Conservative Carry Out Assulat on Britian's Working Class

Conservatives Promote "Selfish" Ideology

Morning Star Online UK

In one very real sense, it's redundant to describe the present Conservative assault on Britain's working class as "ideological."

Because all political parties' solutions to problems are by definition ideological, being based on that party's world-view, on the preconceptions and ideas that are at the root of its approach to government.

And, Conservative or Socialist, ideology is at the heart of those approaches. It's just a very different ideology.

But when people refer to the Conservative's position as ideological they mean much more than that it's a coherent set of ideas based on a specific analysis of society.

So let's cut through the confusion and call a spade a spade. The right-wing assault is not merely ideological.

It's an ideology that is utterly selfish, is furiously anti-working class and relies for its moral justification on the morality of the wolf pack, where the alpha male dominates absolutely and the lesser animals cluster around hoping for a bit of "trickle down" benefit.

But there's not just one wolf pack, of course and therefore we are treated to the sight of capitalist alpha males ( and they generally are males) routinely savaging each other for the champion's portion of the kill.

They call it competition and it's as distasteful a sight as one could wish to see. Whatever else capitalism is, even it's most ardent supporters couldn't call it pretty. It's combative, it's vicious and it automatically targets the weak and the vulnerable.

And the Conservative/Liberal coalition attack on the social welfare system is a beautiful example of wolf-pack capitalism at its reddest in tooth and claw. Because it unerringly targets the poor and the disadvantaged at every available chance.

This government is remaking the underclass of poor, disenfranchised, alienated and abused people that the trade union and progressive movement has been fighting to eliminate for over a couple of centuries.

Now whether it is doing it consciously is debatable. Probably not, because, in the main, the Conservative ruling class have swallowed their own lies about socially conscious capitalism - an oxymoron if ever there was one.

But, conscious or not, it's real, it's happening and it has to be fought, because this Con-Dem wolf pack will otherwise drive us back into a condition that our forefathers (and mothers) spent their lives lifting us out of.

Woman Now "Owns" The Sun, Says She'll Charge Usage Fee

Capitalism stand in the way of alternative energy

By Paul M. Sweezy

Though it is neither written nor marketed as such, Who Owns the Sun? by researcher/activists Daniel Berman and John O’Connor, is a devastating indictment of capitalism.

As it has developed in the last two centuries, this system is an enormous user of energy, most of it derived from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas).

An additional—and in some parts of the world increasing—source is nuclear fission. Both of these forms of energy are dangerous and environmentally destructive to life on the planet.

Burning fossil fuels generates almost all of the greenhouse gasses that have already begun to change the planet’s climate and, if continued at anywhere near the present rates, will trigger a chain reaction of lethal disasters, not in some vaguely distant future but in the next century or so—historically a relatively short span of time.

Nuclear fission leaves a legacy of radioactive waste that cannot now, or perhaps ever, be safely disposed of.

Clearly if humanity, not to speak of other forms of life, is to have a future, nothing could be more important than phasing out these sources of energy. So much, I believe, is what can be appropriately called ecological common sense.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is an available, renewable, and unlimited source of energy to take the place of fossil fuels and nuclear fission: solar power.

This is truly not only in theory but also, given the present state of our scientific knowledge and technological know how, in practice. Why, then, are we not already living in the period of transition from a proven deadly to a proven safe form of energy production?

The short answer is capitalism. This is in two complementary senses. First, in capitalist society power is in the hands of capitalists and their acolytes. They cannot be assumed to be ignorant of the energy situation and the dangers it portends for the future.

Yet they have never used that power to take remedial action. Second, when faced with the energy crises of the 1970s and the widespread popular reaction, they did their best to confuse the real issues and limited themselves to making soothing promises.

They then promptly forgot and obviously never intended to honor them when things calmed down.

By the late 1980s what had seemed to be a snowballing popular movement for an energy new deal was effectively scotched and by now is hardly more than a fading memory.

Capital won that battle hands down. But the issue will not go away. As the catastrophes of environmental degradation unfold, the need for an energy revolution will become increasingly obvious and urgent.

In Who Owns the Sun? Berman and O’Connor have made a straightforward, hard-hitting contribution to the understanding of the issue. And, by implication, of the lessons to be learned from the rich experience of the last few decades.

An energy revolution is both possible and necessary, but it will be achieved only as part of a broader revolution that takes power away from capital and puts it in the hands of the people where it belongs.

Afghans, "What's 9/11?"

"9/11? Never heard of it." Afghans polled

Daniel Tencer

Fewer than one in 10 Afghans are aware of the 9/11 attacks and their precipitation of the war in Afghanistan, says a study from an international think tank.

A report (PDF) from the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) shows that 92 percent of those surveyed had never heard of the coordinated multiple attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001. It also shows that four in 10 Afghans believe the US is on their soil in order to "destroy Islam or occupy Afghanistan."

To be sure, the survey can't claim to be definitive: It only canvassed men, and relied primarily on respondents from Helmand and Kandahar, the two most war-torn provinces in the country. But the results nonetheless show that Western forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have largely failed to connect with the local population.

“We need to explain to the Afghan people why we are here, and both show and convince them that their future is better with us than with the Taliban,” ICOS lead field researcher Norine MacDonald said in a statement.

The survey also suggests that Afghans are skeptical of their own government's ability to protect them, and have little regard for the fledgling democratic institutions the country is building. Fully 43 percent could not name one positive aspect of democracy, and nearly two-thirds -- 61 percent -- said they didn't think Afghan forces would be able to keep up the fight against the Taliban if and when Western forces withdrew.


The ICOS study recommends a publicity campaign to explain to Afghans why foreign forces are fighting on their soil. The think tank also proposes a number of other initiatives meant to improve the image of foreign forces in the country, including having NATO forces deliver humanitarian aid where aid groups fear to travel, providing farmland to the poor, setting up women's councils, and "safe village convoys" which would see foreign troops escort villagers in dangerous rural areas.

ICOS has a permanent presence in Afghanistan and has been studying the nearly decade-long war's impact on Afghan society. The think tank has previously proposed that Afghanistan license the growing of opium. The group argues that eliminating the opiate trade from Afghanistan is virtually impossible due to its entrenched place in the culture. At the same time, Afghan farmers could earn money by selling opiates to painkiller manufacturers.

Opponents of the idea say that Afghanistan is not stable enough to develop a proper opium-manufacturing industry, and a licensing scheme would only encourage the sale of opium to heroin manufacturers.

Iraqi Veteran Talks About His Addiction to Violence, Gets Expelled

War veteran talks about the effects of war; kicked out of college

Veteran's essay on killing:

By Charles Whittington

War is a drug. When soldiers enter the military from day one, they begin to train and are brain washed to fight and to handle situations in battle. We train and train for combat, and then when we actually go to war, it is reality and worse than what we have trained for. We suffer through different kinds of situations. The Army never taught how to deal with our stress and addictions.

War is a drug because when soldiers are in the Infantry, like me, they get used to everything, and fast. I got used to killing and after a while it became something I really had to do. Killing becomes a drug, and it is really addictive. I had a really hard time with this problem when I returned to the United States, because turning this addiction off was impossible. It is not like I have a switch I can just turn off. To this day, I still feel the addictions running through my blood and throughout my body, but now I know how to keep myself composed and keep order in myself, my mind. War does things to me that are so hard to explain to someone that does not go through everything that I went through. That's part of the reason why I want to go back to war so badly, because of this addiction.

Over in Iraq and Afghanistan killing becomes a habit, a way of life, a drug to me and to other soldiers like me who need to feel like we can survive off of it. It is something that I do not just want, but something I really need so I can feel like myself. Killing a man and looking into his eyes, I see his soul draining from his body; I am taking away his life for the harm he has caused me, my family, my country.

Killing is a drug to me and has been ever since the first time I have killed someone. At first, it was weird and felt wrong, but by the time of the third and fourth killing it feels so natural. It feels like I could do this for the rest of my life and it makes me happy.

There are several addictions in war, but this one is mine. This is what I was trained to do and now I cannot get rid of it; it will be with me for the rest of my life and hurts me that I cannot go back to war and kill again, because I would love too. When I stick my blade through his stomach or his ribs or slice his throat it's a feeling that I cannot explain, but feels so good to me, and I become addicted to seeing and acting out this act of hate, and violence against the rag heads that hurt our country. Terrorists will have nowhere to hide because there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers like me who feel like me and want their revenge as well.

______________________________________________________________________________

The Huffinton Post

An Iraq War veteran who wrote an essay about his addiction to violence for a community college English class has been barred from the school's campus.
Charles Whittington's essay, which can be seen in full here, was also published in the Community College of Baltimore County's campus newspaper. In the essay, Whittington, a former infrantryman, wrote that "war is a drug," and that "killing becomes a drug, and it is really addictive:"

To this day, I still feel the addictions running through my blood and throughout my body, but now I know how to keep myself composed and keep order in myself, my mind. War does things to me that are so hard to explain to someone that does not go through everything that I went through. That's part of the reason why I want to go back to war so badly, because of this addiction.

According to the Baltimore Sun, Whittington received an A for the essay from his teacher, who encouraged him to publish the piece. But after it appeared in the campus paper last month, Whittington was told by school officials that he would not be allowed on campus until he had a psychological evaluation.
Whittington told the Sun that his violent impulses are controlled by counseling and medication.
Community College of Baltimore County spokeswoman Hope Davis said that the school was acting in the interest of safety. "When you look in the era of post-Virginia Tech and the content and the nature that he wrote about in the article, it caused us concerns," she told CNN.
Whittington's psychological evaluation is scheduled for Tuesday.
What do you think? Is the school in the wrong? Or did they do the right thing? Weigh in below.

Powerful Palin

 Palin's detractors strengthen her in conservative's minds.

By Frank Rich

With Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity on her side, Sarah Palin hardly needs the grandees of the so-called Republican establishment. They know it and flail at her constantly.

Unnamed “party elders” were nearly united in wanting to stop her, out of fear that she’d win the nomination and then be crushed by Obama.

Their complaints are seconded daily by Bush White House alumni like Karl Rove, Michael Gerson, and Mark McKinnon, who said recently that Palin’s “stock is falling and pretty rapidly now” and that “if she’s smart, she does not run.”

This is either denial or wishful thinking. The same criticisms that the Bushies fling at Palin were those once aimed at Bush.

Someone with a slender résumé, a lack of intellectual curiosity and foreign travel, a lazy inclination to favor from-the-gut improvisation over cracking the briefing books. These spitballs are no more likely to derail Palin within the G.O.P. than they did him.

As Palin has refused to heed these patrician Republicans, some of them have gotten so testy they sound like Democrats.

Peggy Noonan called her a “nincompoop” last month, and Susan Collins, the senator from Maine, dismissed her as a “celebrity commentator.” Rove tut-tutted Palin’s TV show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” for undermining her aspirations to “gravitas.”

These insults just play into Palin’s hands, burnishing her image as an exemplar of the “real America” battling the snooty powers-that-be. To serve as an Andrew Jackson or perhaps George Wallace for the 21st century, the last thing she wants or needs is gravitas.

It’s anti-elitism that most defines angry populism in this moment. Populist rage on the right is aimed at the educated, not the wealthy. The Bushies and Noonans and dwindling retro-moderate Republicans are no less loathed by Palinistas and their Tea Party fellow travelers than is Obama’s Ivy League White House.

When Palin mocks her G.O.P. establishment critics as tortured, paranoid, sleazy and a “good-old-boys club,” she pays no penalty for doing so. The more condescending the attacks on her, the more she thrives.

This same dynamic is also working for her daughter Bristol, who week after week has received low scores and patronizing dismissals from the professional judges on “Dancing with the Stars” only to be rescued by populist masses voting at home.

Revealingly, Sarah Palin’s potential rivals for the 2012 nomination have not joined the party establishment in publicly criticizing her. They are afraid of crossing Palin and the 80 percent of the party that admires her.

So how do they stop her? Not by feeding their contempt in blind quotes to the press — as a Romney aide did by telling Time’s Mark Halperin she isn’t “a serious human being.”

Not by hoping against hope that Murdoch might turn off the media oxygen that feeds both Palin’s viability and News Corporation’s bottom line.

Sooner or later Palin’s opponents will instead have to man up — as Palin might say — and actually summon the courage to take her on mano-a-maverick in broad daylight.

Short of that, there’s little reason to believe now that she cannot dance to the top of the Republican ticket when and if she wants to.

America, Meet The Israeli Settlers

Abuses against the Palestinian people by Israeli Settlers


Keep your anger in check as you watch. It is important to know what is going on in this part of the world.
 

“To understand everything is to forgive everything” - Buddha

 

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. - Plato

¹⁴If you forgive others for the wrongs they do to you, your Father in heaven will forgive you. ¹⁵But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6:14-15

Caution: strong language, violence

American Liberals Fail To Stand for Human Rights

Israel's murderous attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has served to focus international attention on its longstanding, immoral siege of Gaza. Since the election of Hamas in 2007, Israel has tightened its hold on Gaza's borders, blocking essential goods from entering and Gazan products from leaving, effectively destroying Gaza's economy. Eight out of ten Gazans depend on international food aid to survive, and ninety-five per cent of its drinking water fails to meet safety standards for consumption. Seventy per cent of the population suffers from food insecurity. Thirteen per cent of the children of Gaza suffer stunted growth from malnutrition.

Do American liberals care about the fact that Gaza is a concentration camp? Some do. Some criticize Israel. But the prevailing image that continues to dominate is that of the vulnerable Jew, the perennial victim. Liberals are complicit in this myth.

The ostracism of Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the White House press corps, over her comment that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Poland, Germany, America and elsewhere is revealing in several ways.

In spite of an apology, the 89-year-old has been summarily retired by the Hearst newspaper group, dropped by her agent, spurned by the White House, and denounced by long-time friends and colleagues.

Ms Thomas earned a reputation as a combative journalist, at least by American standards, with a succession of administrations over their Middle East policies, culminating in Bush officials boycotting her for her relentless criticisms of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the reaction to her latest remarks suggest that, if there is one topic in American public life on which the boundaries of what can and cannot be said are still tightly policed, it is Israel.

It is true, as she says, that Palestine was occupied and the land taken from the Palestinians by Jewish immigrants with no right to it barring a Biblical title deed.

But 62 years on from Israel’s creation, most Jewish citizens have no home to go to in Poland and Germany -- or in Iraq and Yemen, for that matter.

But Ms Thomas did apologize and, after that, a line ought to have been drawn under the affair -- as it surely would have been had she made any other kind of faux pas. Instead, she has been denounced as an anti-Semite, even by her former friends.

The reasoning of one, Lanny Davis, counsel to the White House in the Clinton administration, was typical. Mr. Davis, who said he previously considered himself “a close friend”, asked whether anyone would be “protective of Helen's privileges and honors if she had been asking Blacks to return to Africa, or Native Americans to Asia and South America, from which they came 8,000 or more years ago?”

It is that widely accepted analogy, appropriating the black and Native American experience in a wholly misguided way, that reveals in stark fashion the moral failure of American liberals.

In their blindness to the current relations of power in the U.S., most critics of Ms Thomas contribute to the very intolerance they claim to be challenging.

Ms Thomas is an Arab-American, of Lebanese descent, whose remarks were publicized in the immediate wake of Israel’s lethal commando attack on a flotilla of aid ships trying to break the siege of Gaza.

Unlike most Americans, who were half-wakened from their six-decade Middle East slumber by the killing of at least nine Turkish activists, Ms Thomas has been troubled by the Palestinians’ plight for much of her long lifetime.

She was in her late twenties when Israel ethnically cleansed three-quarters of a million Palestinians from most of Palestine, a move endorsed by the fledgling United Nations.

She was in her mid-forties when Israel took over the rest of Palestine and parts of Egypt and Syria in a war that dealt a crushing blow to Arab identity and pride and made Israel a favored ally of the U.S.

In her later years she has witnessed Israel’s repeated destruction of Lebanon, her parents’ homeland, and the slow confinement and erasure of the neighboring Palestinian people.

Both have occurred under a duplicitous American “peace process” while Washington has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into Israel’s coffers.

It is therefore entirely understandable if, despite her own personal success, she feels a simmering anger not only at what has taken place throughout her lifetime in the Middle East but also at the silencing of all debate about it in the U.S. by the Washington elites she counted as friends and colleagues.

While she has many long-standing Jewish friends in Washington -- making the anti-Semite charge implausible -- she has also seen them and others promote injustice in the Middle East.

Doubtless she, like many of us, has been exasperated at the toothless performance of the press corps she belongs to in holding the White House to account in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Israel-Palestine.

It is with this context in mind that we can draw a more fitting analogy. We should ask instead:

How harshly should Helen Thomas be judged were she a black professional who, seeing yet another injustice like the video of Rodney King being beaten to within an inch of his life by white policemen, had said white Americans ought to “go home to Europe”?

This analogy accords more closely with the reality of power relations in the U.S. between Arabs and Jews. Ms Thomas is not a representative of the oppressor white man disrespecting the oppressed black man, as Mr. Davis suggests.

She is the oppressed black man hitting back at the oppressor. Her comments shocked not least because they denied an image that continues to dominate in modern America of the vulnerable Jew, a myth that persists even as Jews have become the most successful minority in the country.

MLK: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam."

"Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster. America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism." -Martin Luther King Jr.

Capitialism's War on Education

 

Putting the public under corporate control

By Charles Sullivan

There is a widespread notion among neoconservatives, neoliberals, and civil libertarians that government is the enemy of the people. Many people believe that government is incapable of serving the public, that it is incapable of doing good.

This attitude owes more to propaganda than truth. After all, government grudgingly provided social security, the minimum wage, Medicare and Medicaid, and it restrained corporate power.

This came as a response to social unrest fostered by social agitators, but it was not enough. Government that serves the needs of the people rather than corporate interests is good government.

The problem isn’t big government. It's the merging of corporations and big business with government and the philosophical system that engenders it: the market fundamentalism spawned by rapacious capitalism.

When corporations, which are motivated by profit rather than regard for the public welfare, merge with government, people are removed from the equation and they are replaced by capital.

Thus money is equated with free speech and corporations are given the rights of human beings without the social and moral responsibility of citizenship. This is what capitalism does. Free markets are not an expression of democracy; they are a manifestation of corporate fascism and belligerence.

Ideally, from a purely capitalist perspective, corporations socialize costs and privatize profits. We saw this policy in action with the public bailout of banks deemed too big to fail. There will be more bailouts, many more, to come. And there will be millions more foreclosures that leave people living in the streets.

Earlier in American history capitalism produced fabulous wealth for a few at the expense of the many through the institution of chattel slavery.

Ever since the emancipation of the slaves, multinational corporations and the captains of industry have sought to recapture those glorious days of prosperity when plantations dotted southern landscapes and the crack of bull whips and screams of agony filled the air.

To the capitalist ear, that was the sound of fortunes being made via free labor, socialized cost, and privatized profit. The high priests of capital on Wall Street are pining for a return to the plantation.

On Being Gay In The Eastern Orthodox Church

ON BEING ORTHODOX AND GAY

By Nicholas Zymaris

May 1997


Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!


"You're gay and Orthodox? How could you possibly reconcile the gay lifestyle

with Orthodoxy?"

Have you ever heard anyone say this?  All too often, we see this sentiment

expressed; the implication is that this "lifestyle" is so heinous that it

should be self-evident that it cannot be compatible in any way with our faith;

the phenomenon is found in most other denominations as well.

I don't see what seems so strange about being gay and Orthodox.  It is hardly

a new thing for Orthodox to be gay; if you talk to actual gay people you will

see that this is not something chosen, but an innate thing which is

discovered.  To throw around terms like "the gay lifestyle" is best left to

the fundamentalists who don't know any better.  To the general population, it

evokes images of evil rituals, orgiastic back rooms, and the like, and

encourages the mistreatment of gay people.

What is the reality?  What is the typical "gay lifestyle"?  The typical gay

person gets up in the morning, has breakfast, goes to work (or church if

it is Sunday or a feastday, and he/she is Orthodox), comes home, does the

laundry, errands, etc.; if he or she goes to a bar, chances are it's to do

nothing more than chat with some friends.  Yes, some of us have sexual

relationships.  Even though society fails to support the relationship as it

supports heterosexual relationships, life goes on; and I look in admiration

at the many truly devoted and loving gay and lesbian relationships I have

seen over the years. Whereas many a heterosexual grudgingly stays with

his/her spouse till the children are grown, then divorces when the

"obligation" is past, these devoted gay couples stay together for no other

reason than love and devotion.  And there are many times when a couple loves

each other but is pressured by society, family or even the church to break up

because the love is of the same-sex variety.  Some are encouraged to have

short-term relationships, or even one-nighters, because at least that can be

confessed, and is not "living in sin" like a committed relationship would be

considered.  That is not healthy either from a physical or spiritual

perspective, and the fault lies in antigay attitudes of society and the

church, and the individual's internalization of same.  Even in these

situations, despite the cause of it, there is still much tenderness and

goodwill shown between the partners, who often become lifelong friends (if

they are not ordered by their confessor to avoid the other on account of

there being an "occasion of sin").  It should be noted that for many gays

living in isolated areas, this is the only way to achieve any kind of human

contact with someone who understands.  It's a fallen world and a fallen

situation, but by God's grace, sometimes good comes of it.

This, then, is the "gay lifestyle".  To suggest otherwise is to encourage a

slander against our community which has gone on for too long, and by the

grace of God is beginning to lose its credibility, finally  (Needless to say,

when heterosexuals cheat on their spouses, this is not condemned as "the

heterosexual lifestyle", but when one talks about gays, it is assumed that

every gay person performs uniquely evil deeds which no heterosexual does; "we

are all equally sinners but some sinners are more sinful that others",

especially if they can be rationalized away as some marginal group existing

only in urban gay ghettoes with their bathhouses and raunchy bars.).

Does our Holy Tradition oppose these things?  Yes -- it opposes slander, and

has nothing bad to say about what the real "gay lifestyle" involves.  If one

wants to cite extreme cases like that of Jeffrey Dahmer (or even the leader

of the "Heaven's Gate" cult, which the _Philadelphia Gay News_ reported was

strict in his celibacy rules owing to his being closeted and at odds with his

own homosexuality), then one would have to make the same condemnations of "the

heterosexual lifestyle" based on the fact that the great majority of

criminals are heterosexual, and most heinous crimes by far are committed by

heterosexuals. Heterosexual rape is also much more common than homosexual

rape.  As you see, it is obvious that only prejudice could permit one to

condemn all heterosexuals for the sins of a few.  Does not the same seem

obvious with regard to homosexuals?

Are gays inclined to molest or otherwise corrupt children?  From the

statistics I've seen, 99% of child molestations are heterosexual, so when one

considers that 4%-10% of the population is gay, and an additional percentage

are bisexual, child molestation is up to 10 times as prevalent (maybe more)

in the heterosexual community.

Regarding our Tradition, it should be noted that much can be found

criticizing rape, pederasty and fornication.  Fornication, like the Greek

"porneia" found in the New Testament and the Fathers, refers literally to

prostitution, and is extended in meaning to refer to forms of sexuality which

do not involve money payment but nevetheless resemble prostitution.  It is as

relevant pastorally to gay couples as rape is to heterosexual couples.  Even

St. John Chrysostom states, about Romans chapter 1, that "ou gar eipen oti

erasthesan kai epethimisan allilon, all' `exekauthisan en ti orexei auton eis

allilous' " (P.G. 60:417, col. 1, near bottom of the column).  The part in

single quotes is a quote from Romans 1:27; the full translation of the above

being: "for he did not say that they fell in love [< "eros"] or had passion

for each other, but rather that they `burned in their appetite for each

other' ".  Because of this distinction, St. John Chrysostom says they had no

excuse.  If they actually did love each other, or even "had the hots" for

each other (an admittedly colloquial translation of "epethimisan") it would

have been a different thing.

It is obvious from Romans, in fact, that the sin was idolatry, and giving up

the truth of God for a lie, for which God allowed their errors to permeate

the rest of their lives; it strongly suggests pagan cults of the time where

men as well as women engaged in frenzied rites which were indeed sometimes of

a same-sex character (much like the Eleusinian or Bacchanalian mysteries),

which culminated in the men being castrated and thus literally "receiving in

themselves the penalty" for their error (Rom. 1:27).  Again, how could one

claim that this is even remotely relevant to a loving gay or lesbian

relationship?  Does the typical gay man today engage in frenzied rituals and

call out the name of various pagan deities as he castrates himself?  Do

lesbians lacerate themselves into a bloody mess while dancing around an idol

of some fertility goddess (a very persistent and heterosexual form of

idolatry, I might add)?  People dedicated to the slander of gay people might

want us to think this, but I'd rather pursue the truth.  And please keep in

mind that these revelers in Romans chap. 1 "exchanged" the natural for the

unnatural; it should be clear that a gay person is already gay, and has not

"exchanged" anything; St. Paul is not only referring to idolaters, but to

people who are not engaging in same-sex activity out of love or passion, but

gave up what is in their nature (loving heterosexuality; they were

_heterosexuals_) to engage in depraved acts.  The fact that these acts were

depraved and loveless is shown by St. Paul's and St. John Chrysostom's

description of how they got to doing such things.  To say that all homosexual

acts are this way is ridiculous, however.

If one wants to cite I Cor. 6:9 and I Tim. 6:10 which condemns "malakoi" and

"arsenokoitai", I would advise the reader to note that "malakos" is an

adjective meaning soft, and is used to refer to a number of morally neutral

things; to use "soft" in a negative sense is hardly a condemnation of

homosexuality; as for "arsenokoitai", it is strange that this feminine plural

is used to condemn gay males; some even have taken it upon themselves to

consider "malakoi" as feminine homosexuals and "arsenokoitai" as masculine

homosexuals; they obviously don't know their Greek.  St. John the Faster notes

that "some men even commit the sin of arsenokoitia with their wives" (P.G.

88:1893) so one can hardly consider it as something uniquely homosexual.

The first known usage of the word "arsenokoitai" (always a plural, by the way)

is in the apocryphal Sibylline Oracles (Oracula Sibyllina) where it is

prophesied that the arsenokoitai will come from the north and steal the

children.  Kidnapping or child molestation, perhaps; a relationship it's not.

As for the Old Testament, the King James Bible's condemnations of "sodomites

and whores" refers to "qedeshim" and "qedeshot"; i.e. male and female temple

prostitutes, respectively.  We know that service as a temple prostitute was

often forced, that the victims had to "perform" regardless of their gender or

inclinations, and that sometimes this involved castration or other

effeminization of males.  It makes the condemnation in Leviticus of "men lying

with men as with a woman" make more sense; in a gay relationship there is no

imitation of heterosexual intercourse, and a man having sex with a man as with

a woman (i.e. vaginally) is a biological impossibility.  Furthermore, why are

lesbians not mentioned, is this then permitted while male-male sex is not? 

And the proponents of anti-gay uses of Leviticus don't care to observe its

other precepts on avoiding mixing of fabric types, seeds and the like.  I

don't think even Orthodox Jews nowadays would check a potential synagogue

member to see if his "stones" have been crushed, another O.T. cause for

excommunication.  Christ, of course, had no problem with eunuchs in the kingdom

of heaven, and the account of the Ethiopian eunuch's conversion is inspiring

to all.  Why are we so selective, and ignore these O.T. rules if they can't be

made to apply to gays?  Could it be simple prejudice and misunderstanding? 

What about David and Jonathan in I and II Samuel?  Such was their love for

each other than they exchanged their garments, their souls were knitted

together as one, and when Jonathan died, he was eulogized with the words "My

love for you was pleasant, passing the love of women".  Doesn't this remind

you of another place in the O.T. where it is said "the two shall become one"?

And don't forget Ecclesiastes chapter 4 (KJV used):

       8  There is one [alone], and [there is] not a second; yea, he

      hath neither child nor brother: yet [is there] no end of all his

      labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither [saith

      he], For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This [is]

      also vanity, yea, it [is] a sore travail.

       9  Two [are] better than one; because they have a good reward

      for their labour.

       10  For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe

      to him [that is] alone when he falleth; for [he hath] not another

      to help him up.

       11  Again, if two [men] lie together, then they have heat: but how

      can one be warm [alone]?

       12  And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and

      a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

What an eloquent way of describing the need for companionship!  In fact, this

very passage is used by a 19th century saint who feared that his beloved would

leave him (see the life of Ss. Zosima and Basilisk, published by St. Herman of

Alaska Press, Platina, CA).

If one wants to cite Sodom, then just get out your online Bible and check

every single mention of the word "Sodom" in the O.T. and N.T.:  it is very

clear what Sodom does and does not represent.  Look at what Ezekiel and Our

Lord have to say in particular; also note that a mob gathering around Lot's

house shouting "Bring them out that we may know them" (Gen. 19:5) looks

awfully like an attempted gang rape; hardly relevant to a _loving_

relationship.  And if that passage was about sexual morality, why is it that

as soon as the family escapes Sodom, being the only righteous there, each of

the daughters in turn get their father drunk and commit incest with him?

Shall we say that incest is permissible, heterosexually, because Righteous

Lot permitted his daughters to do what they did? (I don't think one can argue

that Lot was unconscious and did not know what happened; after all, each

daughter conceived, and this means that he had to be able to get aroused

enough to sustain an erection and to ejaculate, _twice_, which is difficult

for many a sober man with an adult, nonfamilial partner).  Or shall we

condemn all heterosexuals because of this incident?

Also from our Tradition, it is right there in the Patrologia Graeca, that the

relationship between the martyrs Ss. Sergius and Bacchus was described using

the term "o glykys hetairos kai erastes" (sweet companion and lover; erastes

is derived from eros and has the expected meaning) (P.G. 115:1024B; i.e.

paragraph 15, which begins with "O synathlos de Sergios...")

It is not just one phrase either; read the whole Life of these saints and see

what you think.

If it was good enough for St. Simeon Metaphrastes, it's good enough for me.

By the way, this was not the edition that John Boswell used.  There is a

faction of scholars who seem to suspend normal scholarly objectivity when it

comes to John Boswell, and dismiss anything that he has written.  Having

talked with him, I know he made some errors, but there are some things that

the anti-Boswell faction tends to ignore:

1.  Years before Boswell published anything on this subject, gay Orthodox knew

about our tradition.  He did not invent the idea of same-sex union, but merely

made a wider audience familiar with it.  The Protestant Metropolitan

Community Church has been doing what it calls "Holy Unions" since the late

1960's, and though they used to think they invented such a ceremony, we know

now that a union ceremony has existed since before the ninth century A.D.

And since all the editions of Adelphopoiia refer to Ss. Sergius and Bacchus,

it is safe to assume that their relationship was an example to those engaged

in similar relationships (their martyrdom was in 296 A.D.).

2.  Much is said about Boswell's errors.  We all know that he wasn't even

Orthodox, but most of the material he cites is Orthodox, and as he doesn't

understand it too well, he makes some errors, such as interpreting a

Trisagion as "Holy, Holy, Holy", where of course it is not a "Sanctus" but a

"Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us".

3.  What the critics of the Rite of Brotherhood and of Boswell's work always

fail to adequately explain is:  if these ceremonies are not for the blessing

of same-sex love, what exactly _are_ they for?  The answer is invariably a

very jittery and unscholarly "We don't know, but it's anything but THAT!"

As you will see below, some of these critics constantly change their story as

to what the rite is, starting by saying it's a holy rite of the church so it

could never have anything to do with THAT; and ending up by denying it ever

existed, because they realize that it does indeed deal with THAT.

Critics of Boswell even chose to write two reviews of his last book a year

after his death, to "eulogize" him with slander in _Touchstone_ and

_Sourozh_, as well as an article in St. Sophia Quarterly, which had so little

of substance to say that it began by saying it found the picture of Boswell

on the back cover of the book to be ugly, and supposed that the university

scene behind him is to lend academic legitimacy to the book (actually,

Boswell was a popular history professor at Yale; why should he have pretended

otherwise?). There was also an article in the New Republic.  All of these

articles cited lots of opinions, and had a few references; all theorized that

Boswell was mad to come to the conclusion he did; all of them repeat like a

mantra that Boswell is a terrible scholar whose work is worthless (if they

just came out and said that they dislike gays, they'd be labeled as bigots,

but this way they appear as "legitimate scholars"); none offer a credible

explanation of what the rite is, if not a same-sex union. One even suggests

that Boswell's work is terrible because the actual ideal for Christians is

some sort of super Platonic love which seems suspiciously like a homosexual

relationship without the sex; the imagery used by this proponent of total

celibacy among gays is surprisingly erotic; and it would seem likely that the

author is just another frustrated closet homosexual who sadly does not

realize that what he advocates does not work.

In 1994, shortly before Boswell's _Same Sex Unions_ book came out, news of

its impending publication was leaked to the Orthodox internet list at Indiana

University, which is dominated by fundamentalist-like Synodal (ROCOR) Russian

Orthodox, many of whom are actually recent converts from actual Protestant

fundamentalism and don't seem to have shaken it very well (As an example, one

of them admitted that he considered pastoral concerns "irrelevant" to

homosexuals and that most of his peers would rather that all gays just die off

of AIDS.  Of course the gay community is not only not dying off, but

flourishing, despite all the obstacles people try to put in our path.  There

are still, of course, plenty of gays in isolated areas who live in constant

fear of violence, estrangement from family and friends, and the like, not to

mention eternal damnation from the slightest thought about their orientation.

Truly, they are in great need of a little genuine pastoral support, not

phariseeism).

At the same time, a translation I made of the adelphopoeia rite (this is the

Greek name for Rite of Brotherhood, literally "Brothermaking") in 1989 was,

without my knowledge, scanned or typed into a computer with internet access

and entered into the discussion on that same list.  I should note that my

translation was from Jacobus Goar's Euchologion of 1730, which is easily

available at many theological and university libraries in the U.S. and

abroad; it is not some recent invention of gay activists, nor is it

particularly inaccessible.  It is and has been familiar to many researchers of

this subject in the U.S. and abroad, before and after Boswell's research.  When

Boswell's book came out, he revealed that his research was also started when a

friend mailed him a copy of the rite from the same Euchologion.  My interest

in this edition of the rite was sparked when an Orthodox bishop in San

Fransisco said he used Goar's text when his parish performs the rite (this was

in 1988).

Now, if it seems strange that "brotherhood" is used in a spousal fashion,

consider that the term has several meanings aside from this: brother by

common mother ("a-delphos"); (2) brother by common Father ("brother in

Christ"); (3) brother by common abbot (monk); (4) brother by common situation

("brother in struggle"), or (5) common race ("brother" in the black

community).  No one disputes that one word refers to these different

relationships.  Now look at the Song of Songs where the phrase "my sister, my

spouse" occurs repeatedly (So. 4:9-12, 5:1).  Are we talking about incest

here?  No, we are talking about fraternal terminology being used for a

relationship of eros between two persons not related by blood.  The term

"brother" is also seen in the aforementioned account of the relationship

between David and Jonathan in I and II Samuel.  Boswell has his own theories

on the use of the term "brother"; he considered it a synonym for "lover" among

medieval gay lovers; one might compare this to the term "warme Bruder" ("warm

brother") in modern German which precisely means a gay person.

To return to the discussion of adelphopoeia on the net, how did the Orthodox

on the list react to this?  A few desired to look into it, and saw that the

rite's content did seem to suggest a same-sex blessing.  The others at first

did not take this seriously, and used the standard argument I had heard for

years from most of those who knew about this rite:  it is merely mutual

adoption.  But wait, said the others, adoption is "yiothesia", not

"adelphopoiia", and canonists make an explicit distinction between the two.

Well, then, it must be a ceremony for two monks to do missionary work

together (where does the rite mention that?  And they say Boswell was picking

at straws?  Indeed the pot was calling the kettle black). No, said the other

side, it is specifically forbidden to monks, which makes sense since they had

to be celibate.  OK then, it was a rite to pacify two warring kings, and they

cited one king who united himself with a rival.  One advocate self-conciously

said that he realizes many will just think that they were too busy having sex

with each other to bother fighting each other; like "make love not war".

The anti-gay side was losing its credibility.  Drastic measures were taken.

First of all, the list owners denied access to anyone they hadn't previously

screened; this was explicitly to weed out any gay-sympathetic voices.

Second, the new party line was declared:  this rite never even existed; it

was invented by Paul Halsall (a professor at Fordham University) and Axios.

Third, all proponents of this view, especially Halsall, were to receive

physical threats by phone, private e-mail, and U.S. mail.  Such Christians!

Fourth, a priest from a Serbian jurisdiction pronounced an anathema on

Halsall, which is strange since Halsall has nothing to do with that

jurisdiction (more to the point, the anathema was simply a smokescreen to

avoid dealing with the implications of the existence and use of adelphopoeia

in Orthodoxy).  I was apparently the only critic of them who did not get

threatening phone calls and other forms of harassment, etc.; even a straight

professor who said he's against homosexuality but thinks one can't just brush

this under the rug got harassed.  Those tactics prove that they had not a

foot to stand on.  Their lie that the rite never existed after all was

made more ridiculous by the posting of the passage from the Pedalion

(Rudder), which even has a section devoted to Adelphopoeia; it is a

subsection of the chapter on Impediments to Marriage, and is separate from

and after the section on Impediments from Adoption.  The commentary states

(this is not a canon but a commentary compiled by the Chicago businessman

Aristotle Makrakis; the original author may be St. Nicodemus of the Holy

Mountain) that this rite should be prohibited because it is the cause of much

abuses; it is against nature (you know what _that_ means) because adoption

creates a son not a brother, and we all know why people do this, to satisfy

their carnal desires. There, he said it.  It's not just 20th-century gay

advocates who know about this, and it's not for monks, friends, or whatever;

it is for, as the rite says, "love not of nature, but of the Holy Spirit".

This love does not have biological reproduction as its end, but is still love.

But I am not merely relying on books.  There are parishes both here and abroad

which have never stopped doing adelphopoeia, and know exactly what it is for,

particularly in Albania.  Now, John Boswell knew many languages, but not

Albanian, but even he found some references in translation to what went on

there.  I know Albanian, and interviewed Albanian Orthodox in 1991, when the

churches were just reopening after decades of communist oppression.  In the

same year, there were rites of vellameria (the Albanian name for the rite)

performed in the Orthodox church in Elbasan.  All Albanians I spoke to (not

Albanian Americans, I might add, who do not seem to generally be familiar with

vellameria) knew about the rite, but only the ones from Elbasan had witnessed

one.  I talked with an individual from the late dictator Hoxha's birthplace,

Gjirokaster (also known as Argyrokastro, Greek for "silver castle") who gave

a simple but moving account of how Hoxha's attempts at promoting both atheism

and homophobia miserably failed; in his hometown people now practiced their

religion, and as far as the anti-gay violence and sentiments found elsewhere,

"that is unknown where I come from; everyone eats at the same table and those

differences don't matter".  As far as vellameria and the fact that some

researchers in the U.S. think it is a gay marriage, he simply said, "Yes,

that's what it is for".  No shock, no need to explain it away or make

elaborate theories to obscure the fact.  Other Albanians had no difficulty,

despite their heterosexuality, with going over my translations, word for

word, of a number of Albanian gay love songs and giving their insights on the

terms.  Not one of over 20 Albanians I spoke to about this was uncomfortable

with this, unlike most Albanian Americans who seem to have acquired American

homophobia in many cases.

(Note:  the former communist government of Albania passed a law banning all

"marredhenie seksuale ndermjet meshkujve", i.e. "sexual relations between

males"; in the 1990's this law was repealed and homosexual relations are now

legal for males or females of 14 years of age or higher, as with heterosexual

relations; and there is also an advocacy group, the Gay Albania Association

[Shoqata], which was also legalized, it is located in the capital, Tirana).

In fact, the rite continues to be performed even in N.W. Greece, as the Church

of Greece noted in _Adelphopoeia from a Canonical Perspective_ (Athens, 1982).

(It was written by Fr. Evangelos K. Mantzouneas, the Secretary of the Greek

Synod Committee on Legal and Canonical Matters of the Church of Greece).  An

English translation is available on the Axios website or via e-mail, as is

the discussion on the Orthodox list and other items I refer to.  The author

links the underlying relationship historically with the Sacred Band of Thebes

(an all-gay military unit which required its members to swear they were not

"addicted to women"; it was the embodiment of the widespread belief that "an

army of lovers cannot fail" because the love would motivate them to ever

greater heroism and a desire not to be disgraced in front of their beloved),

as well as the _Erotikos_ of Plutarch and various historical manifestations

of blood-brotherhood.

However, the Christian form of the blessing of this relationship was distinct

(there was even an attempt to suppress the blood-brotherhood and encourage

the "spiritual brotherhood" in its place; see Aries, P. and Duby, G., _A

History of Private Life_, vol. 1, p. 596).  Often, but not always, it

involved the pair receiving Holy Communion together.  It caused an impediment

to marriage, and the pair acquired many legal rights including that of

inheritance.  He cites the text of a contemporary (1982) rite from Epirus,

which is essentially the same as the Goar text; which he also cites.  This is

a very Greek way of saying it without actually using the "G-word" (i.e. "gay");

the rite is still performed and we don't have a problem with that, even though

there were two local encyclicals prohibiting it in the Church of Greece in the

late 1800's (Fr. Mantzouneas admits, like all scholars including the Albanian

Eqrem Cabej, that these encyclicals were generally ignored and the rite

remained popular).  Adelphopoeia is even a part of the secular Greek history,

and many of the fighters in the Greek War of Independence of 1821 were

adelphopoitoi ("united with adelphopoeia"); I'd say that if anything, this

helped them win the war, as homosexual love has been associated for millenia

with personal uplifting and the overthrow of tyranny (Plato said, in the

Symposium, that this is why oppressive governments like the Persia of his

time prohibited it, but Athens encouraged it.  The same might be said of

modern-day Iran, though there are of course other factors also).  Now, please

note that I am supplying these notes on pre-Christian and secular practice in

order to supply background information, and to explain such references which

Fr. Mantzouneas makes.  I am not saying that Ancient Greece or Albania or any

other culture is an across-the-board model for what we should do today in

either the Church or society; but it is certainly interesting nonetheless

(However, I certainly think that the ancient view on gays in the military,

not to mention in society, makes a lot more sense than Colin Powell's).

A note about "spiritual brotherhood":  This is the term often used to describe

the rite ("akolouthia eis adelphopoeian pneumatiken"), which of course refers

to the spiritual nature of the rite, especially as distinguished from blood

brotherhoods where actual blood was exchanged.  Blood brotherhood was

performed by Moslems and other non-Christians, and was discouraged.

Christians (both Orthodox and Roman Catholic) were not to drink each other's

blood, but only to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, which they did.

In countries like 19th century Albania where Christians and Moslems freely

mixed, there were all sorts of variations:  Christian spiritual brotherhood

(with Holy Communion and no blood exchange), interfaith (Christian-Muslim)

marriages with blood exchange, and same-sex concubinage without ceremony

(This was reported by Paul Naecke in 1880 and is not to say that all these

relationships were approved of by the Catholic or Orthodox Churches in

Albania; he is talking about what existed in the society.  However, spiritual

brotherhood was indeed common and was performed by a priest in church, and the

relationship was clearly conceived of as a same-sex relationship not excluding

eros; this applied to both male-male and female-female relationships.  While

later in the 19th century the Church of Greece issued two local encyclicals

against the Rite of Brotherhood, one must ask why it took the church 19

centuries to ban something like this.  It has been permitted much longer than

it has been prohibited). Spiritual brotherhood, moreover, was distinguished

by the phrase in it which stated that the couple's love was "not of nature

but of the Holy Spirit"; which I consider not only a wonderful explanation of

the term "spiritual" (it does not mean "non-sexual"; one should consider that

heterosexual marriage is sexual but is also spiritual) but a rebuttal of the

tired arguments about gay love being "against nature".

Adelphopoeia also was performed in Greece, Russia, Romania, Serbia and

Montenegro (Crna Gora) in the 19th century, and before that even in Italy.

However, in 19th century Albania it seems to have enjoyed a zenith of sorts,

and a number of Europeans note this with incredulity (especially the gay

ones, who left the Victorian era for what seems to be the same matter of fact

attitude that the modern Albanians I spoke with had).  There were even gay

love songs, which were compiled by the ambassador from Austria-Hungary to

Ottoman Albania, Johan Georg von Hahn, in 1854. One of these was reprinted in

part (starting with "The sun...") in Havelock Ellis' _Studies in the

Psychology of Sex_ (1928); the translation of the full song from Hahn's 1854

compilation is:

(diacritical marks omitted for clarity)

S'gjen ndonji zok qi kendon,        You'll find no bird that sings,

Te gjithe jane e po qajne.          They all sit there [lit., "are" ] and cry.

I mjeri ashik sa fort po duron,     The poor lover, how strongly he endures,

Prej dyllberit po e dajne.          [For] they separate him from [his] beloved.

Dilli, qi len ne mengjes            The sun, which rises in the morning

Si ti, o djal, kur me zallandise    [Is] like you, boy, when you are near me.

Kur me kthen syt' e zes'            When you turn your black eyes to me

Shpirt ment prej kres' mi gremise.  You drive me crazy.

                                     (lit.,"destroy the spirit and mind from

                                            my head")

Author:  Nechin of Permet, Albania, mid 19th century

(Translated June 1991, Nicholas Zymaris)

(Note: the terms "ashik" and "dyllber" are analogous to the Greek terms

"erastes" and "eromenos", respectively.  Also, the gender of both

("lover" and "beloved") here is male.  The dialect is Geg, with some

nonstandard spelling).

(See J.G. von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_ (Jena, 1854) re archaic terms, i.e.

the verb "zallandis" and the derivation of "ashik"; there are also other terms

used for the beloved such as "xhan", which means "[my] soul, [my] darling",

and is still in common use today).

(This is only one of many songs which Nechin composed, and all of them were

about male-male love.  Hahn states that he was oriented only towards males. 

Naturally, the term "homosexual" (or the German or Albanian equivalents of

this word) was not used since the term was not invented until five years

later, by Benkert in 1859.  But that didn't prevent the topic from being dealt

with, with terms like "ashikun le te gezoje" ("let him gratify his [male]

lover", from another song), or "manmaennliche Liebe" in German.

Incidentally, Hahn was a devout Christian who loved to illustrate Albanian

grammar and sayings by using passages from the Old and New Testaments in

Albanian).

This does not directly prove anything regarding what the Church should do or

has done, but is a refreshing change from the obfuscation and slander one

usually sees on the topic of homosexuality.  And I fail to see how obfuscation

and slander can have any place in a Christian discussion, even though nowadays

an otherwise intelligent Orthodox writer like Fr. Thomas Hopko or the

(now-retired) Fr. Stanley Harakas can go off the deep end when it comes to

describing homosexuality (according to them, we are all child-molesters who

should be prohibited by law from working with children, and so forth).

There is also the common, more moderate view that gay people are not monsters

and in fact their orientation is more or less morally neutral; however God

help them if they act on it.  It assumes that all gay people must, without

exception, never have a relationship and be totally celibate, even when one

cannot avail oneself of the benefits of either marriage or monasticism.

Both from my own experience and the experience of many others, such a view

encourages the fragmentation and compartmentalization of personality.  It

literally makes one sick, physically and mentally.  Look at the dismal record

of the group Courage, as well as the various 12-step anti-gay groups around

the country; their members have a very high AIDS rate (the NY chapter of

Courage stopped functioning for a while because of this) and are generally

quite miserable.  For those whom God has given the grace (charis) to live in

celibacy, such techniques may work.  But it is not for most people.  We

realize this with straights, and don't begrudge them marriage.  For gays,

attempts to totally suppress their orientation lead to misery and

promiscuous, desperate "acting out" when they can't stand it anymore.  These

situations are not likely to be conducive to either physical (i.e. re STD's)

or spiritual safety.  One expends all one's energy dealing with sexual

issues, and perhaps thinks one has accomplished a great work when having some

small "success" in this, where actually one's spiritual life is impoverished,

because one has no time or energy to deal with any other topic. Orthopraxia

should derive from sound theology; simply spending one's whole life

desperately trying not to masturbate or have any kind of sex or permit

thoughts of same is a little sad (and difficult, because such a person is

made to constantly think about sex by the anti-gay "pelvic theologians" who

are obsessed with the topic and thus expect everyone else also to be obsessed

about it.  The end result of this is misery and separation from the life of

the Church as the confessor sees that the penitent is unable to stop having or

thinking about sex; so he is denied the life-giving sacraments of the Church.

If he realizes that it is better to have a committed relationship, he is

shunned for "living in sin".  No matter what he does, he is criticized.

To conclude, it should be said that gay people should not have to waste years

of their life being tormented by the idea that their God-given capacity to

love is a sin to be utterly suppressed.  As fallen human beings, gay people

can and do sin in many ways, sexually and otherwise, as do heterosexuals.  But

we sin because we are fallen humans, not because we are gay.  No one in his

right mind would suggest that heterosexuals are sinful by virtue of their

heterosexuality; if one cheats on one's spouse or otherwise sins sexually, the

sin is not due to whether a male or female has been wronged; it is precisely

because someone has been wronged.  God calls us to love our neighbor, and this

applies to all relationships and all people.  Our Lord said "God is love"; we

should not be so quick to judge a particular form of love as bad.  Indeed, the

criterion to use in looking at various relationships should be whether true

love (of whatever form, erotic or not) is present.  If love is not present,

then and only then can the moralists talk about something "unnatural",

especially when their harsh antigay attitudes dismiss the idea of a gay

marriage and actually encourage the very promiscuity which they decry.  "What

God has joined together, let no one tear asunder".

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(Font: DEC Multinational; applies only to diacritical marks)

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  Rudder of the Orthodox Catholic Church, The: The Compilation of the Holy Canons by Saints Nicodemus and Agapius, transl. D. Cummings. Chicago: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957, repr. 1983.

  Scanzoni, Letha and Mollenkott, Virginia R.  Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?  New York:  Harper & Row, 1978.