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Religious views of homosexuality vary widely with some religions facilitating same-sex marriages at one end of the spectrum and others advocating execution of gay men or lesbians for violating their denominations creed. According to some creeds and denominations sexual relations between people who are not of the opposite sex are forbidden and regarded as sinful. Other denominations and creeds, especially in recent decades, regard them as unobjectionable: others even regard them as a positive grace from God. Within many religions there is intense debate over translations and interpretations within sacred texts regarding homosexuality.
John Boswell, in Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (1980) first extensively studied the history of these attitudes toward homosexuality in the Christian West. The documents he adduced challenged the widely current official view of the Catholic Church's past relationship to it's gay members, among whom were priests, bishops and even canonized saints. Boswell's research ranges from the Greeks to Thomas Aquinas in legal, literary, theological, artistic, and scientific sources. According to Chauncey et al (1989), the result "offered a revolutionary interpretation of the Western tradition, arguing that the Roman Catholic Church had not condemned gay people throughout its history, but rather, at least until the twelfth century, had alternately envinced no special concern about homosexuality or actually celebrated love between men." Setting the study within the broader context of tolerance made this an essential study of European social history.
Other religions, such as Buddhism, do not believe same-gender sexual acts are inherently wrong. Buddhism in particular has no concept of sin.
Neo-Pagan religions are almost unanimous in their acceptance of same-sex relationships as equal to heterosexual ones. Another New Age perspective, however, is that of Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now. Starting with the idea that "the realization that you are 'different' from others may force you to disidentify from socially conditioned patterns of thought and behavior," he claims that being gay can help in the "quest for enlightenment," but only so long as one does not "develop a sense of identity based on... gayness."
Opposition to equal rights protections, same-sex marriage, and hate crimes legislation are often formed by conservative religious views. Some religions believe that non-heterosexuality, either behavior or orientation, is a sin; others emphasize that it is only the bodily act or the act of deliberately cultivating fantasy that are sinful: in other words, only an engagement of the will. Religious opponents of equal rights for non-heterosexuals believe that supporting "pro-gay" legislation would constitute approval of homosexuality and bisexuality, by promoting willful acts of homosexuality. They say that such approval is incompatible with their faith.
See also
References
- James Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality
- Eckhart Tolle, "The Power of Now"
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