American Episcopalians tend to be liberal compared to Baptists. Even Catholics are more liberal than Baptists and slain-in-the-spirit-Pentecostals. Their clergy may be quite conservative, under the watchful eye of the Papacy, but they have failed to persuade the majority of Catholics of America to vote conservative.
I noticed that Jim McGreevy's entering a school of divinity for his degree didn't get much play compared to some glbt issues. It didnt gat past a couple of news cycles.
That bodes well for these issues.
In Nigeria they have traded pagan/polytheistic superstition for conservative Christianity and Islam. I think they are much worse off with Islam and Anglicanism because they are so intolerant and violence prone when their supposedly divinely inspired texts and edicts are taken literally. Pentecostals and Jehovah's witnesses also have interests there. It's got to be one the most chaotic social, religious and economic climates in the world. Rich in oil and religiously medieval.
Of course, we know right wing homophobia and hatred is not confined to the religious right. Founded in the 1930s, Hitler, Himmler, and Meisimger's "Reich Central Office for the Combatting of Homosexuality and Abortion" is a good example.
Knowing a great deal of records were destroyed by the Nazis, what remains should be seen as the tip of the iceberg. At least 15,000 homosexuals were killed in the camps. Before 1940, over 100,000 were arrested and imprisoned. Some found themselves in the euthanasia programs, too. Especially if they were Jewish.
In my essay on social conservatism as a coercive tool of the state, I show a scary similarity between Nazi leader quotes and those of the American religious right.
Stalin was bad, too. When the Communist revolution took Russia, homosexuality was decriminalized, family planning clinics and contraception received state support. But when Stalin came to power, all that ended. Stalin personally made sure homosexual behaviour was punished by 9 years of prison or work camp.
Mussolini ended all clinics and abortions, too. Franco, Pinochet and Castro also persecuted the glbt community.
See http://www.stopthereligiousright.org/reichoffice.htm
Arianist Christian Emperor Constantius, son of Constantine, of the fourth century was a homosexual that passed laws condemning homosexuality. That is typical given the hypocrisy we are bombarded with these days.
http://www.stopthereligiousright.org/arianistemperors.htm
Justinian was real bad, too. The primary source for this is John Malalas who lived during Justinian's reign.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/malalas.html
Book 18: #18
"In that year [528] some of the bishops from various provinces were accused of living immorally in matters of the flesh and of homosexual practices. Amongst them was Isaiah, bishop of Rhodes, an ex praefectus vigilium at Constantinople, and likewaise the bishop from Diospolis, in Thrace named Alexander. In accordance with a sacred ordinance they were brought to Constantinople and were examined and condemned by Victor the city prefect, who punished them: he tortured Isaiah severely and exiled him and he amputated Alexander's genitals and paraded him around on a litter. The emperor [sc. Justinian I] immediately decreed that those detected in pederasty should have their genitals amputated. At that time many homosexuals were arrested and died after having their genitals amputated. From then on there was fear amongst those afflicted with homosexual lust."
by James Veverka on Sat Sep 08, 2007 at 03:21:02 PM EST
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