Why do Christians hate Gay People?

“Texas senator John Cornyn’s argument against gay marriage is: ‘If your neighbor marries a box turtle, it doesn’t affect your everyday life. But that doesn’t make it right.’ Now, I myself was not a psychology major, but after hearing that, I think it’s safe to assume that at one point or another, Senator Cornyn must have thought about making love to a box turtle.” Aziz Ansari, New York comedian.

Have you ever wondered why the fundamentalist Christian right-wing of America is so obsessed with gay people?

I mean, they're totally obsessed with homosexuality. It's one of the cornerstones of evangelical politics. It inspires more bile than pretty much anything else - and more bullshit. I recently read about a so-called 'Homosexual Agenda' on a right-wing site. It makes gay people sound more like the proponents of a 'new world order' than fellas who dig other fellas.

You've got to wonder where this obsession stems from. Personally, I believe it's all Freudian. After all, it's a commonly held belief that homophobia - which translates as fear, rather than hatred of gay people - often stems from a homophobic person's denial and repression of their own homosexual impulses.

Which makes sense when you take outspoken pastor Ted Haggard, who was voted one of the most influential evangelical preachers in the United States for his determined stance against gay marriage and homosexuality in general.

He once stated; "homosexual activity, like adulterous relationships, is clearly con­demned in the Scriptures." This was shortly before he was revealed to have been involved in a three-year long homosexual relationship with a male prostitute.

Or Paul Barnes, founder of Grace Chapel in Colorado. Despite preaching about how homosexuality was an unnatural sin condemned by scripture, he confessed in December 2006: "I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy. . . ."

It seems wherever you look, more and more outspoken critics of homosexuality are proving the stereotype right by admitting their own uncertain sexuality.

The Christian Position

If you ask a fundamentalist Christian why they hate gay people, you'll generally hear the same list of arguments.

1. It's unnatural.
2. It's unhealthy.
3. It's considered a sin by the scripture of the Bible.

That's what Christians CLAIM is the basis for their dislike of homosexuality and public acceptance of a gay lifestyle - things like gay marriage (or civil partnerships) and the right for gay people to adopt.

However, on even the briefest examination of their arguments, it's clear to see the Christian anti-homosexual agenda is simply riddled with holes.

Let's examine the arguments:

1: Homosexuality is unnatural.

I'm not sure what the criteria for 'unnatural' is, but homosexuality is rife in nature. National Geographic and Wikipedia have lists of literally hundreds of mammals who have been observed engaging in same-sex activity.

Bonobo monkeys are an excellent example, with 100% of researched animals involving themselves in homosexual or bisexual relationships with other Bonobo monkeys.

Considering that a record 1,500 species of animals have been recorded displaying homosexual behaviour, the argument that homosexuality isn't a normal, everyday part of nature's rich tapestry falls utterly flat.

Of course, some Christians refute this logical argument on the grounds that they believe mankind did not evolve from animals. If mankind is not evolved from monkeys, why should we emulate their behavior by tolerating homosexual behaviour in society?

This is a rather contradictory argument, however. If you're going to distance mankind from the animals from which we evolved (or not, depending on your beliefs) it's suddenly so much harder to claim that homosexuality is 'unnatural.'

Homosexuality is entirely natural in the wild, so in order to claim it's 'unnatural' in mankind is to hold humanity to a different standard than nature. In that case - who has the authority to argue that homosexuality is or isn't 'natural' in polite, civilized homosapien society?

Like most Christian arguments, it all circles back to the Good Book. Nature itself might not say that homosexuality is 'unnatural,' but the Bible apparently does. In that regard, the Christian right-wing has already surrendered this first position against homosexuality by falling back on their third argument.

2. It's unhealthy.

Mike Huckabee, the most conservative Republican candidate for the White House, proudly declared: "Homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk."

He's talking, of course, about AIDS.

When AIDS and HIV first arrived on the scene, in the early eighties, it was often thought of as a 'gay' disease. It ran rampant through the gay community in the United States and while the heterosexual infection rate is now higher than amongst the gay community, it's still a disease that's often considered part of the homosexual lifestyle.

The fact that AIDS is still a hotly discussed issue within the gay community encourages conservatives to argue that it's proof that homosexuality is an unhealthy and unnatural lifestyle. Condoning homosexuality, as far as they're concerned, puts everybody at risk from infection.

Certainly, in the early days of the AIDS crisis, this argument carried some weight. The heterosexual community was generally only exposed to AIDS and HIV when a blood-doner gave tainted blood (infecting the recipient) or a man on the 'Down Low' maintained heterosexual relationships while at the same time engaging in clandestine homosexual encounters.

With much more being known about AIDS and HIV these days, those risks are reduced. Blood screening has practically eliminated the risk of infection via transfusion and a growing acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle has reduced the number of men who feel pressured to repress their natural inclinations and live 'double lives' (except in the religious community, examples being Ted Haggard and Paul Barnes.)

These days, it's fairly clear that the major infection risk somebody with AIDS poses is if you sleep with them. This makes the fervent outbursts of Ted Haggard that much more duplicitous. When he was preaching about the health risks of homosexuality and what a risk it posed to the community, it was clearly because he was exposing himself to that risk and he was scared.

The Christian condemnation of the homosexual lifestyle actually exposes more people to risk. As Barnes and Haggard illustrate, men who feel pressured to hide their true sexuality often maintain heterosexual relationships in public and have homosexual encounters in private.

Religion prevents these men being able to live their desired lifestyle - and in maintaining a straight 'front' they're exposing their wives to the very same health risks they protest against.

3: It's considered a sin by the scripture of the Bible.

This is where the Christian argument falls back to during every engagement. The Bible apparently says that homosexuality is a sin - and therefore should not be condoned.

While the scriptural argument might be the cornerstone of the Christian position on homosexuality, it's not a very good one. Even before you actually examine the evidence contained within the Bible, you have to consider a very important question:

The Bible apparently says that homosexuality is a sin. But so what?

UnAmerican

Because America is not a Christian society. Sure, the United States might have been founded on Christian principles, but at least two of the founding fathers were confirmed atheists and since the foundation of America, the demographic has broadened to include Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Seiks and Muslims.

What unifies the people of America is not the Bible, but the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution - and they say nothing on the subject of homosexuality.

In fact, the first line of the Declaration of Independence is:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

During the Civil Rights movement, the right of a person to have a consensual, monogamous, long term relationship with another human being was constitutionally protected by 'the pursuit of happiness' in the 1967 Supreme Court Case Loving vs. Virgina. In that case, it was an interracial relationship - but the precedent was set.

Christians can legitimately argue that the word 'marriage' refers only to a man and a women. But allowing two people of the same gender to have an officially mandated civil partnership with each other - offering the same protections, benefits and standing as a heterosexual marriage - is quite clearly the constitutional right of every American couple who decide to live that way.

If a Christian believes their values are truly in conflict with the Constitution, they have to ask themselves: Which are you? A Christian or an American?

The two don't have to be mutually exclusive - but many fundamentalist Christians choose to make them that way. It's evident in the political positions they take regarding homosexuality.

Fundamentalist Christians either want to appoint right-wing, conservative Supreme Court Justices who will ignore the precedent set by Loving vs. Virginia, or they lobby to change to Constitution itself to include the rule that marriage is 'between a man and a woman.'

The fact that the Christian right wing cannot support their own position without manipulating or amending the Constitution illustrates just how conflicted it is with the spirit of American society.

Inaccurate

But moving on, it's time to examine the Bible itself and see exactly what it says about homosexuality.

Now I've often found discussing such issues with fundamentalist Christians to be difficult. As far as many Christians are concerned, they know the Bible better than any non-believer and often dismiss any notion of discussing the subject with somebody who hasn't already taken their blinkered position on the subject.

But that's just an arrogant statement - and incorrect. For one thing, the ability to quote every line of the Good News Bible does not make you a Biblical scholar. Most fundamentalist Christians are only familiar with the Bible they use in Church and in Bible study. They argue that this is the entirely accurate, heavenly inspired Word of God.

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." 2 Timothy 3:16

But it's not. It's a very long way away from that.

The Good News Bible or King James Bible is merely an English translation of a Biblical anthology. It MUST be considered as such. If anybody has learned a second language and done translation work, they must know that there are several different ways of translating something and to believe that any English-language translation of the Bible is 100% accurate is to assume that the original translators were as divinely blessed as the Bible's original authors.

Take some of the translation problems Biblical scholars encounter. In one example, in Matthew 5:22, the Revised Standard Bible says Jesus warns people: "Whoever insults his brother, he must answer for it in court."

The King James Bible translates this somewhat more closely to the original Koine Greek text, which comes out as: "That whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Racha, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."

The King James Bible used the word 'Racha' as one of the insults Jesus warns against using. At that time, no translation for the word could be found - so the term was left untranslated. However, a more recent study of ancient Hebrew and contemporary Greek indicates that the word 'Racha. was synonymous with the Hebrew term "rakh" - which indicates a man of weak, effeminate and homosexual appearance. Historian Warren Johansson equated to the common anti-gay slur 'faggot.'

So therefore, in the original Matthew 5:22, Jesus warns his followers not to make fun of men of effeminate or gay appearance. He specifically uses that term. Hardly supporting the traditional anti-gay position Christians take, is it?

The Christian Argument

When it comes to scriptural evidence condemning homosexuality, Christians are largely wise enough to ignore the Old Testament. Although the Old Testament position on homosexuality was explicit - so were positions on a variety of other things, which are incompatible with a modern Christian lifestyle.

For example, Leviticus 18:22 says: “And with a man you shall not lie with as a man lies with a woman; it is an abomination."

However, according to Leviticus, it is an equal 'abomination' to eat shellfish, pork or rabbit, so considering even fundamentalist Christians enjoy a good pork chop or shrimp cocktail, you can't base an argument against homosexuality on Leviticus. That would just be hypocritical.

Instead, Christians argue that the New Testament provides ample evidence that Christianity condemns homosexuality. Although this isn't entirely accurate.

In actual fact, there are only two explicit references to homosexuality in the New Testament, both appearing in the Pauline epistles.

That in itself is interesting. Paul the Apostle did not actually know Jesus. He didn't actually know anybody who knew Jesus. In fact, he claims to have received the Gospel from a vision of the resurrected Jesus while traveling on the road to Damascus.

Therefore, even assuming the translations of Pauline epistles appearing in the King James Bible or Good News Bible are remotely close to the original texts, it's worth noting that by historical standards, Paul's gospel is anecdotal at best.

In Epistle to the Romans 1:26-27 , Paul wrote:

"Because of this [idolatry], God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul says:

"Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

There are two major issues with accepting these two references to homosexuality as absolute proof that it was condemned in the Bible.

First off, it was Paul speaking, not Jesus. Paul the Apostle is not God. Paul the Apostle is not Jesus. In fact, Paul hadn't even met Jesus. Therefore, it seems entirely contradictory to base a scriptural argument against homosexuality purely on the words of a man other than Jesus.

Especially since the only reference Jesus himself made about homosexuality in the entire New Testament was to condemn people who insult men who were 'Racha' or seemingly homosexual.

Apart from that, Jesus doesn't say a thing about homosexuality - and considering just how important the issue is amongst modern-day fundamentalist Christians, I find it very troubling that the spokesman of their entire religion had nothing to say on the subject.

Secondly, Paul's comments are in themselves contradictory to the Christian faith. The basic philosophy of Christianity is that anybody can inherit the Kingdom of God as long as they accept Jesus. Absolutely anybody regardless of the sins they have committed.

Evidence of this comes from a far more accurate source than Paul's epistles. Both Luke and Matthew recount the last hours of Jesus' life, in which he spoke to two thieves crucified to the left and right of him by the Romans.

The 'Good Thief' accepted being crucified; "for we receive the due reward of our deeds." But he recognized Jesus as the son of God and asked: "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Jesus responded: "Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Luke 23:39-43.

And THAT'S the basis of Christianity. That anybody - regardless of what they've done throughout their life - will be welcomed into heaven as long as they accept Jesus.

So when Paul pompously argues that gays and drunkards won't 'inherit the Kingdom of God' then he's contradicting none other than Jesus himself. I personally believe Paul is arrogantly pontificating his own beliefs using Jesus' name to give himself credibility.

After all, if you believe Corinthians 6:9-10 condemns homosexuality, it also equally condemns drunkenness, talking about somebody behind their back and even obesity (...nor the greedy...)

And anybody who's spent any time around fundamentalist Christians will realize that excommunicating all two-faced gossipers would leave the Churches pretty empty.

The Pauline epistles are simply flawed - from both a historical and a scriptural basis. Therefore, inarguably, using them as evidence in the argument against homosexuality leaves that position equally flawed. Jesus never condemned homosexuality. That's a fact, documented beyond any reasonable doubt within the Bible.

Let's Get Real

Having examined the flaws in the fundamentalist position, it's worth taking a step back at looking at the big picture. The anti-gay argument is seriously flawed. Only in the narrowest, most blinkered interpretation of scripture is it possible to determine that homosexuality is condemned in the Bible (although not by Jesus himself.)

That raises the question: Why are fundamentalist Christians SO vehemently opposed to accepting homosexuality?

I believe the answer to that one lies in recent history.

Man & Woman?

Currently, the major sticking point Christians are unwilling to budge on is the subject of gay marriage. Not just the term 'marriage,' but the idea of offering same-sex couples in committed relationships the same legal protection married couples have.

It's rather alarming to look back just forty years to see a similar position being upheld in the southern United States - protesting marriage between the races.

During the first half of the 20th century, all across the United States, there were laws enacted to separate black people from white. They went to different schools, rode different buses and even drank out of different water fountains. Top of the list of 'racial crimes' was an interracial marriage between a white person and a black one.

In 1967, Loving vs. Virginia was a hotly contested court case that saw a black woman marry a white man in the District of Columbia (as was allowed in the American capital.) When the married couple moved back to their home state of Virginia, a grand jury issued an indictment against the couple as they'd married in violation of Virginia's segregation laws.

On sentencing the couple, the judge announced the following:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And, but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

Note the opening words: 'Almighty God.'

Just like in the argument against gay marriage, it's the Lord's name used (taken in vain) and it's apparently his will that blacks and whites be separated.

But the Lovings did not capitulate - and the court case reached the Supreme Court - the highest court in all of America. Nearly ten years after their original indictment, the Lovings were allowed to remain married, on the grounds that Virginia's segregation laws were unconstitutional and "odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality."

Chief Justice Warren explained his ruling:

"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

Note that the gender of the 'person' a man is free to marry is never mentioned. Some people argue it's implied - but other people logically argue that the only requirements to marry is mutual consent by both parties (rendering senator John Cornyn’s 'box turtle' argument void, since a box turtle, or any animal, is incapable of offering informed consent to marry.)

Bigotry in Faith's Clothing

The alarming thing comparing Loving vs. Virginia to the modern day argument against gay marriage are the similarities. It seems like it's the same old cast, performing the same old script, just four decades later.

While certain Christians were instrumental in securing Civil Rights for African-Americans, the core support for racial segregation across the United States came from the majority of 'decent,' normal, Church-going Americans. The same people who are now protesting against gay marriage.

In fact, the scriptural arguments were quite similar, too - with the 'mark of Cain' often being interpreted as dark skin, thereby offering scriptural evidence to support the assumption that black people were spiritually inferior to whites.

Such scriptural interpretations were clearly just cynical attempts to hide racism and bigotry behind the legitimacy of religion. I honestly don't see how the Christian position on homosexuality is any different today.

It's quite clear that the most verbal opponents of gay rights aren't fighting against homosexual equality for any 'greater good' or 'higher calling.' They simply don't like gay people. They're scared of the effects 'gay' people will have on good, old-fashioned 'family values.'

But that's no different to white people in the 1950's being scared of the effect 'negro culture' would have on polite, white society - heralded by the arrival of 'rock & roll' music.

It doesn't necessarily mean the Church goers in the 1950's or the fundamentalist Christians of today are necessarily bad people. They're just not exposed to homosexual people in the same way those of us in urban areas are - and are therefore apprehensive about people they know nothing about (aside from whispered rumors and Church mandated anti-homosexual propaganda.)

This is why the anti-gay movement is much stronger in America's heartland than places like New York City or California. In New York, we know that the gay community wants nothing more than the basic civil liberties the 'heartland' of America was denying black people less than half a century ago.

The right to avoid discrimination. The legal protection of an officially recognized, consensual, monogamous, committed relationship. The right for certain aspects of 'gay history' like the Stonewall Riots to be recognized - just like important events in the history of the Civil Rights movement are recognized.

In protesting so vehemently against this, I'm worried the fundamentalist Christians are being enormously hypocritical. In the New Testament, Jesus certainly never said anything about homosexuality, so by putting his name behind a movement to repress and deny other human beings their basic human rights seems totally against everything Christianity is supposed to stand for.

"They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." Titus 1:16

Blissful Ignorance

A very disturbing trend I've noticed regarding the upcoming Presidential Election is the enthusiastic embrace of ignorance.

Some people don't like the horrible truth, so they resolutely refuse to accept it - despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I'm afraid to say it's the conservatives who are the most enthusiastically ignorant. Many conservatives claim that their refusal of rationality is a 'political choice' whereas really, it's just bloody mindedness tinged with stupidity.

The most obvious example of this is Evolution.

Many conservatives - including presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee - reject the 'theory' of Evolution. Some prefer to consider 'intelligent design' - which is a not-mutually-exclusive theory in which the development of man was overseen by some 'higher power'

But others, like Huckabee himself, prefer 'Creationist' theory. This is the belief that the world was created exactly as described in the Bible - over the course of seven days, a little more that seven thousand years ago.

The problem with this 'theory' is that it's bunkum. Utter, preposterous rubbish.

Because 'Evolution' is not just a theory. It's also a fact.

Evolution is Here to Stay

The 'theory' of Evolution was not just invented by Charles Darwin while he was in a drunken stupor aboard The Beagle. It was a theory pieced together through objective examination of the evidence.

Further research - which yielded carbon-dating figures and the bones of dinosaurs and woolly mammoths - proved conclusively that animals have changed and developed over the course of the millenia and the world is considerably more than 7,000 years old.

Now whether you believe mankind developed from monkeys via random selection or the work of some 'higher power' is up to you - but it's a fact that humanity as we know it has walked the earth for 33,000 years before the Bible claimed it did.

Evolution is only a 'theory' in the same way that gravity is a 'theory.' We theorise why a ball thrown into the air will be drawn inextricably to the ground. The fact that it happens - each and every time - is a incontrovertible fact.

So people like Huckabee - who refuse to accept concrete, inarguable facts that blow their religious dogma out of the water - are just willfully, gleefully ignorant. And is that the sort of person we want running the country?

But leaving aside Evolution - which at least has the armour of religious dogma to protect it - let's examine some of the other incontrovertible facts conservatives blissfully ignore.

Global Warming

In the past century, the temperature of the world has gone up by a little more than a single degree centigrade. This is an astonishing rise in temperature and has been linked directly to the increase of so called 'greenhouse gases' accumulating in the atmosphere since the mid 20th century.

Given the industrialisation of the world, it is estimated that the planet's temperature could rise by as much as 6 degrees centigrade in the 21st century.

The world is getting hotter. That's a fact.

Unless, of course, you're a conservative.

Because a large number of conservatives refuse to believe the 'theory' of Global Warming and the mountain of scientific evidence linking man-made greenhouse gases to the rise in temperature.

One of the major reasons to be skeptical of the 'theory' of Global Warming is because it's convenient not to believe. If Global Warming is real, we're in trouble. It will take an expensive and inconvenient revolution to transform the world's industries to be environmentally friendly.

No more gas-guzzling cars. No more smoke-churning factories. It will take research and investment and - worst of all - we might have get up off the sofa to take part in it.

So plenty of people choose to be skeptical - and the conservative right (linked to oil industry investors desperate for us not to believe in Global Warming) are happy to swallow up the cynical propaganda pumped out to keep us skeptical.

I stole this cartoon from CK's Blog and I hope he doesn't mind!

I recommend reading Wikipedia's post on the subject of Climate Change denial. It's pretty scary reading.

Is there any credibility to the Global Warming skepticism? Well the most knowledgeable person I know is a friend of mine, energy conservationist Margo Bettencourt - who says: "Denying that global warming/climate change is real is akin to saying evolution is 'just a theory'. In both cases, those who don't know how to deal with the consequences of an issue deny it's truthiness. We'd all be better off if these naysayers could accept that we came from monkeys and are changing the climate."

Margo is the dictionary definition of a 'smart cookie' and if her opinions are good enough for Colombia University and the city of New York, they easily trump any of the cynical oil-industry funded 'strategic studies groups' [Or SUV owning laymen from the midwest - Editorial Bear.]

Why so dumb?

With things like Evolution, we just have to take the scientist's word for it (the thousands of scientist's words for it, backed up with mountains of incontrovertible evidence.)

For something like Global Warming, the evidence is right there in front of us.

I was born on a snowy day in February in 1978. In recent years, England can go for years without snow appearing. The bookies have even stopped running odds on a 'white Christmas' because what was once a reasonably common occurrence has now simply ceased to happen.

In 2002, I spent Christmas day in a New York snowstorm. This Christmas, I was walking around without a jacket on. Global warming is HERE. It's a FACT and we're all living it and witnessing it with our own eyes.

It just boggles the mind why people would make a conscious decision to ignore what they see right in front of them and instead live a fantasy of political expediency.

The problem the conservatives are creating for themselves with this 'embrace of ignorance' is clear. They're pouring their credibility down the plug hole.

If somebody chooses to ignore a fact, like the parallel between greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures, or carbon-dating proving that rocks are millions of years old, it makes you wonder what other incontrovertible truths they're willing to ignore.

I mean, the conservatives tell us that the 'War on Terror' is helping to make America safer. It's the cornerstone of the Republican presidential campaign (have you heard the presidential nominees talk about anything else?)

But are we any safer? And can we take the conservatives' word for it, even if we are?

The economy is another issue. Most conservatives would never vote Democrat because they're the 'party of big spending and tax increases.' Yet history has illustrated through the five recent terms of Republican presidency that Elephants can't balance a chequebook.

Right now, the Republican nominees are bleating about the wonders of Reaganomics. This 'golden age' of the American economy was a balloon that got popped on Black Monday.

Reaganomics is a myth.

In reality, Ronald Reagan plunged America into three trillion dollars worth of debt. While the President delivered tax cuts to the super-rich (slashing a 70% income tax to just 28%) payroll taxes for the average working man actually increased.

His Republican successor, H.W. Bush, similarly won the election on the promise of 'no new taxes' - but reneged on his promise as soon as he'd got his expensive loafers into the Oval Office.

Yet people keep buying into the dreary dogma!

In Conclusion

The embrace of ignorance has got me deeply worried about the upcoming election.

It's a well known fact that most of America votes on blinkered party lines - it's single percentage points of 'swing voters' who make the difference and tip the scales towards a Republican or Democratic president.

But Democracy is a system vulnerable to stupid voters - and there seem to be more of them than ever!

Maybe it's because I have liberal pretensions, or I'm a writer, or I occasionally watched Will & Grace and therefore contributed to the 'pro-gay biased liberal media' or some such rubbish - but I live with a dream of an election fought through open debate, rationality and logic.

Sure, some of our reasons for picking the president are going to be illogical. Some people aren't going to vote for Hillary because she's a woman. Some people are going to vote for Mitt Romney because they mistakenly believe he's really Evil Dead actor Bruce Campbell.

But the big issues? It would be nice if policy was dictated by an objective appreciation of the facts. Unfortunately, there's a powerful movement in conservative America that would happily ignore the inconvenient 'facts' in order to embrace a much more comforting fantasy they call the 'truth.'

As historian Indiana Jones said in The Last Crusade:

"FACT."

"History is the search for fact. Not truth."

"If it's truth you're interested in, Doctor Tyree's Philosophy class is right down the hall."

McCain wins New Hampshire

The Republicans of New Hampshire have spoken - and they've backed McCain as the man to lead their party to the White House.

Nearly ten points clear of rival Mitt Romney, McCain won the state through the support of independent voters - who were attracted by his moderate policies and strength of character.

For America, this is fantastic news. McCain stands a real chance of getting the Republican nomination and if it's a battle between him and Barack Obama, America is in the blissful situation of being able to 'cherry pick' their 44th President from two excellent candidates.

Why I Back McCain

A few weeks ago, I really came to admire Arizona Senator John McCain.

It was at one of the Republican debates and McCain was in discussion with the 'usual suspects.' Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and, of course, good old Fred Thompson.

Since Republican debates normally sink into discussion of homosexuality, abortion or 'national security,' it was no surprise that the candidates started ranting about how they were going to 'keep America safe' and what they were willing to do in order to achieve that.

And interrogation came up.

Specifically, what President Bush and the CIA euphemistically call 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' In other words, water boarding and other questioning techniques that are tantamount to torture.

Man for man, each of the Republican candidates stood firmly behind these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' and declared how important they were in keeping America safe.

“If I didn't use intensive questioning," Rudy Giuliani boasted, "there would be a lot of Mafia guys running around New York right now, and crime would be a lot higher in New York than it is.”

There was a lot of posturing, a lot of machismo and the scent of testosterone was heavy in the air. Until, that is, the question was handed to the white-haired senator from Arizona.

He flat out refused to consider 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' There was no beating around the bush. No political fluffery. Just a straight up, honest no.

"The United States is not like the terrorists," McCain explained. "What we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are."

For the right-wing conservatives sitting at home, the senator might have seemed to have wimped out - but as I saw it, he'd made every single Republican candidate in that debate look like a loud, bawling baby.

John McCain won my (Republican) support during that debate.

McCain in the Know

What did Senator McCain bring to that debate that none of the other candidates had? And what gave his condemnation of torture such impressive weight?

The fact that John McCain was the only one of those politicians who'd ever had first-hand experience of what they were boasting about. In August 1968, as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, McCain had been brutally tortured over the course of four long days.

Torture Garden

In July of 1968, McCain had already been a prisoner of the Viet Cong for almost a year. He was a skinny, sickly shadow of the dashing pilot who'd been behind the joystick of an A-4 Skyhawk when it was shot down during an attack on Hanoi's thermal power plant.

But he was strong willed and determined, despite long months in solitary confinement.

In fact, McCain was only selected for 'special treatment' by his captors when his father, Admiral Jack McCain Jnr, was made Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Command.

As a good-will gesture, the Viet Cong offered to return the commander's son to American soil - but the young John McCain refused to go until every single one of the Viet Cong's prisoners captured before him were released as well.

"First in," McCain explained, repeating the Code of Conduct of the US Fighting Forces, "last out."

Angry at the defiant young airman, the Viet Cong began what would John McCain's introduction into the effects of torture.

He was tightly bound with rope - squeezing his limbs and joints into unnatural positions for days at a time. Twice hourly, guards would come into his cell and beat him with their fists and lengths of bamboo. His bones were deliberately broken. His teeth were beaten and cracked from his jaw.

John McCain always recounts that the Vietnamese were successful in breaking his spirit - but even when McCain was brutally coerced to give the names of his squadron members, he cynically gave the Viet Cong the names of the Green Bay Packer's offensive line instead.

In all, John McCain spent nearly six years as a Prisoner of War and during those years, he probably learned more about the 'art' of torture than any man should in several lifetimes.

So forty years later, it was probably with a great deal of disgust that he witnessed American politicians - possibly amongst them the man who would become the 44th President of the United States, discussing and advocating the disgusting techniques he'd so brutally experienced at the hands of the Viet Cong.

There are many other reasons why John McCain stands head and shoulders above any of the other Republican nominees - but it was his determination and strength-of-character in that debate than won him over for me.

The Bible and Star Wars

Please also read: Another Perspective on Religion.

Back when I was about seven or eight, I had a collection of Star Wars toys, which I'd play with incessantly.

Despite all three films having been released in the cinema, at that point in my life, the only Star Wars film I'd actually seen was the original one, which was occasionally shown on television early enough for me to watch it.

Nevertheless, I was instantly caught up in the saga of Luke, Leia and the battle against the Death Star and thought Darth Vader was a fearsome baddy. As I played with my action figures, I was dying to find out more about the story.

My brother used to do the 'older brotherly' thing occasionally and play with me - concocting Star Wars adventures with my toys. I distinctly remember him once acting out a whole part of the Star Wars story that I'd never heard of before (and wouldn't until Revenge of the Sith hit the cinema screens in 2005.)

It was the story of Darth Vader and how he got to be in that funky black helmet of his.

The Fall of Darth Vader

I'm not quite sure where my brother had learnt about the tragic fall of Darth Vader, but there was plenty of material floating about in the form of novels and comic books. It turns out that George Lucas had created the back story to Luke's father way back in 1977, the same year the original Star Wars film got released.

So twenty years before the events were immortalised on celluloid, my brother acted out the fall of Darth Vader with my four-inch action figures and thrilled me with the climactic story that saw Obi Wan Kenobi hurl Vader into a pit of molten lava at the end of an epic light sabre battle.

It might not have looked that dramatic if you'd been peering over my shoulder, but in my mind, the story was every bit as epic as the version you'll see on the big screen.

My brother's always had a way with words and I could imagine Obi Wan (who of course looked like Alec Guinness, since Ewan MacGregor was only a teenager at the time) battling it out with my blurry mental image of Anakin Skywalker (who, in my imagination, looked a bit like my father's colleague Ian Shield.)

In the end, Vader was dumped into the bubbling magma and Obi Wan disappeared off with his light sabre, leaving the Emperor to come and scoop up Anakin's remains and pour them into a cybernetic suit roughly the same size and shape as British actor David Prouse.

And until I went to the cinema twenty years later, to see George Lucas' version of the story, the way Darth Vader was defeated played out exactly as I saw it in my head. My brother had continued the tradition of oral storytelling as it's been done for millena. Except his version was better because it had light sabres in it.

There is a point to this story.

The Point to This Story

The way my brother had taught me about Darth Vader (who coincidentally was immaculately conceived by a virgin mother) was the same way as the oral history of the Middle East eventually found it's way into written form and became the origin of the book we know today as The Bible.

The Old Testament of The Bible, which tells the story of the creation of the world and the early saga of the people of Israel and Judah, is generally agreed to have been complied from various sources between 1,200 and 200 BC. Some of these sources were written - parts of the Old Testament were discovered in The Dead Sea Scrolls.

Other aspects of The Bible, such as the Israelite's Exodus from Egypt, appear to be a recorded version of oral history (since there is little recorded evidence even from Egyptian sources recording these events.)

The New Testament of the Bible is generally believed to have been written between 70 and 100 CE. The accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are clearly not first hand. Even the earliest recorded copies of the Gospels were written after the disciple's deaths and historian Richard Gerberding in 'Medieval Worlds: An Introduction to European History' admits: "Our prime sources about the life of Jesus were written... ...by people who knew people who knew him."

So their historical accuracy - although pretty good for accounts of that historical period - are very far removed from what a historian would deem 'primary evidence.'

Let's Get the Story Straight

A good example of how blurry these accounts must be involves The Nativity. The birth of Jesus is an event recounted by both Matthew and Luke, neither of whom were actually there. As a result, they're entirely contradictory.

Neither of them can agree on where Joseph and Mary came from (Luke claims that they were only visiting Bethlehem, while Matthew says they lived there) and while Matthew mentions the terrifying King Herod and the Massacre of the Innocents, Luke doesn't find the systematic murder of all Bethlehem's children even worth mentioning.

Bonus Features

What makes it all that much more complicated - even ignoring the existing contradictions between each of the 27 canonical books - is that there's a ton of additional material that somehow never made it's way between the pages of the New Testament.

During the first few centuries of Christian Tradition, there were additional gospels like that of Thomas, The Egyptians and even Judas, but they ultimately 'didn't make the cut.'

The Shepherd of Hermas, Barnabas and Peter had input too, but in the first few hundred years of the Catholic Church, the bible proper was trimmed down to it's current form.

Abridged Version

It was Emperor Constantine who pretty much decided what went into the 'official' version and what didn't. That's like me taking 38 different hand written copies of the 38 plays of William Shakespeare (all of the copies dating back a century or more) and paring out the fifteen which best represented his 'canon.'

You can see the historical problems present in a situation like that. For example, who's going to get the reference to Falstaff in Henry V if you were forced to exclude Henry IV or The Merry Wives of Windsor from 'the canon?'

But having acknowledged the problem of getting an accurate account in the first place and then picking and choosing which accounts are worthy of inclusion, we're presented with the additonal problem of translating the whole thing.

Language Issues

The earliest copies of the Bible were written in post-classical Greek. The Old Testament was further translated into Hebrew (since Christians share the 'Torah,' the first ten chapters of the Bible, with the Jews) and the original 'complete' Bibles, dating back to the days of Emperor Constantine, were written in Hellenic Greek.

In fact, it wasn't until the 8th century that the Codex Amiatinus finally saw the whole Bible together in one place. At least six centuries had passed since the events in question and the details included in the book had been transcribed via countless penmen. At this stage, the Bible itself was very far from The Word of God.

It had never been The Word of God. It had originally been The Word of God as told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Which in turn had become The Word of God as told by Somebody Who Knew Somebody Who Knew Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Which in turn, had become The Word of God (as copied by a scholar) from documents written by Somebody Who Knew Somebody who Knew Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Which finally became The Word of God as translated from a different language by one scholar, from another document copied by a previous scholar, as written by Somebody Who Knew Somebody Who Knew Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (abridged edition.)

It was another eight hundred years before King James 1st of England commissioned scholars to translate the (somewhat) original Greek bible into Shakespearean-era English.

In the 1970s, it was decided that the King James version (which had been translated by the apparently inadequate 'word for word' method) was again translated into a 'thought by thought' version known as the Good News Bible.

So basically, the version of the Bible we hold in our hands today is very far removed from it's original sources. Every single word, syllable and punctuation mark has journeyed through the centuries to find it's way onto our page.

Context. Now with 32% added spaceships.

Consider the journey Jesus' story has taken in comparison to the story my brother told me about Anakin Skywalker.

My brother's version of events was removed by six or seven years from the original author's imaginings. It had come to him from a novel, comic book or somebody else relating the story they'd seen in a novel or comic book. That's how I'd learned the story of Darth Vader.

As it turned out, most of everything my brother told me was more or less factually accurate - but when I saw what 'really happened' on the big screen, there were some fundamental differences.

In Revenge of the Sith Obi Wan Kenobi was played by a different actor, for one thing, and he hacked off Darth Vader's legs and arm in the course of the battle.

Far more graphic than the version my brother had told me!

Plus, it all took place on a fiery volcano world and in the final moments, it wasn't a pool of lava that Darth get hurled into, but merely a bank on the shores of a flowing river of magma.

Unfortunately Anakin's clothes weren't fireproof and 'whoosh' went the troubled teenager like a Christmas pudding soaked in brandy.

Chinese Whispers

In short, my version of events and what actually happened [Star Wars did not actually happen - Editorial Bear] ended up being very different. It's amazing how much stories can change when they are are passed from one person to another. Imagine, then, how much the story of the Bible might have shifted as it journeyed through the mouths and pens of generations of Biblical scholars.

Those who claim their Bible (the King James or Good News sitting beside their bed) to be the absolute, literal 'Word of God' are very clearly wrong. Even worse are the people like potential president Mike Huckabee, who claims the Bible to be absolutely infallible.

How can it be infallible if there are contradictory errors in it?

Did Jesus came from Bethlehem or Nazareth? If the Bible can't even get that fact straight, how can we trust any of the either minute details contained within?

Factual Accuracies. With Light Sabres.

But that being said, my experiences with Anakin Skywalker have taught me one thing. Despite certain important aspects of the story changing as it journeyed from the brain of George Lucas to my childish imagination, the basic details went unchanged.

Anakin Skywalker turned to the 'dark side,' betrayed his mentor Obi Wan and was horribly injured by lava as a result, emerging as a man/machine known as Darth Vader.

That's the essential core and truth to the story of Star Wars. And if that story's solid enough to last a game of Chinese whispers, I imagine the important stuff in the Bible is, too.

The REAL message of The Bible.

We might not be able to count on the finer details, but there's enough to believe the BASIC story of the Jewish exodus and the ten commandments and even Noah's Ark have some origin in historical fact - and therefore have relevance in today's world.

Even more so, the philosophies of Jesus Christ - who preached peace, love and tolerance - are clear enough to have survived centuries of editing and translation.

Whether you believe he's the son of God or not, the beliefs he preached - like not judging people and turning the other cheek - are all valid philosophies that are probably 'pretty much' what he originally said back in the day.

What that conclusion does prove, however, is that there's something deeply wrong and inherently misleading about people who quote scripture and try to justify hatred by using sections taken from English translations of the Bible.

Jesus loves unconditionally (terms and conditions overleaf)

Many Christians, for example, try to illustrate that homosexuality is inherently evil by quoting from the Bible.

The ridiculous part of that is that the 'important' part of the Christian Bible (the New Testament) does not feature Jesus mentioning homosexuality once. NOT EVEN ONCE.

And the section that does mention it? Romans 1:26-27? It features Paul the Apostle writing against those who worship false idols, not homosexuals specifically.

And Paul never even met Jesus.

But let's not discount the poor guy - although over the intervening nine hundred and fifty years since Paul's death, it's possible one of the countless copiers or translators of the Epistle to the Romans might have been putting words into his mouth.

After all, the only other 'so-called' damnation of homosexuality in The Bible is to be found in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 although even the most conservative scholar admits that the condemnation could be against homosexuals, sodomites, prostitutes or paedophiles depending on the translation. [Even Sith lords - Editorial Bear.]

Think Big.

It's important to look at the big picture of the Bible, rather than doing what angry, frustrated hatemongers do and pick strips of scripture out-of-context and try to use them to spread a message of intolerance and hate.

Whether you believe he was the son of God or not, the basic philosophies outlined by Jesus in the Bible are those of love, peace and tolerance. That's the important thing to take from a study of the Bible - not an obsession with typographically suspicious minutiae.

Other historical records seem to match the story of the Bible and offer evidence that much of what is written about occurred in one form or the other. We'll never know the details and to pretend otherwise is just willful ignorance.

But it's still a great story and it's lasted the test of time. Next time somebody says something out of turn, it's worth considering 'turning the other cheek.' If you see somebody in need, it's worth thinking about being a good Samaritan.

But likewise, the next time your hear somebody claim that 'God' is 'against' something, or hateful of a particular type of person, it's equally worth remembering that the Bible is just a book - a very, very, very old book - and the person trying to use it to justify their message of hate is probably just full of shit.

It's also worth remembering that the Path to the Dark Side normally ends in a fiery pit of steaming magma, so you apprentice Jedis out there might want to avoid that.

Sermon over.

Mitt Romney

In order to make it's caucuses politically significant, Wyoming recently moved them from February to January - and received universal condemnation from the Republicans and Democrats as a result.

In addition, their largely ignored contribution to the presidential nomination process went almost completely ignored as a result.

But if you scan the bylines of your national newspaper, you'll find that the people of Wyoming have spoken too - and stood firmly behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as Republican candidate for the presidential election.

Now after my condemnation of ridiculous evangelical Mike Huckabee, you might think I'd be equally scathing about Mormon Romney. After all, he is a Mormon - and Mormonism is one of the most absurd and ridiculous religious cults of recent history.

I feel awfully guilty about writing that, because I have a friend who is a Mormon - and she's one of the most lovely, intelligent and talented people I know... If she's representative of the Mormon community as a whole, maybe we should pack our bags and move to Utah.

But we won't and we shan't.

Because while people condemn Mitt Romney for being a Mormon, you can't really blame him. Mormonism is in his blood. It was Romney's great, great Parley P. Pratt (appropriate name, as it happens) who helped found the Church of the Latter Day Saints way back in 1830. His family has been Mormon for five generations and after that long, paying lip service to to citizens of Zion makes about as much sense as kissing the Pope's pinky ring.

Here's what his opponents don't want you to know - his Mormonism isn't really a big deal.

Oh, sure, he doesn't smoke or drink - but nor does President Bush. When it comes to the big picture, though, Mitt Romney neatly avoids the normal Mormon stereotypes by not having multiple wives (actually, that was officially banned in 1890) and if he goes round knocking from door to door, it's to demand your vote rather than pass round copies of The Watchtower. [That's Jehovah's Witnesses - Editorial Bear]

He actually seems like a pretty evolved guy - much more so than creationist Mike Huckabee - who's convinced the world is only 7,000 years old and dinosaurs were just really big chickens.

That being said - do we really want Mitt Romney as our next president?

Well, I'll give the man his due. He's a fearsomely effective businessman. He managed to reverse the fortunes of sinking Bains & Company back in 1990 in less than a year - without any layoffs or partner defections. He was CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games and turned a $379 million shortfall into a $100 million profit. A true fiscal conservative, as Governor of Massachusetts, he turned a $3 billion deficit into a $700 million surplus. Compare that to former governor Mike Huckabee's record in Arkansas and you can see that Mitt Romney knows how to stretch a dollar better than our evangelical friend.

He's even fairly broad minded, as far as social issues go. No friend of the common or garden gay person, he at least admits he'd back Civil Unions if the only alternative was legalised Gay Marriage. He has sensible ideas about tackling illegal immigration (when the Mormon guy starts telling you that 'the big fence' idea is dumb, it's really time to listen) and he is opposed to the use of torture in questioning terrorism suspects.

He does support the use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' but not the use of torture. Just to make that clear.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

So all in all, he does seem to be a much better bet than Mike Huckabee.

For a start, he's likely to credit the republicans of Wyoming for his nomination, rather than Huckabee's quaint manoeuvre of thanking Jesus (who is not registered to vote.)

Plus the guy can balance a chequebook and that's a trait the Republican party has been sorely missing for the last thirty years.

But there is one ominous facet to Mitt Romney that should warn us all off backing him in the race to the White House.

He hates eggplant.

Call it eggplant, aubergine or brinjal (that's what they call it in India) this delicious potato/tomato perennial is a regular in my kitchen and if Mitt Romney doesn't like it - something ain't right.

I mean, we all know it's 'cool' to have presidentially vetoed vegetables (Bush senior hated broccoli) but eggplant is a queer choice. Yet as Mitt shamelessly admitted, he dislikes “eggplant, in any shape or form.”

Is that the kind of man we really want running this great nation?

And my final reason for doubting the follower of the late nutcase Joseph Smith Jnr is Mitt Romney's rather frightening facial similiarity to legendary horror movie actor Bruce Campbell.

Do we really want to have a man in the White House who could, at any time, be replaced with a chainsaw-weilding time traveller brandishing his 'boomstick?'

I think not...

Mitt Romney, eggplant hater and potential 44th President of the United States versus Bruce Campbell, star of Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. Or is it the other way around?

A Grim Day for Politics

The Iowa caucuses are the first post in the marathon run to presidential nomination - which makes them incredibly important.

In both 1996 and 2000, the results of the Iowa caucuses accurately predicted which Republican candidates would run for election that year. If that accuracy is repeated, it puts former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on the bill to stand for election as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Which is a disaster.

I don't heart Huckabee

My major reason for disliking Mike Huckabee as a presidential candidate is his slavish devotion to Christian evangelicalism. Now there is nothing wrong with being devout - but from the birth of the American nation to the present day, there has always been (in theory) a policy dividing church and state. Mike Huckabee doesn't want any part of that policy.

"Let's take this nation back for Christ." So said Mike Huckabee in 1998 - and on December 31st 2007, he stood by that comment on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'

Here is a man who believes that the bible is the literal 'word of God,' defiantly supports Creationism (and believes it should be taught in schools) and proudly declared that "homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle."

How on earth did this man win the support of the Iowa GOP?

"There's only one explanation for it," he proudly declared, "and it's not a human one. It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people."

Divine intervention, apparently.

Blatant Hypocrisy

Although Huckabee claims to believe that the bible is the literal word of God (including that 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' bit) he's still a grudging supporter of the death penalty.

Despite being a Republican (supposedly the party of 'small government' and fiscal responsibility) his tenure as Governor of Arkansas saw a 65% increase in spending and an explosion in the state's debt to a whopping $1 billion.

His 'dedication' to democracy is clear - in 1999 he attached a 4% tax increase on diesel fuel in the state of Arkansas without voter approval, in direct violation of his oath of office.

And his attitude towards government? In 1998, Huckabee proudly declared: "Government doesn't have the real answers. The real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives."

Jesus is not on the Electoral Roll

There is nothing wrong with being religious. The tenants of Christianity offer excellent moral guidance in how to live our day-to-day lives and interact with other human beings with kindness and tolerance (well, as long as they're not homosexual, apparently.)

However, a heavily edited, oft-translated, trimmed, tweaked and tailored manuscript written two thousand years ago DOES NOT offer an effective basis for running the most powerful nation on Earth.

America requires leadership dedicated to humanity, rationality and logic - and Mike Huckabee can offer the United States none of those things.

If Mike Huckabee wins the 'ticket' to run for the presidency, even the most devout Christian would be best off praying for a Democrat to win the election.