Hello all! I'm a pansexual lady who recently married the love of my life, a wonderful and intelligent woman, and I couldn't be happier. I am having some interesting experiences though, and would like to know if anyone has any insight. My wife and I are both queer Christians (the wild barefoot kind, not the celibate kind) and faith is a huge part of our life together. Part of what made me fall in love with her in the first place was that she brings me closer to God and enriches my spiritual life by encouraging me to take care of my own spiritual needs. Since entering into this covenant with the woman of my dreams, I've had what amounts to a Biblical epiphany. I've been thinking about the Biblical concept of the Godly wife, and how that pertains to a marriage with two women. This has lead me into studies on relationships between women in the Bible, like Mary and Elizabeth, and Naomi and Ruth, women who, in times of crisis, comforted and supported each other faithfully and devotedly. Being married has already got me diving into scripture, re-reading favorite passages and totally re-thinking what it means to be a Christian wife (or a Christian husband). I am very interested in connecting with other married or committed queer Christians to discuss spiritual experiences regarding marriage and commitment. I'd love to have some scripture discussions about same-sex relationships in the Bible, and the ways that people of the same gender love each other and bring each other closer to God. That's a general direction I'd love to take some discussion in. I don't want to get any more specific, because I want anyone to feel free to jump in.
Hello! I'm in a bit of a different situation with you but I'd love to talk about some of those issues. I belong to a conservative denomination, and while in college, fell in love with my best friend. She returned those feelings and we had a brief fling and like you mentioned I love her passion for God, I loved how we brought each other closer to God. She is unsure about the morality of same sex relationships though, and we, as called church workers, felt it was wrong to be lying about our relationship in our jobs, so we broke it off. I'm eager to talk to someone other than her about that intersection between same sex relationships and faith, especially defining what it means to be a godly spouse in a relationship that deviates from traditional gender roles. Thank you for bringing this up! (&&&)
The common conservative perception is that homosexuality is sinful. The way for queer Christians as a community to conquer this notion is to consider the time period in which this was written, specifically the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament. A lot of the laws in the Old Testament were put in place to keep people safe and healthy. A perfect example are the laws about food. The reason people were ordered not to eat shellfish is because no one had yet invented a clean way to eat them, so if you ate shrimp, you got sick. Of course, we didn't yet understand things like infection and microorganisms yet, so it was believed that people got sick from these foods because God did not intend for us to eat them. Now, we know how to do things like de-vein shrimp, and clean clams, so it's safe for us to eat shellfish. The proclamation on homosexuality is much the same. It's well known that homosexual sex, specifically anal intercourse between two males, is unsafe without condoms. There are a lot of dangerous infections that can be passed around that way. Somewhere along the line, somebody figured out that anal sex was making men sick, so they outlawed it, and the only way to make people follow a law at this point in time was to make it a religious law. Now, we have condoms, and people are being educated on safe sex, so it's much safer to be intimate with a same-sex partner. It is no longer a horrible risk to public health. Just like shrimp. As for homosexual relationships between women, we are also talking about a time period in which the human population was very low, and the goal of every family, community, and kingdom was to increase population and territory. The only way to do that was for people to get married and have kids. And well.... two women can't make a prosperous son. Today, we are much less concerned as a species with things like rights of heirs, and continuance of family names, and expansion of empires. It's okay to not have kids. In fact, it might be a good thing, considering how over-populated our planet is. In that way, two women choosing to have a relationship in which they do not have any children is no longer a risk to public safety. Just like shrimp. There are a lot of laws - like not wearing mixed fabrics, and not ordaining women as ministers - that no longer apply to us in today's world. Human society has changed and developed a great deal since Biblical times. God knows this. Besides that, in the New Testament, Jesus says that the Old Law is dead, that he has come to teach us new laws, and that the fulfillment of God's new law is love. Jesus is essentially saying to us "Forget the Old Testament and follow me instead." As Christians, we follow Christ. The Old Testament is history to us, not law. It's just an important back-story. Consider how many of the old Jewish laws Christ broke. I say, if someone wants to live by the laws in the Old Testament, they are actually going against the instructions of our Lord Jesus. If you want to follow the Old Laws, you should be Jewish.
