this is no longer my blog

last night was my church's third session of "journey together faithfully" which is the elca's study of sexuality and homosexuality, which is supposedly getting congregations thinking and ready about these issues for the upcoming vote... atleast that is my understanding of it's purpose. could be wrong. wouldn't be the first time. anyway, there is a very small group that meets for these sessions. two couples, three women (two being members of the pastor's family), and myself. the pastor is the leader. so last night we talked about leviticus and judges and romans and timothy where it directly speaks about "men lying with men as with women" and how it is an "abomination" (or as the good news bible translates abomination: God hates that!). by some of his comments it was obvious where one of the older gentleman in the class stands on the issue (he repeatedly read the "God hates that!" part of his bible...) at one point in the meeting, we were talking about i think it's one of the deuteronomy texts where it talks about these codes and laws (one prohibiting male to male intercourse) as being for the health of the community. at this point (we'll call him Tom) says "it says health. have you given blood lately? have you read that checklist? it asks if you've had homosexual sex since 1977. they don't want homosexual blood." that was paraphrased and condensed. at this point i piped up and said "they also won't take your blood if you've been overseas" trying to align the homosexual prohibition with something more widely accepted. the pastor then wonderfully stated that if homosexual unions were recognized then it would validate their relationships and there would be less harmful behavior, i.e. sleeping around. so then, towards the end of the session Tom speaks up again, and this time uses his wife as an illustration. you see his wife, who we'll call Bernice, is left-handed. she was born that way. but they only make right handed mowers so she's had to adapt. she has to learn to be right handed to start the mower. so i piped up again and said "or they could invent a left handed mower... i mean they make left handed scissors." Tom replied by asking if i'd ever tried to use a pair, and i said no because i'm not left handed. he said they're not very effective, basically just like right handed scissors except with the grip reversed. so then the pastor decided to close the session with prayer, and i sat there frustrated because it seemed like Tom had gotten the last word, and i didn't want the last word to be negative. so during the prayer i was inspired, so immediately afterwards i sat up and said "i don't think i buy this right handed mower argument." some people chuckled and everyone turned and looked at me. so i kept going "Mowers are right handed because they are made in a society dominated by right handed people. The fact that Bernice is left handed does not make her wrong or mean that she is less than, it just means that society doesn't do a good job of meeting her needs." (it was something similar to that, i was proud of what i had said). but Tom made some little jokey comment and people laughed and then we went home. but i think i won. i did a victory lap around the church afterwards... okay, not really... i actually went home and ate some cheezits. i like cheezits.