#everyone's invited to the homosexuality pit on the side of the road!

[septemberadical]

Okay, OP, let's get crazy. I promise you at the end of all this I will not ask you if you hate homosexuals, I promise. I will ask you a couple other questions that I feel are more important, so stay with me as I stayed with you on your explanation.

You believe homosexuality is a sin because the bible tells you so, well in that case, I hope you are prepared to defend why the hell you as a woman are on tumblr at all! You should keep your mouth shut when men are around and comport yourself accordingly! As your bible says:

Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.1 Timothy 2:11-12

And don't think you're off the hook for preaching to the apostasy and the non-believers, because that's also a no-no. There could be a man among your followers or casual perusers of your blog and you could potentially teach them something:

Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. "And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church."1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Also, where the hell is your husband in all this? Shouldn't you be in the kitchen preparing dinner for him, and doing all that he asks. As god says, he has authority over you and you should submit to him!

"Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband has authority over his wife just as Christ has authority over the church; and Christ is himself the Savior of the church, his body. 24 And so wives must submit themselves completely to their husbands just as the church submits itself to Christ."

I hope you are also prepared to advocate the following for young girls and women: they must marry their rapist, polygyny should be standard practice and enshrined in law, and they must be prepared to to have your religious vows (and in this case legal vows as well, considering the institution) annulled if your dad just really hates your husband.

Don't believe this is all in your bible? How about this excerpt from The Marginalization of Women by Christopher Rollston that summarizes some of the worst of the misogyny inherent in the text: "An unmarried woman could be compelled to marry her rapist, as long as the rapist could pay the standard bride price and the woman’s father was comfortable with the marriage (Deuteronomy 22:28–29). Polygyny (a man having multiple wives at the same time) was not condemned, but was an accepted and legal custom (Deuteronomy 21:15–17; Genesis 4:19–24; and 2 Samuel 3:2–5). A woman’s religious vow could be nullified by her father or her husband (Numbers 30:3–15)."

That seems a little bit more complicated than the 'this woman is yours, this man is yours, go nuts' formula you used before. It's more like 'this man is like god, these women (and all women, whether they consent or not) belong to the man legally and socially, go nuts (but only the men)'. But that hardly matters, it was inevitable you would be wrong and sinful because you're a woman! For as we all know, the bible says:

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Timothy 2, vv. 13–14). 

And the only cure for you is being pumped full of babies: as a woman "will be saved through childbirth, if she remains in faith and love and sanctification with modesty" (1 Timothy 2:15)

But perhaps you have accepted your sinful, weak nature and those admonitions to women don't do it for you. How about we take a look at the book of Leviticus, where you so helpfully get your prohibition against homosexuality ("You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Leviticus Ch. 18 verse 22. or if you prefer: "If a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." Leviticus Ch. 20 verse 13). But Leviticus is a big book, let's see what else is forbidden:

Reaping to the very edges of a field (19:9); Holding back the wages of an employee overnight (19:13): Cross-breeding animals (19:19); Sleeping with another man’s slave (19:20) (slavery is notably NOT forbidden in this book, a bit of an oversight by god); Eating fruit from a tree within four years of planting it (19:23) Trimming your beard (19:27) Cutting your hair at the sides (19:27) Getting tattoos (19:28) Giving your children to be sacrificed to Molek (18:21) (arguably this is a good law, but who the hell is Molek and where did he come from?) Turning to mediums or spiritualists (19:31) Not standing in the presence of the elderly (19:32)  Cursing your father or mother (punishable by death, bit of an overreaction) (20:9) Blasphemy (punishable by stoning to death, why so specific?) (24:14) Selling an Israelite as a slave (foreigners are fine) (25:42) ah, there we go, it does say something about slavery I apologize. Only foreigners can be slaves which is a but unlucky for all us gentiles.

Now I can't wait for your long-winded, incredibly stupid defence of your frankly immoral decision to reap to the edges of the field. I'll be here, waiting, until you're ready to defend yourself!

Or, you could just give it up and admit that you don't care what 99% of what the bible says. You have chosen to pick this one passage from this one book of the bible and use it as a way to call all those who are homosexual immoral and abominations in the eyes of god. You have not chosen to do the same with those who curse their father or cut their hair at the sides or get tattoos or sacrifice their children to Molek (a joke, stay with me). So don't tell me or anyone else that you got this knowledge from god. You chose this to be true because it aligns with your values just like how most of the laws above simply don't, so you choose not the follow them. Why should the prohibition against homosexuality still hold water outside of bronze age Palestine when the name of Molek has faded into obscurity? Where do you get the right to claim you are such a supporter of gay people that you drool at any Ian McKellen impression, but put his love for his husband on the same level as beastiality and incest for what appears to be an arbitrary reason?

Usually when I compare something to beastiality I don't mean it as a shining compliment, but you have already covered why you love gay people with all your heart so I won't rehash. Rather than whether you hate gay people, how would answer the questions posed above? Everyone is entitled to their opinion, no one is free from criticism for that opinion. And just to pre-empt the whining, this is a public forum, you post at your own risk, if you don't care to debate, don't respond.

Do you just not like gay people? I'd rather you just say the quiet part out loud so I can block you

With all due respect, Anon, I fail to see what this has to do with Lord of the Rings. 

Oh, but you’ll probably want a serious answer, tho. Very well. I mean, I’d rather talk about any number of more interesting things than sex—like walnuts, or toenail clippings, or watching paint dry, or perhaps the consistency of squirrel droppings—but in the interest of making my own stance clear, and answering the questions that I’m sure have hovered unasked in the minds of many of my followers, I will provide the most kind and thorough answer that I can. 

But I’m still putting it under a read-more, because, as aforementioned, it has nothing to do with Lord of the Rings. 

The short answer is no. No, I don’t dislike gay people. I’m sure most of my follower count identifies as gay, or somewhere along that spectrum, and y’all have been lovely ever since I began this blog. To be fair, I know more than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve, but so long as you’re nice to me and leave fun interactions on my artwork, I like you plenty. If that’s satisfactory to you, good!

Because the long answer is more complicated. 

Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner

The first thing we must do is define the difference between “liking someone” and “approving of what they do”. If you’ve been anywhere near most Christian circles—or just listened to Hamilton—you’ve probably heard the phrase “hate the sin, love the sinner”. That phrase applies here. I have religious reasons for believing that the lifestyle of homosexuality is wrong, but I don’t harbor ill will towards the people who practice it. There’s a difference between disliking a person and disapproving of their actions. 

I don’t approve of smoking. I think it hurts people. That doesn’t mean I hate people who smoke. On the contrary, I care about them, and I would rather they don’t get lung cancer and breathing problems later in life, so I would urge them to quit smoking. 

I don’t approve of gambling. I think it hurts people. That doesn’t mean I hate people who gamble. On the contrary, I care about them, and I would rather not see them form an addiction that squanders away all their money to an uncaring corporation, leaving them poor and unhappy—or just as bad, winning the jackpot, and then being rich and unhappy—so I would urge them to quit gambling. 

I don’t approve of any and all forms of self-harm. It hurts my heart. I watched my best friend go through a long period of depression and self-harm, and it utterly broke me, that someone I loved would have to cause themselves external pain in order to get a reprieve from the pain they felt inside. I didn’t hate my friend. No, no, no, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I loved my friend more than my own life, ached for them, and wished more than anything they’d stop this thing that was hurting them, because I couldn’t stand watching a sickness slowly torture someone that I dearly, dearly loved (and still do). 

In the same way, I believe in a loving God who made us, knows us inside and out and front and back, loves us deeply, and wants what’s best for us. He once said, “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life, and life abundantly”. I believe that, in His wisdom and kindness, He left us a Book of instructions on how to find that life. He laid out the road to that destination—the straight and narrow path—and He said, “Just follow Me, and I’ll get you there. I’ve put up guard rails along the way where there are pits by the side of the road.”

And I said, “What if I fall in?”

And He said, “Just turn around and take My hand. I’ll pull you out.”

If you’d known someone all your life, and they’d always proven themselves worthy of your trust, you’d believe them when they said “this is the right way that will lead you to safety, and that is the wrong way that will lead you into danger”. So it is here. He outlined, very clearly, in His Book, what is the sexual ethic for which He designed us. Contrary to popular belief, there’s actually a lot of freedom within that ethic; He basically said, “Lady, here’s your man, and mister, here’s your lady. Now you promise to be good and loyal to each other and take care of one another forever? Yes? Great, the rest is yours, have fun, kids.” The Bible actually has very little to say about sex as long as it’s in the right context. But anything outside of that context—including homosexuality, beastiality, incest, fornication, adultery, lust for someone other than your partner, etc.—is a pit by the side of the road, a bug and not a feature. 

So you see that I have religious reasons to disapprove of homosexuality. I have been told—by Someone I trust more than my own judgment—that it is outside His planned parameters for the world. But this does not mean I automatically dislike those who do not share my faith and convictions. I can believe they’re in the wrong without disliking them.

To put it simply, “I don’t like what you’re doing” DOES NOT EQUAL “I don’t like you”. I’d urge you to keep that in mind; it’s a good life lesson in general. 

So now that we’ve established that baseline, let’s look at how it applies to this blog. 

The Rep Sheet of Frodo-With-Glasses

Now, of course I’m a biased party, by nature of being the defendant in this trial (and my own lawyer LOL), but I think you’ll find that a fair and honest analysis of everything on this blog will reveal that I never even once expressed disdain for gay people. 

I’ve made it very clear where I stand on shipping through disclaimers on my art. I don’t ship Frodo and Sam, or Legolas and Gimli, etc. But to jump from that to “you must not like gay people” is like saying that because I don’t ship Romanogers in the MCU that I must hate Russians. 

I have repeatedly expressed that I see my own friendships reflected in the friendships in LotR. For that reason, they’re very important to me, and I feel no need to interpret them as anything else. To jump from that to “you must not like gay people” is like saying that because I am perfectly content with plain vanilla ice cream, I must have a personal vendetta against chocolate fudge. 

I have posted a disclaimer setting expectations for a passage I knew could be interpreted very differently. I expressed my own understanding of the nudity involved, and asked that my followers please have the decency to respect my interpretation of the story, with a few tongue-in-cheek jokes to lighten the mood. To jump from that to “you must not like gay people” is like your high school English Literature teacher giving an F on your perfectly formatted and well-argued paper just because your interpretation of the blue window curtains doesn’t match the one in the textbook. 

I have engaged in polite discussion with an anon who complimented my art. When the discussion came to “immoral relationships” between the characters, my response was to celebrate friendship. All I have ever done on this blog was celebrate friendship. I have never insulted gay people, I have never called them slurs or hateful names, I have never even confronted anyone who tags my art as ship art against my wishes. All I have ever done was try to be civil and polite and celebrate friendship.  

Have you ever considered, Anon, that I have been silent for a reason? That “the quiet part” has stayed quiet on purpose? That, perhaps, I did not come here to police my following and force my views upon them, but simply to celebrate a book that I love, and invite people of all stripes to come and celebrate it with me, if they so wish?

Have you considered that, if I disliked gay people, I could block every single one of my followers who express such views on their profiles? I didn’t get to over 800 followers on tumblr, of all websites, by policing those who are allowed to interact with my blog. I didn’t cultivate the community I did by shutting down people I disagree with. 

I am here to entertain myself. I have always been here to entertain myself. I was doing it before there were 800 of you, and I will be doing it long after this blog is gone. Whether or not you would like to join in with me is entirely your prerogative. 

You wanna see how much I hate gay people? You wanna see how far the vitriol goes? Watch this! Sir Ian McKellen is a fantastic actor and seems like a splendid person in real life. No one else could possibly be Gandalf the way he is. To see his face on the screen when I watch Peter Jackson’s trilogy makes me feel warm and fuzzy and happy inside, because I feel like I’m looking into the kindly eyes of an old friend. I enthuse over it every time Phil Dragash manages to perfectly replicate McKellen’s iconic cadence in his audiobook, because it’s like hearing the Gandalf I grew up with speaking the real words on the page. Sir Ian McKellen’s contribution to the fandom, and to the community surrounding Lord of the Rings, is invaluable and irreplaceable. Middle Earth would be a lesser thing without him in it. 

This is now a thing that is on my blog: enthusiastically singing the praises of the work of a gay man. His lifestyle choices, though I don’t agree with them, are separate from the mark he’s left on this fandom, and everything I could have to say about the latter category is positive. 

So, now. Would you like to ask me that question again?

The Dismount

Here’s the TL;DR, in case I rambled on too long:

I do not, and will never, approve of the act of homosexuality. I have religious reasons for doing so; much the same, actually, as I believe Tolkien himself held. 

I harbor no ill will towards gay people. No matter what you believe on this topic, you are welcome to continue interacting with this blog if you so wish. All I ask is what I ask of everyone who passes through here: Be kind and polite. 

Your response is your prerogative. I have expressed what I believe is right, and I will not budge or apologize for it, but I’m not demanding that you agree with me. Heck, I can’t tell you to do anything, and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. I’m not your mom. I’m not God. You don’t have to answer to me any more than I have to answer to you. How you choose to respond is your choice. 

If that means you have to leave, that’s fine. I wish you all the best, and I hope you find what you’re looking for. 

If you ever want to come back, I’ll still be here, talking about Lord of the Rings.