Monday, February 23, 2009

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.

5 comments:

  1. I missed a step - how does marriage 'guarantee' heterosexuality? (without reading Bullinger & Danforth) - Molly

    ReplyDelete
  2. that's what I will be writing about. in the world view of these texts everyone is by nature a sodomite. But in Bullinger's view marriage is a structure for continence and thus a guarantee of one's heterosexuality or commitment to heterosexuality. it's kind of reltaed to calvinist notions that everyone is damned but for the predestined elect. the problem is how do you know you're one of them. by being in the reformed church is one, relative material properity is another. and marriage works in a simlar way in a worldview that sees sodomy as a sign of damnation

    ReplyDelete
  3. and I should add, same sex marriage is by nature sodomitic and if allowed takes away the heteronomraitve heterosexual guarantee bestowed by marriage

    ReplyDelete
  4. "In the world view of these texts everyone is by nature a sodomite". See, this interests me and seems to be a recurring theme - that unless we work REALLY HARD to dissuade people from becoming gay, everyone will want to be. Is this because monasteries are such hotbeds of repressed sexuality that they assume the rest of the world is like that?

    Also, I had a very interesting conversation with a gay male friend recently who was talking about how DRIVEN by sex men are. If this is true (and my extensive research into Queer as Folk implies it is), it is no wonder all those poor celibate priests are twisting their knickers over the seething sexuality of the masses. I remember a F-to-M transexual telling me about how incredibly sexual and energetic he felt on the hormones - that he hadn't realised how completely *different* it felt to be a man.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 請你這一次不要再刪
    跨宗教 跨領域
    悉怛多缽怛囉阿門證據時效
    Blogger 未分類文章 提到...

    *Weiss 前世今生來生緣

    「大師們。」她輕聲說:「他們告訴我的。他們說我活過86次。」

    「帶著對任何有關輪迴轉世的科學論文的強烈渴望,我翻遍了醫學圖書
    館。讀得越多,就越意識到,儘管曾認為自己頭腦的每方面都受過良好的
    教育,但我的知識還是很有限的。有許多這方面的研究和出版物,都是由
    知名的臨床醫生和科學家們實施、驗證並重複的,但是很少人知道。他們
    有可能都錯了或者都被欺騙了嗎?證據是如此的確鑿,而我還是懷疑。不
    管確鑿與否,我覺得難以相信。」

    「這經驗再加上隨後其他病人的經驗,我的價值觀開始轉變,從物質轉入
    精神,而且更關心人我關係,不再汲汲於名利,我也開始理解甚麼是可以
    帶走而甚麼帶不走。確實,在這之前我一定也不相信肉體死亡後我們的某
    一部份還有生命。」
    * 於 March 12, 2009 02:46 AM 回應

    *

    57樓

    57樓

    「那幾週,我重溫了在哥倫比亞大學念一年級時所學的比較宗教課的課
    本。在《聖經》舊約和新約全書中確實提到輪迴轉世。公元325年,羅馬康
    斯坦丁大帝和他的母親海倫娜,將新約中關於輪迴轉世的內容刪去了。」

    在《前世今生》一書中也提到,大師們通過凱瑟琳共示現了10餘次,談話涉
    及到人類的不朽及生命的真正意義:「我們的任務是學習,豐富知識成為
    神那樣的生命。直到我們可以解脫了,然後我們會回來教誨和幫助其他
    人。」



    蔡昀叡?"! 靈修

    2009年3月11日 下午 12:04

    ReplyDelete