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 

The "ex-gay" cab driver's ring finger

Overview:
Our New Haven “ex-gay” cab driver:  I’m “ex-gay” but I struggle still with my same-sex attractions; and that’s the way it will be for the rest of my life – and Exodus admits now that that is what they mean by change, i.e., a life-long struggle.

By Rev. Stephen Parelli
Written October 22, 2011
Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connectitcut

Chapel at Yale Divinity school
where I wrote the
text to this blog immediately
following my conversation with
the "ex-gay" cab driver. 
I didn't want to forget a word he
spoke telling his story
October 22, 2011, Yale
New Haven, CT

Today, Jose and I, together with two friends – one from Uganda and the other from the Bronx – travelled together by train from New York to New Haven to attend a day conference at Yale Divinity School on “Same-sex Marriage and the Catholic Church.” 

In a friendly, low-key manner, the cab driver who conducted us from the train station to Yale, engaged us in conversation around the topic of our conference (but also, in passing, took interest in pointing out to us the house to which George W. Bush came home as a new born baby). 

Before pulling away from the train station, I had leaned over to Jose and whispered, “The cab driver is family.”  Jose gave a look that said, “I don’t think so.”  “Yes,” I said, “you can hear it in his voice.”  Before our transfer was completed, Jose would see that, this time, my gay-dar (for gay radar) picked up the signal correctly.

Our driver was somewhere in his mid-fifties or older. He asked if we were clergy. Our Bronx friend said, “Yes, two are.”  After his commenting some on different denominations and their controversies over same-sex marriage, our cab driver asked directly, “What do you think of Exodus and 'ex-gay'?”

___________________

Above:  Darlene Bogle, a former ministry leader in Exodus International issued a public apology to all former patients hurt in their attempts to change their sexual orientation. Current Exodus president Alan Chambers responded to her heartfelt sentiment with snark and sarcasm.

___________________

I told him that Jose and I travel the world speaking on the "ex-gay" movement (among other things); that our last seminar on “ex-gay” was in Singapore a couple months ago.  I told him I give eight points in my evaluation of the “ex-gay” movement and that he could find the paper on our website. Jose, who is my legal husband, told him we had met at an "ex-gay" support group.

Then I asked him if he had personally been involved with Exodus (I sensed he had).  He said yes and he said it changed him.  Our time was short so I asked him directly if he was changed in terms of his same-sex attraction because it was my experience with “ex-gays” that they do not change in that sense.

Here’s what he told me.  “Being 'ex-gay' is a life-long struggle.  Exodus has changed its position on what they mean by 'change' which is good.  They used to say you will change (in your same-sex attractions), but now they say you will struggle with same-sex attractions for the rest of your life.”

“I haven’t made it yet,” he said pointing to his ring-less ring finger, “and I guess I won’t, but that’s OK.  Some 'ex-gays' do make it that far,” pointing again at his bare ring figure as if marriage with the opposite sex was the ultimate achievement for the “ex-gay” Christian.

“But,” I said, keeping the focus on his comment that “ex-gays” do not change, “even in marriage the ‘ex-gay’ husband still struggles with same-sex attraction.”


[I made the above statement that "ex-gay" husbands struggle even in a heterosexual marriage based on my own personal experience and based on Bob Davies writings from his book Coming Out of Homosexuality in which he says:

page 158

Coming Out of
Homosexuality

"A[n ex-gay] husband can just as easily experience a same-sex temptation one hour after making love to his wife as he can five days later.

"In [ex-gay married] men, homosexual temptations can be prompted by such emotions as anger, loneliness, frustration and boredom. ... If pressures of being a spouse or parent push these emotional "buttons," homosexual temptations may actually increase in the married ex-gay . . . "

page 162

Bob Davies, co-author
of Coming Out
of Homosexuality

"Ex-gay men may not feel an overwhelming physical attraction to their future spouse . . .

"Ex-gay [married] men . . ., the majority do not experience sexual arousal solely by looking at their wife's body. [Instead] . . . sexual arousal [must come by] touch and emotional feelings.

"Most ex-gay men do not struggle with sexual temptation for women . . . not the strong visual attraction experienced by most straight men. ... So a lack of sole dependence on visual stimulation can actually be a blessing."]

Then the cab driver said this, showing his agreement.  “When an ‘ex-gay’ husband and his wife walk down the beach together, his eyes follow her eyes just like this,” and putting his two forefingers together he moved them in sync towards an imaginary object of interest.  Jose immediately verbalized what his illustration was effectively demonstrating.  “So,” said Jose, “the wife is looking at good-looking men and the ‘ex-gay’ husband is looking along with her at the same.”

Paul Martin was a lead counsellor
with Exodus Asia Pacific,
but has since turned his back on
the organisation.
Read more
Click over photo for video news report

“Right,” said the ex-gay cab driver.  He was being consistent.  He had said he himself still struggles with same-sex attractions (even though his life, as he claimed, was changed; obviously his life-style was changed, not his sexual orientation).  He said he was glad that Exodus has officially gone on record as saying by change they mean a life-long struggle with same-sex attractions.  And he gave a candid description of how "ex-gay" husbands while walking down a beach are not attracted to women in skimpy bathing suits but to hunks that would turn the head of any woman.

Dropping us off at our destination, he was still engaging us in this "ex-gay" conversation.  We exchanged contact information.  He threw in the cliche “love the sinner, hate the sin,” and he compared the “ex-gay” process with alcoholics, something I hear again and again and which is, of course, just an incredible, inaccurate parallel.  In all of his talking with us, I did not feel judged by him.  I felt it was a fair, good give-and-take conversation.  I especially liked that he was on the same track with me:  he did know that Exodus does not anymore (and, if you read the fine print in the “ex-gay” books going back to the 1990s, the “ex-gay” movement never really did) claim that homosexuals can change.  I was talking with someone -this cab driver- who had an honest take on what change is in the "ex-gay" movement. 

Yale Divinity School Chapel,
Conference on "Same-Sex Marriage and
the Catholic church"
Oct. 22, 2011

As we left, still keeping a very friendly manner, he said, “See you in heaven and we’ll continue the [‘ex-gay’] conversation there.”  “OK,” I said as I pulled away from the cab to make my way towards the earthwhile conversation at hand – “Same-sex Marriage and the Catholic Church,” a day-long conference at Yale Divinity School.