Guest Blog Post: Love One Another

We do accept submissions to this blog, at our sole discretion. The submission below comes from U.N. Owen. 

This blog welcomes connection with all allies and anyone who been in a "taboo" relationship or has faced discrimination because of who they are and the love they have with others, regardless of how they identify when it comes to religion or faith tradition. Atheist? You're welcome. Wiccan? You're welcome. Christian? Jew? Muslim? Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Jain... I can't list everyone, but you're all welcome here and welcome to reach out if you're seeking support or want to give support, support rights, or want to share your experiences.

Whatever anyone thinks of the Bible, it has clearly influenced many, and is claimed as an authority by some who are in opposition to the purposes of this blog. Some people have used it to hurt. But what does it actually say? If you don’t care, skip over this entry. This isn’t an invitation to express your complaints about the Bible. This blog, meaning the entire Full Marriage Equality blog, is here for people regardless of what they think of the Bible or any religion. Because some people cite the Bible as an authority, entries like this are important. There are people who need to read this because they try to live by the Bible or they are dealing with someone who is using the Bible against them. If that’s not you, this entry isn’t for you. Skip over it. This is for a target audience.

That's why our friend offers his thoughts below.



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I’ve carefully studied the question of whether the Bible forbids full marriage equality, and specifically consanguinamory. My conclusion is that the words of Christ do not condone all incest, but neither do they condemn consensual relationships between adult relatives, or indeed any other consensual love between adults.

The gold standard of Biblical truth is the red letters, i.e. the words that Jesus spoke Himself. Matthew 22:34–40 unlocks every question about what should be condemned and what should be tolerated in others.

“But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."” (ESV, emphasis mine.)

Jesus is outlining the specific boundaries of the law in these three sentences. The words cut away all the hatred for sexual minorities like a scalpel. This includes hatred for the consangs. God, in His New Covenant, asks only that our actions be loving toward Him and toward our neighbors.

Regarding sexual minorities, Jesus Himself sets an example. He saved the life of a centurion’s servant (Luke 7:2–10.) No Bible translation I’m aware of preserves this, but many interpreters have concluded from the original Greek that the servant (pais) was the centurion’s gay lover. (https://www.gaychristian101.com/Centurion-And-Pais.html)

Jesus did broadly condemn sexual sin, e.g., Matthew 15:15–20, John 8:3–11. But the sin He condemns undoubtedly had victims. The adulterous woman in John 8 had been unloving toward her husband by betraying him, but Jesus forgave her nonetheless and enjoined her to sin no more. In Mark 9:42, Jesus declares that anyone who suborns sin in children would be better off if he were thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around his neck. Jesus is likely to be obliquely alluding there to pedophilia, which certainly has children as its victims.

The Pauline injunctions against homosexuality and consanguinamory can only be taken as cultural to the First Century in light of these facts. The Old Covenant prohibitions against consanguinamory were pad in full by Jesus on Good Friday, AD 33. As long as we believe in Him.

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Thank you, U.N. Owen, for sharing that.

Personally, I do not find strong, clear, extant support in the Bible for many of the restrictions various religious organizations currently place on relationships. Things have to be considered in context and in the language in which they were written. I don’t argue with your clergy or organization's rules, which they are free to impose and change whenever, but the Bible can be studied by anyone. If someone is going to cite it to hurt someone, and their citation doesn't justify their attack, I want that known. If I can help someone who is struggling with what I see is as an undue restriction or requirement, I am glad to do so. By the way, you are welcome to contact me.

As far as consanguinamory goes, we've detailed that before, but I was thinking about U.N. Owen's submission, and it occurred to me that in one of the earliest stories in the Bible, Eve is made from Adam's side. That makes them closely related. They could have been made from completely distinct matter, whether simultaneously or not. Yet the story makes it clear they are immediately related. That's a highly interesting detail to include in the story. Perhaps it's not a problem if some lovers share more genes than others? After all, the original lovers in the Bible had the same Father and one came from the other.