Fundamentalist Christianity, Fundamentalist Judaism, and
Fundamentalist Islam all condemn homosexuality. Their agreement on this point,
and most likely a number of other points, does not make them correct. But it
does make me wonder why they have this (and presumably quite a few other
things) in common.
So here are my thoughts: The molders (and I use that word
with much careful consideration, so as to encompass both ancient, historical
personages and modern religious leaders) of these religions feel that life
needs to be tightly controlled and regulated--presumably by their scriptures
and their clergy. So they see life--behavior--as being about a lot of rules,
for what we must and (maybe more importantly) what we must not do. What clothes we should wear, how we must wear our hair, what we should (or, more likely, should not) eat. Maybe there
is a view of human nature implicit here: we are all wild, savage beasts, and
our natures--our lusts and other baser impulses--need control, examination,
regulation, corseting.
And what about the people who are drawn to these sorts of
religion, who embrace them and gladly follow them? I believe there is a certain
personality type that positively likes having a lot of their conduct prescribed.
I'm not sure whether this is the same personality type as the
"molders" I referred to above, or a complementary type that fits that
of the molders like two pieces of a jig saw puzzle.
Well, it's usually believed in modern, western democracies
that people should believe and observe what they want. That's fine; but too
often the attitude is, "I don't think such-and-such is right, so I am
going to try to prevent you from doing it"--whether it is homosexuality, abortion, or any of countless
things which most of us feel a human being ought to be free to do.
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