Sodomy, Sodomites and Same Sex Marriage

I rather like this as a title, for its alliteration and its sibilance. I'm hoping I can get to the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar this year in July. It's being held just "down the road" from Brisbane at Newcastle. There's been something drawing me to Newcastle for a while. Over the last few years, of course, Colin was living there and when I knew the seminar was going to be in Newcastle, I thought I might use it as an opportunity for a longer visit so as to catch up with him. Now that he's dead, those plans are gone but still it'd be good to get to the seminar if I can. Of course, I'm unemployed and on limited finances and hoping I can get some sort of work in the next few months. So all of that might put paid to any visit to Newcastle at all.

Still, if I can get there, I want to present a paper (it's half the fun). I was torn between two possibilities. One was to do a queer reading of the Ugaritic Epic of Baal. It would be a continuation of sorts with the paper I gave last year in Auckland and is being published in the Bible and Critical Theory e-Journal soon. But at the seminar, time is a factor. We'll propbably be only allotted 30 minute slots which effectively means that you have about 15-20 minutes to speak. The Baal epic is quite long so I probabaly couldn't do any justice in that time span.

So the thought occurred, why not revisit Sodom and Gomorrah. It fits with another project I'm working on, overlaps, in fact. I have the material here that can be turned into a conference paper, all I need is a way into it. And then the title popped into my head. It's sibilance has very campy qualities and if I must revisit old Sodom and Gomorrah it might as well be enjoyable (I can assure you that there's been not much joy associated with those cities over the millennia and reading all the texts extrapolating their punishment doomsday fantasies was not all that fun either).

The whole debate around same sex marriage has shown up marriage as a site for heteronormativity. On the face of it, a male or female couple getting married should not be a cause for panic, least of all invested with dire apocalyptic meaning as one finds on so many US Christian fundamentalist sites. Indeed, one of the arguments used in favour of same sex marriage is that it provides stability in sexual relationships. And traditionally marriage is one of the chief ways of regulating sexual activity, albeit primarily women's sexual activity. Surely people who rail against gay "promiscuity" should be in favour of anything that would regulate and "stabilise" homosexual sexuality. However what if marriage is itself understood as a sign of heteronormativity, even a guarantee of heterosexuality itself? Same sex marriage then undermines this heterosexual, heteronormative guarantee. The underpinnings of this equation can be found in Reformation discourse on marriage, continence and sodomy. The Swiss Reformer, Heinrich Bullinger, in his Decades expounds a vision of a "continent" society, in which marriage is the lynchpin and set up against the apocalyptic evil of sodomy. The same themes recur in a 17th century execution sermon, The Cry of Sodom, from American New England by the Puritan minister and preacher, Samuel Danforth. Both Bullinger and Danforth anticipate many of the themes in contemporary fundamentalist Christian discourse against same sex marriage.

Goodness, it looks like I've written my abstract. Danforth's sermon is quite a hair raiser. I will say some more about it and the hapless victim of the process, Benjamin Goad, who I gather was only about 17 or 18 when hanged for having sex with a mare. Quite horrible and very sad! As for me I have my own views on same sex marriage which I will expound on at a later date. I am also planning to write something about the dramas going on over at St Mary's in South Brisbane in the near future too.