Love

The Love that Now Dares Say its Name; Series on Homosexuality


By John Taylor; 17 July, 2004



"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God."
(Romans 8:14)


This saying of Paul epitomizes the core spiritual reason for suppressing
homosexuality adduced by all monotheist religions, including the Baha'i
Faith. Theism understands shunting gay tendencies out of the mainstream
to be in the interest of the human race. It is important from the first
to emphasize that the justification for this is not merely furtherance
of physical life. In Paul's words, it is to be "led by the spirit," to
follow a Holy Spirit that has its own reasons for approving or
disapproving of what we do.

In theistic belief God is no distant, detached observer but is deeply
concerned and involved in our welfare. He is not only like a father or
mother, He actually *is* our One True Parent. His Holy Spirit makes its
own image in our spirit, not the other way around; we do not construct
Spirit's ideas for our own ends, It makes us. To say that God is our
Father means being taught of Him, as opposed to our physical nature.
This opposition is real. God's ways are not our ways, and the necessary
blood price of following His way is pain, suffering and sacrifice on our
part. The body also demands to be our "father."

It is useful to recall that theism is not the only contender for our
attention. Other belief systems have different attitudes to
homosexuality. Atheism, for example, regards homosexuality as benign.
The polytheistic ancient Athenians accepted gays and integrated many of
the values of homosexuality into normal everyday life, including
pederasty. Sigmund Freud, an evangelizing atheist, gave the following
famous advice in the early 1930's to a mother seeking a cure for her gay
son. His opinion that it is not an illness to be cured sums up almost
precisely the commonly accepted wisdom of today.


"Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be
ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an
illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function,
produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly
respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been
homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato,
Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to
persecute homosexuality as a crime -- and a cruelty, too. If you do not
believe me, read the books of Havelock Ellis. It is a great injustice to
persecute homosexuality as a crime -- and a cruelty, too." (April 9,
1935, in Ernst L. Freud, ed., Letters of Sigmund Freud [New York: Basic
Books, 1960], letter 277, p. 423)


The more advanced religions stand in direct opposition to this judgment
of homosexuality as innocuous. The reason is not bigotry --- as too many
liberal thinkers now blithely assume. It is bound up in the very nature
of the Godhead. Insofar as an incomprehensible Being can be known, we
can deduce that God must love Himself most because He Himself is the
only Being worthy of such Love. This is a love from which all other
loves are born. In other words, divine love is transcendent; it is
meta-love in its essence. That is to say, it is a parental love for all
else in creation.

So, when Paul says that those are sons of God who are led of the spirit
he is saying that anyone who loves must loves in this spirit, as God
connecting with Himself. God is father in that we take on the "genes" of
that ultimate self love. And the main expression of that self-love is
transcendence, fructification, continuance into infinity. Baha'u'llah,
in the Seven Valleys, specifically the Valley of Unity, addresses the
consequences of this deep truth about love.

In this valley the seeker has passed through the three "planes of
limitation," search, love and knowledge, and enters the Valley of Unity,
the first of four transcendent valleys. These trace the ascent from
plurality to the One. You go from in and out, first and last to unity,
the One. Baha'u'llah in this all-important section explains first and
last in terms of parenthood. The fact that we are all offspring helps us
understand God as First. The fact that we bear and raise children helps
understand God as last. He says,


"Although a brief example hath been given concerning the beginning and
ending of the relative world, the world of attributes, yet a second
illustration is now added, that the full meaning may be manifest. For
instance, let thine Eminence consider his own self; thou art first in
relation to thy son, last in relation to thy father. In thine outward
appearance, thou tellest of the appearance of power in the realms of
divine creation; in thine inward being thou revealest the hidden
mysteries which are the divine trust deposited within thee. And thus
firstness and lastness, outwardness and inwardness are, in the sense
referred to, true of thyself, that in these four states conferred upon
thee thou shouldst comprehend the four divine states, and that the
nightingale of thine heart on all the branches of the rosetree of
existence, whether visible or concealed, should cry out: "He is the
first and the last, the Seen and the Hidden...." (Qur'an 57:3)
(Baha'u'llah, Seven Valleys, 26)


It is a central conviction of both theism and mysticism that love of
parent and child is not a temporary stage but continues forever through
all the worlds of God, as does parental authority. This, in turn, the
only way we know God, as first and last, as parent and as child.

Here is the High Noon of the covenant. Every being who loves must
confront it here and now. Each forges a sacred bond of son or
daughtership with God and, since God *is* love, love for Him means
living up to His example of love by loving others His Way. In this Way
only does love express its eternal aspect. Therefore, the only moral and
pure path is, insofar as providence allows, picking out one most worthy
of a total sexual commitment, forming a family together and raising
children in that shelter. In this way firstness and lastness transcend.
They are expressed not just in theory but outwardly.

Now whatever we may think about homosexuality we have to admit that it
stands as a barrier to the furtherance of parental relationships. By
this I do not mean that it assaults parenthood itself. If my children
become gay, that is beyond my power and in an immediate sense I will
still have done my duty as a parent. What that would totally destroy,
though, are any hopes I may have had of becoming a grandparent. That is,
gay "rights" stand directly in the path of grandparent's rights. Like a
teeter-totter, if one side goes up the other goes down.

Fostering new and better human life in every morally possible way was
part of the deal when He created us. There is no getting around this.
The fulcrum on which the teeter-totter balances is just what Paul says,
being led by the spirit as "sons" of God. God as creator wants to be not
only Father but Grandfather too. He is a Parent but also a meta-parent.
His quality of transcendence leads straight down this garden path. No
theist cometh unto it save by this.


John Taylor
helpmatejet@yahoo.com
 
Blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
 
Badi Web Site: TBA