It Ain't Necessarily So by George and Ira Gershwin

It Ain't Necessarily So

It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
De things dat yo' liable to read in de Bible
It ain't necessarily so

Li'l David was small but oh my
Li'l David was small but oh my
He fought big Goliath who lay down and dieth
Li'l David was small but oh my

Oh Jonah he lived in de whale
Oh Jonah he lived in de whale
For he made his home in dat fish's abdomen
Oh Jonah he lived in de whale

Li'l Moses was found in a stream
Li'l Moses was found in a stream
He floated on water 'til ole Pharaoh's daughter
She fished him she says from that stream

It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
Dey tell all you chillun de debble's a villain
But 'taint necessarily so

To get into Hebben don' snap for a sebben
Live clean, don' have no fault
Oh I takes dat gospel whenever it's pos'ble
But wid a grain of salt

Methus'lah lived nine hundred years
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years
But who calls dat livin' when no gal'll give in
To no man what's nine hundred years

I'm preachin' dis sermon to show
It ain't nessa, ain't nessa
Ain't nessa, ain't nessa
It ain't necessarily so
--George and Ira Gershwin

While looking at the responses to Google's announcement that they oppose Prop 8, I came across a blog where the author was obviously a Christian. When someone started trying to debate with him in the comment threads about whether the Bible says homosexual relations are a sin (by the way, the terms used in 1 cor 6:9-10 are as "ambiguous" in their meaning as gay and queer are today. You can claim that they mean happy and odd respectively, but everybody knows what you mean when you use them), he said:

I believe the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God. I believe it is completely historically accurate, inerrant, and as relevant today as when it was written.

While I respect this person for the strength of his faith, I'm glad that my church doesn't ask me to espouse and believe a statement that is so obviously and demonstrably wrong. For starters, which translation of the Bible is complete and inerrant? KJV? New International? or the version that puts it all in street slang? I am not trying to disparage this man's faith, just to show that it is easy for others to do so.

I should start by mentioning that I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. That means that we acknowledge that some error has crept in, but it's still mostly true. The real gem of our religion on this topic though, is that we don't have to rely on what's left of the Bible text to find out what God wants us to know today. If there is a question about what a passage of scripture means, or meant, or even said, we don't have to wait for some archaeologist to dig up the holy grail of Bible scholarship -- a first edition original -- we have modern prophets to tell us what God's word on the topic is TODAY.

Honestly, not every word of the Bible is meant to be taken literally. There's a LOT of symbolism in there. I don't think that even most people espousing the opinion quoted above believe that every parable that Christ taught was a true story about a real person. I wouldn't be upset to learn that some of the Old Testament stories (especially the ones in the "poetic books" like Job and Jonah) were made up to teach an important gospel lesson. And really, it doesn't matter whether it's literally accurate or not -- the Bible is still true.

Take, for example, the problems caused by making the creation story in Genesis a literal exact history. You get silliness like the Creation Museum. Official Church Doctrine on the subject says something like: "God Created the Earth. God Created Man in His Own Image. The Church Does Not Have an Official Position On How He Did It." That means that there is no need to be in conflict with scientific theories on the subject. While they might not have all the answers yet, the ideas of evolution, geology, astronomy, and physics are very practical ways of looking at the world, and have provided many life saving (and labor saving too) technological advances.

So when we want to know whether the Biblical condemnations of homosexual behavior are a mistranslation, or an outmoded social norm (like having to have your head covered to pray), or a commandment for another time that has now been fulfilled (like Christians believe the Law of Moses to be), we don't have to guess. We look to the prophet. And the prophet, Thomas S Monson has said that homosexual behavior is a sin, and that we, as church members should do all we can to pass Proposition 8.

I had been thinking about making a post that listed what I thought were the most potent arguments against allowing Same Sex Marriages, but then I found a sarcastic list floating around, and decided that I couldn't, in good conscience, post something that would feed that flame (The list is actually pretty funny, though I wouldn't go clicking around elsewhere on that site).

Instead, I'll just give a stream of consciousness outline of what I think when I think about it.

• The Prophets and the scriptures tell us that any sexual relationship outside of marriage is a sin.
  
• That includes Homosexual relations of any kind in the same way it includes adultery, fornication, sodomy, pederasty, incest, bestiality, and any other sexual relations outside of marriage.
  
  • In online discussions I've read, proponents of Same Sex Marriage (SSM from now on) try to distance themselves from the last few things on the list, but they don't even bother trying to deny that homosexuality is like the first two, because they are so accepted (and even glorified) in our culture today that most kids aren't being raised in a home with two married parents anymore.
    
  • Nobody tries to deny that committing adultery is a choice that someone makes. They may try to justify it by saying that they were sexually attracted to the other person, and they couldn't help their feelings, but no injured wife has ever felt less betrayed because she knew that her roving husband was so attracted to the marriage wrecker that he "just couldn't help himself." Indeed, using that argument just makes it worse, because as millions of faithfully married (and chaste single) people know, you can help yourself.
    
  • As premarital and extramarital sex have become more acceptable in our culture, more and more people engage in them. I think it's my duty to help as many of God's children live moral lives as I can. That includes preaching at church that sex outside of marriage is wrong. The more acceptable SSM is, the more people will engage in this sin.
  
  
• Fine, say the homosexuals, if it's just sex outside of marriage that bothers you, let us get married. Here's where it gets tricky.
  
  • If you believe that there's such a thing as absolute Right and Wrong, and that God has given us commandments that ought to be followed, then the answer to that is, "Sorry, God, through His prophets and the scriptures, says that homosexual relations are a sin, and that marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman before God, and that's all there is to it."
    
  • Those people who don't believe in God or any absolute right and wrong may be swayed by arguments about the social reasons for government-recognized marriage, but they're the ones that the sarcastic list I linked to above are aimed at. And the argument is compelling: if it makes me happy with no cost to you, then what do you care?
  
  
• So if they're not allowed to get married, then they have to live their whole lives without a fulfilling sexual relationship? Sadly, yes.
  
• So how can your Loving God justify that one? I had a hard time with this question for a while. I though of the single women out there who will never find a husband in this life, who are held to the same standard. But at least they still have hope... Again, it's a tough question without an easy answer. I encourage you to read this interview with Elder Dallin H. Oaks, one of our church's General Authorities. He talks very lovingly about these issues. Some points that I want to mention here are that same gender attraction is a temporary condition of mortality like paralysis or mental impairment that make it impractical or impossible to marry, but in the Resurrection and Eternity, it won't be a problem, and all God's faithful children will have the opportunity, whether in this life or the next, to enjoy all the blessings of an Eternal marriage. That quick summary may not make sense to those not of our faith, so I REALLY encourage you to read the whole interview.

But say the proponents of SSM, the Constitution forbids establishment of religion -- the laws can't be based on what your religion thinks is a sin.

• This is the biggest reason I'm fighting to pass Proposition 8. If it fails, then my freedom to practice my religion will be curtailed. That's a right that is explicitly in the Constitution, and not something that's sort of kind of implied to only a slim majority of the judges involved in the case that stirred this whole mess up.
  
• What do you mean? Gays getting married won't affect you at all. The thing is, it will. History has shown that there will be some militant couples that want to force everybody to not only tolerate their relationship, but condone and approve of it. They'll ask to get married in one of our chapels or something like that, and when we refuse, they'll sue to take away our tax-exempt status. My church donations and my tax dollars will be spent to fight those court battles.
  
• Others have threatened to sue churches that preach against homosexuality for hate speech, and if anybody doubts that they'll actually do it, they're deluded. As I said earlier, the more accepted SSM is in our culture, the more people will engage in that sin. I want my church to continue to have the right to preach against it (as we preach against all forms of immorality), and if this proposition fails, we're one step closer to losing that right. This link has a very informative article about some of the other civil liberties that are at stake.

Then there are the children. Oh No! say the opponents of Prop 8 You're not going to hide behind the children are you? Well, first of all, I'm not hiding behind them. There are plenty of other reasons. But then again, what's wrong with wanting a better world for my children? Environmentalists use that argument all the time, and I don't see everyone chastising them for that. But back to my point, there are two groups of children that we need to be worried about in this issue:

• First, there are the children of the Gay or Lesbian couples -- whether adopted or born with one or both of the parents' DNA through natural or medically assisted means. These children will grow up without the influence of either a mother or a father. That would be sad and confusing for them. But there's millions of kids in single parent homes without mothers or fathers, are you going to outlaw them too? If it was practical, or even possible, we might try. As it is, it's sad and confusing for them too, and we wish that every child could grow up in a complete family.
  
• Then there's my children. I have a baby daughter, and I'm already worried about sending her out into the world to be bombarded with temptations. As SSM becomes more acceptable, it will be more tempting to my daughter and her peers. Some people have such strong homosexual feelings that they would never consider a heterosexual relationship, but others, especially in the confusing hormone rush of adolescence, are not so decided. They'll be encouraged, by equal exposure in health classes in the public schools, to experiment with homosexuality, and some children who would not otherwise have made that lifestyle choice, now will. I think that's something worth fighting against.

Well, I ended up making a list just like I said I wouldn't. I hope, though, that my arguments are at least a little less ludicrous than those in the humor piece. I know that there are many people out there that I have no chance of convincing. To those people, I ask for a little tolerance. Please don't fill my comments with posts calling me ugly names. I've had enough of them already. For those that are on the fence on this issue, I hope my points have answered some of your questions, and if you have others, feel free to ask them and I'll be happy to answer. Honestly, I don't know whether anybody outside my own family will read this post (though I know I occasionally get a few other readers), but it's so important to me that even if this is just a journal entry to remember this tumultuous time, it'll still be worth writing.