SAYS CRIMINALIZE GAYS"

" . . . We called on our openly gay Bible expert Rev. Stephen Parelli, Executive Director of Other Sheep in New York to explain this biblical misconception once and for all.  Parelli stated . . . "

The following comments by Rev. Parelli appear on OUTTAKE blog, Dec. 21, 2011, and were written expressly for OUTTAKE on December 19, 2011, in the Bronx, NY

Lev. 18:22 and 20:13

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." NRSV

Levitical purity laws, of which Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 are a part, were Jewish religious laws, not universal moral and ethical laws, which served to define how the Jewish people were to live as a unique chosen people.

Two principles served to define the purity code, the second of which was the prohibition of mixing ‘kinds,’ such as mixing linen and wool in the making of clothes.

“The lyings-of-a-woman,” the English rendering of the Hebrew phrase אִשָּׁה מִשְׁכְּבֵי  found in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13, and which is understood to refer specifically to anal penetration, fails the second principle of the “purity” code.  Like mixing linen with wool, the male receptive partner is himself a combination of kinds – a male-female mixture.

At first sight, it is hard for us to wrap our heads around the idea that Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 have no more moral or ethical value for us today than the mixing of linin and wool in the making of clothes.  We need to dismantle our present-day frame-work and see our preconceived ideas for what they unfortunately are:  centuries-old, uninformed, so-called “biblical” biases against a misunderstood minority in society.

Romans 1:26-27a

“For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions.  Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another.” NRSV

Elizabeth Stuart, in her book Gay and Lesbian Theologies: Repetitions with Critical Difference, says Paul uses these words “natural” and “unnatural” (“against nature” in the KJV), “to describe, not homosexual people, but Gentiles who characteristically engaged in same-sex activity, a characteristic that distinguishes them, not from heterosexuals, but from the Jews” [emphasis mine].   For all the exegesis one must engage in to grasp how Paul is not talking about homosexuality as we understand it today, Stuart’s statement is the best summary I’ve found and completely fits the context.  Underline it.  Save it.  Repeat it to yourselves and others.

“Natural” and “unnatural” (“against nature” in the KJV) did not have for Paul the same meaning it has for us today.  In ancient times, “unnatural” meant “unconventional” (cf. I Cor. 11:14-15 NRSV and Rom. 11:24 NRSV where long hair on a man is unnatural and where God himself does what is “contrary to nature”).  Seneca, for example, refers to hot baths, banquets after sunset, potted plants and a man’s passive sexual role as all, equally “against nature”, i.e., contrary to custom.

Paul is not talking about homosexuals in contrast to heterosexuals, but rather about Gentiles whose customs are outside of the norm, especially in comparison to Jewish religious purity codes.  Paul, therefore, is not condemning all same-sex acts, and certainly not homosexuality as an orientation.

Sexual Minorities in the Bible: the Positive Texts in the New Testament

By Steve Parelli

Oct. 30, 2011

Bronx, NY

Photos by Steve Parelli, taken in July 2006 in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tom Hanks

In September 2011, Other Sheep published to its web site Rev. Dr. Tom Hanks' new study entitled "Sexual Minorities in the Bible: the Positive Texts in the New Testament." Tom Hanks is the founder (1992) of Other Sheep. He is Other Sheep theologian and director of mission.

Rev. Dr. Tom Hanks, Buenos Aires, September 2011

Table of Contents
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL PAPER
(60 pages in length)

1. Matthew: A publican declares the Good News to eunuchs and prostitutes. 

2. Mark: The young man who fled naked portrays a Jesus in a hurry and crucified naked   

3. Luke: The "beloved physician" tells of a Roman centurion with his "very beloved" slave. 

4. Praxis (Acts) of the Apostles: Queer couples collaborate in mission to the Unclean

5. John: Jesus' Beloved Disciple subverts fundamentalism (selective literalism) 

6. Romans: A gay apostle's queer letter to a "peculiar people" (in five tenement house churches)  

7. 1 Corinthians: Sexual minority values replace family values (1 Cor. 5--7; 16:5-24)? 

8. 2 Corinthians: Catalogs of sexual minority sufferings (oppression, violence)

Tom Hanks

9. Galatians: Evangelism + racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia: "Another gospel?"  

10. Ephesians: Sexual sins that may not even be "named" (5:3, 12)

11. Philippians: Euodia and Syntyche threaten to split the church Lydia founded (4:2-3; 2:2)  

12. Colossians and Philemon: The first Haustafeln andthe deconstruction of the patriarchal household

13. 1-2 Thessalonians: The woman (feminine side) in Paul and his companions

14. 1- 2 Timothy: Paul seeks to encourage his disciple, beloved but timid

15. Titus and his Cretan gay shaman 

16. Hebrews: Sarah, Rahab and, the queerest of all - Melchizedek! 

17. James: Married, but not so secret admirer of Rahab, the harlot

Tom Hanks

18. 1 Peter: "First pope," but married (and preferring Mark as travel companion)

19. 1-3 John: Friendship, not family, the foundation of civilized society

20. Revelation: The celibate followers of the Lamb vs. the Great Whore (Babylon = Rome

Appendix: Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. on the Beloved Disciple in The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2003)

40 Myths in the Seven "Clobber" Texts Unmasked with Exegetical Studies

By Steve Parelli

Oct. 30, 2011

Bronx, NY

Photos by Steve Parelli, taken in July 2006 in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tom Hanks

In September 2011, Other Sheep published to its web site Rev. Dr. Tom Hanks' new study entitled "40 Myths in the Seven 'Clobber' Texts Unmasked with Exegetical Studies"   Tom Hanks is the founder (1992) of Other Sheep.   He is Other Sheep theologian and director of mission.

The table of contents follows.   CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL PAPER which is 71 pages in length.

Tom Hanks

Table of Contents

• Eight Myths in the Homophobic Misinterpretations of Genesis 19:1-29 (Sodom)
• Seven Myths in the Homophobic Misinterpretations of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13
• Seven Myths in Homophobic Mistranslations of 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10
• Three Myths in the Homophobic Mistranslations of Jude 7: Jude, Jesus, and Sodom: Homosexuality in Animals, Homophobia in Humans
• Fifteen Myths in the Homophobic Interpretations of Romans 1:24-27

Tom Hanks

Appendix 1: "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" - Are you sure?

Appendix 2: Genesis 1-3: Inductive Studies

Tom's paper can be downloaded and printed for your personal and/or group use. Please remember Other Sheep and Rev. Tom Hanks in any reproduction, publication and distribution of this writing. We welcome you to read, use, print and publish any Other Sheep website writings and resources, remembering to acknowledge Other Sheep and each article's respective author.

A gay Christian man from Hong Kong writes his story: "Being gay and Christian is definitely not contradictory -- Acutually, it is a special blessing!"

By Fergus Lo, Hong Kong
October 16, 2011

The following are excerpts.  To see the article in full, click here.

Fergus Lo

On the Blessed Minoirty Community Fellowship
There were less than 20 people at the (Blessed Minority Community Fellowship) Friday evening meeting. To my surprise, some of the members shared their stories with me as if we were very close friends. I thought I would be a stranger among them, but they treated me as a friend who belonged. It was the love and trust I experienced that urged me to go to the meeting again the following Friday and the Fridays after.

Sodom and Gomorrah

On the Bible and Homosexuality
I never had a huge struggle between my two identities – gay and Christian, like some of my fellow brothers and sisters do. I had realized and accepted my sexual orientation before I started following Jesus, and when I did accept Jesus as my Savior it was at an welcoming and affirming LGBT church. It is true, however, that I was somewhat hit hard by the six passages in the Bible which are commonly used to condemn homosexuals. My friends at the church urged me not to take the verses literally but to study each passage in its historical and literary context: what is the background of each passage; to whom was the author writing – his intended reader; what was the time period or the culture in which the passage is set. Besides, there are Bible passages we don’t observe today like what we can and cannot eat or wear; and passages where women and men are treated differently.

Left to right:  Fergus Lo, Steve Parelli, Paul Luca,
Felix Liew, Jose Ortiz.  Meeting on sending
books on the Bible and homosexuality
to Beijing Christinas. July 19, 2010.
Kowloon, Hong Kong

On living in Hong Kong
There are many challenges for the gay person living in Hong Kong, and more so for the gay Christian living here.

On being Gay and Chrisitan
I am very grateful that God created me just as I am – a gay man, and that I am a  Christian. God loves me unconditionally regardless of my sexual orientation. In fact, being gay enables me to see His abundant love from a perspective straight people do not necessarily experience. In addition, being a gay Christian enables me to put my feet in the shoes of other minoritycommunities more easily.

I would like to proclaim loudly that being a Christian and gay is definitely not contradictory. Actually, it is
a special blessing!

Why Uganda's Anti-Gay Legislation Is the World's Business: View

This week, Uganda parliament moved to revive the anti-gay bill

By the Editors of Bloomberg, Oct 27, 2011 7:00 PM ET

Click here for the article on Bloomberg site

David Kato
Considered by many to be a father
of the Uganda Gay Rights
movement

Photo by Steve Parelli
Date and Place: August 19, 2007
Red Chili Hideaway,
Kampala, Uganda
Occasion: David Kato with Steve
Parelli, crafting an editorial

Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill just won't go away.

Last spring, an egregious proposal by a member of the ruling party to impose harsh penalties, including death, for homosexual acts was shelved for a second time when Uganda's parliament recessed without debating it. This week, parliament moved to revive the measure.

Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda. The law would increase the maximum penalties, providing up to life imprisonment for homosexual acts and execution for so-called aggravated homosexuality -- repeated homosexual behavior, homosexual acts with a minor or a disabled person, and homosexual acts by anyone who is HIV-positive.

To see the article in full click here