On the psychopathology of homosexuality

Does it matter if Baha’is think reparative therapy works? Here is Spitzer’s retraction and why it matters. “I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy. I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some ‘highly motivated’ individuals.” Robert Spitzer. M.D.

- “Prejudice against homosexuals is a part of any system that labels it an illness” D.W.

Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University, U.S.A.
25 April 2012, cited: http://www.truthwinsout.org/news

On April 11th the Huffington Post ran this headline: “Psychiatrist Behind Controversial ‘Ex-Gay’ Study, Retracts Original Claims”

Then a few days later this headline: “Dr. Robert Spitzer Apologizes to Gay Community for Infamous ‘Ex-Gay’ Study” was followed by a letter of apology by Robert Spitzer for his 2001 study which while it did not make any claims about the success rate of ex-gay therapy, concluded that “highly motivated” individuals could “successfully” change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.

The news of his retraction has gone around the world because although his study was discredited by the scientific community it continues to be used as an argument for curing homosexuality. The “Rachel Maddow talkback show” (Her show begins with mention of the overturning of a death penalty for two consenting adults who were charged with sexual relations in the privacy of their home in Texas in 1998. The segment I am referring to starts at 2:08 minutes) demonstrates that his study was used in court by “Proposition 8” advocates (to remove existing marriage rights for homosexuals) in California, arguing that gays are not discriminated against if it is proven that gays can change. The argument being that to be treated equally all a homosexual needs to do is to change to being heterosexual!
The second part of this show has an interview with a lawyer to discuss the implications of gay rights in the context of civil rights. An interesting correlation for Baha’is is that the October 2010 letter from the U.H.J.instructs the Baha’i community to treat the same-sex-marriage akin to the Baha’i policy on party politics. That is, Baha’is are encouraged to vote, to be involved in secular electoral systems as individuals and individual voters, but as a community or as representatives, Baha’is are not to take a position.

I assume that this would mean that once same-sex marriage is legal then this would mean that in order not to practice discrimination, a Baha’i community would have no reason not to welcome legally married same-sex couples just as they would treat any other married couple who wish to join. However, even last week at a Baha’i event here in the Netherlands I was told by a Baha’i that a same-sex- married Baha’i couple was not possible. He was clear to state that gays are treated with equality but then compared homosexuality to alcoholism. I pointed out that one was an illness and the other was not. What was most surprising for me was that he just couldn’t conceive that such a thing would be possible. Here in the Netherlands same-sex-marriage has been legal for the past decade.

Needless to say there are no gay Baha’is in my local community. And this makes sense: in the Netherlands society welcomes gay couples and families as equals so the views of most Dutch Baha’is sound like prejudice. In a society where gays are not treated equally, the view that homosexuality is an illness wouldn’t stand out as prejudice.

“Alcohol is bad for your health, but it is prejudice that causes suffering for homosexuals. If gays are treated equally being gay is not bad for your health.”

Unfortunately many Baha’is associate homosexual orientation with illness and from this deduce that because it is an illness it can be cured, and that’s the danger. It is one thing to decide someone else is diseased, but deciding that the other person, different to yourself, can be fixed (into your likeness) and if they aren’t fixed then it is their fault, removes the empathy which you might feel for them.

Teenagers subjected to such attitudes will hate themselves even more: they are not only being told they are diseased, they are too weak to be cured. No wonder there is a strong correlation between suicide and gay teenagers in communities where homosexuality is seen as an illness.

“Something just broke in me. I was trying to destroy myself because I had internalized all the homophobia from therapy.” prospect.org/article/my-so-called-ex-gay-life

So now perhaps you see the implications of Spitzer’s study and why it is such a big deal that he has retracted his ‘gays can be cured’ claim. Spitzer’s study was particularly controversial because in 1973 he “spearheaded the removal of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder in and of itself” from the American Psychological Association list of mental disorders.

“He ruled that homosexuality would be deleted from the list of mental disorders and that a listing of “ego-dystonic homosexuality” be included; that is, homosexuality that causes distress to the individual…. He stated that the revision in the manual could provide the possibility of finding a homosexual to be free of psychiatric disorder.”  www.respond.org.uk/support/resources/talks/homosexuality_psychoanalysis.html

However his 2001 study put it back into the category of psychopathology – if it could be cured, then it was an illness.

When Spitzer’s study came out (It was published in 2003) there was a lot of criticism of the generality of his conclusions (for all homosexuals) based on a methodology in which there was no follow-up of individual cases, and the context of the individual cases was not considered. Moreover the sample was pre-selected, for the cases were supplied to Dr. Spitzer by NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality – an organization that views homosexuality as a disorder) and by Exodus International (which has the slogan: freedom from homosexuality). There was no control group, and no check that these individuals were not under pressure.

In the scientific world his study was discredited on scientific grounds. (This page lists a brief history leading up to a 2009 American Psychological Association Taskforce which concluded that there were no grounds to support a cure for gays. This page lists the flaws in the study. Another study (Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder, “Changing Sexual Orientation: A Consumer’s Report,” 2002) found that out of a sample of 202, eight stated that their sexual orientation had changed, and seven of these individuals for the ex-gay movement as counsellors or group leaders (2002, pp. 249–259). More references to reparative studies can be found here.)

“I told Spitzer that Nicolosi had asked me to participate in the 2001 study and recount my success in therapy, but that I never called him. “I actually had great difficulty finding participants,” Spitzer said. “In all the years of doing ex-gay therapy, you’d think Nicolosi would have been able to provide more success stories. He only sent me nine patients.” “How’d it turn out for you?” he asked. I said that while I stayed in the closet for a few years more than I might have, I ended up accepting my sexuality. … —ten years after my last session with Dr. Nicolosi—I married my partner.” Gabriel Arana, 11 April 2012, http://prospect.org/article/my-so-called-ex-gay-life

Spitzer’s research involved a single 45 minute phone interview with 200 individuals supplied to Spitzer by those who developed and promoted reparative therapy. Of these, 93% identified as being religious. He judged the basis of his findings on their own views and made no attempt to contact any of the clients for whom the reparative therapy had failed. Spitzer also made no distinction between bisexuals and gays. His conclusion that gays could be cured was based on finding that 66% of the males and 44% of the females were able to give him a believable testimony that they were now heterosexual most of the time.

Although Spitzer has made a public apology, if he is serious, he needs to be scientific about this. As the medical academic Alice Dreger noted, Spitzer claimed to want to retract his research, but in itself there is nothing wrong with the data only with Spitzer’s conclusions. Reading the available data myself, it seems likely that those whom Spitzer saw as functioning heterosexuals had actually become bisexuals, or were bisexuals to start with.

Dreger wrote: “All Spitzer has to do is put in writing that he no longer believes what he said about the interpretation of his data, and Zucker will publish his revision.” Spitzer will need to frame this in the manner according to scientific standards, as a revision of his views and conclusions.

It shouldn’t be hard for Spitzer to do this since, in a letter to Kenneth J Zucker, editor of Journal of Sexual Behavior, Spitzer wrote:

“Several months ago I told you that because of my revised view of my 2001 study of reparative therapy changing sexual orientation, I was considering writing something that would acknowledge that I now judged the major critiques of the study as largely correct. After discussing my revised view of the study with Gabriel Arana, a reporter for American Prospect’, and with Malcolm Ritter, an Associated Press science writer, I decided that I had to make public my current thinking about the study. Here it is.

Basic Research Question. From the beginning it was: “can some version of reparative therapy enable individuals to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual?” Realizing that the study design made it impossible to answer this question, I suggested that the study could be viewed as answering the question, “how do individuals undergoing reparative therapy describe changes in sexual orientation?” – a not very interesting question.

The Fatal Flaw in the Study – There was no way to judge the credibility of subject reports of change in sexual orientation. I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject’s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject’s accounts of change were valid.

I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy. I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some “highly motivated” individuals.

http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2012/04/spitzer-i-owe-the-gay-community-an-apology

It could be argued that Spitzer was tricked by NARTH or Exodus International when he was supplied the list of 200 ‘cured’ gays, and it is a pity that 11 years have passed – 11 years where hundreds of teenagers have been pressured to be ‘cured’ and considered failures for not being cured. A Baha’i commenter on this blog wrote: “See the NARTH website for current research which dispels the “born that way” theory argument, shows pro-heterosexual and etiology of gay lifestyle choice studies, lists inpatient treatment centres for gays who want to change and who move out of their living situations, and offers support for them every step of the way through recovery. At the end of the day, loving them to an abstinent or pro-heterosexual life, a path which the Manifestation outlines for them is NOT easy. Recovery from any addiction–especially sex addiction is difficult at best but it is achievable. Again, for those who sincelely want to change and move out of their living situation can and do change, howbeit a small percentage of about 30 percent since its a powerful addiction which often takes a long time to overcome. Yes, many overcome the craving for the same sex as well, especially after intensive inpatient treatment which we have at hospital and mental health facilities in the U.S.” (I asked the commenter for actual numbers of ‘cured’ gays and you can read his response here. So let’s see what NARTH has to say about Spitzer? Well, they ignore Spitzer’s retraction, calling it “regrets he might be having about getting involved with research on unwanted homosexuality” I note in the rest of their blog there is no attempt to engage scientifically with the reasons for his retraction. Instead they refer to “this modern “third rail of politics” (it used to be social security and old age benefits)” and then state this is not about politics! The link they provide does likewise, providing no evidence to show that Spitzer’s original conclusion was valid, but instead attempt to confuse the issue. And just like the commenter who wrote on my blog, while they present themselves as scientific, words that “end in words” (Baha’u'llah, LAWḤ-I-MAQṢÚD (Tablet of Maqṣúd), Tablets After the Kitab-i-Aqdas, p.169) are not science. Just saying ‘someone is not born gay’ is an opinion; it is not scientific evidence even if the person stating the opinion is a therapist. You might ask if it matters if Baha’is support the idea that homosexuality can be changed? It matters because Baha’is state they believe in the balance of science and religion and then ignore this when it comes to homosexuality. It matters because Baha’i youth are told they are wrong if they do not change to being heterosexual. It matters because it forces gay youth to hide their sexual orientation so that they are not pressured to undergo therapy. It matters because Baha’is such as the commenter on my blog then state things such as “The other two left therapy because they did not want to go through the tough work of changing, similar to other addicts who do not want to take the “road less traveled.”” Until recently, Baha’is along with other religions were listed as supporters in the NARTH mission statement (this page has been replaced with an article so there is no indication if Baha’i representatives took any action to be removed). However the Baha’i community (through its BNASAA program (Bahá’í Network on Aids, Sexuality, Addictions, and Abuse) continues to refer to NARTH as a resource on its page on sexuality (accessed 28 April 2012 ). In particular Lynne Schreiber has been travelling across the U.S. with the support of the Baha’i community to give presentations on overcoming homosexuality. Her article citing NARTH and EXODUS International as resources is widely circulated by Baha’i counselors (known as ‘assistants’) While Baha’is do not have clergy, the assistants have a pastoral function. Their advice is not authoritative, but some Baha’is give it great weight. How do I know this? My gay Baha’i friends are bombarded by these attempts to get them to change. Don’t let another day pass in which any Baha’i or Baha’i community tells a gay Baha’i that they can be cured. Change starts with you, and in speaking out. To quote Baha’u'llah: “Our purpose is that thou mayest lift up thy head from the couch of heedlessness, shake off the slumber of negligence, and cease to oppose unjustly the servants of God. So long as thy power and ascendancy endure, strive to alleviate the suffering of the oppressed.” Baha’u’llah, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 168

“I’ve come to know a number of Nicolosi’s former patients and others who underwent therapy with NARTH members. … Nicolosi’s ideas did more than haunt me. The first two years of college, they were the basis for how I saw myself: a leper with no hope of a cure. I stayed in the closet but had sexual encounters with classmates nonetheless. I became increasingly depressed but didn’t go to mental-health counseling for fear that a well-meaning therapist would inform my parents that I was living the “gay lifestyle.” I planned for what I would do if my parents decided to stop paying my tuition. I would stay in New Haven and get a job. I would apply for a scholarship from the Point Foundation, which gives financial aid to gay kids whose parents have disowned them. I would not go back to Arizona. I would not see an ex-gay therapist. I spent hours in front of the window of my third-story room, wondering whether jumping would kill or merely paralyze me. I had a prescription for Ambien and considered taking the entire bottle and perching myself on the ledge until it kicked in—a sort of insurance. I am not sure how it all came to a head. Perhaps it was academic pressure combined with the increasing conflict between my ideals and my behavior. But in the spring of my sophomore year, the disparate parts of myself I had managed to hold together—the part of me that thought being gay was wrong, the part that slept with men anyway, the part of myself I let the world see, and the part that suffered in silence—came undone. I slept in 20-minute spurts for two nights, consumed with despair. I eyed the prescription bottles on my dresser with anxious excitement. I had reached a point at which I feared myself more than what would happen if I were gay. Realizing how close I was to impulsively deciding to kill myself, I went to the college dean’s office and said I was suicidal. He walked me over to the Department of Undergraduate Health, and I was admitted to the Yale Psychiatric Hospital. During the intake interview, I had a panic attack and handed the counselor a handwritten note that said, “Whatever happens, please don’t take me away from here.” I had signed my full name and dated it. More than anything, I feared going home. … I indeed had to go home for a year before returning to school. By then my father, who flew to New Haven the day I committed myself, realized that therapy—and the pressure he and my mother had placed on me—was doing more harm than good. “I’d rather have a gay son than a dead son,” he said. The ordeal was a turning point. While it took years of counseling to disabuse myself of the ideas I had learned while undergoing therapy with Nicolosi, it was the first time I encountered professionals who were affirming of my sexuality, and the first time I allowed myself to think it was all right to be gay.” prospect.org/article/my-so-called-ex-gay-life

And to finish, a few words from ‘Abdul-Baha: “The Papal See has constantly opposed knowledge; even in Europe it is admitted that religion is the opponent of science, and that science is the destroyer of the foundations of religion. While the religion of God is the promoter of truth, the founder of science and knowledge, it is full of goodwill for learned men; it is the civilizer of mankind, the discoverer of the secrets of nature, and the enlightener of the horizons of the world. Consequently, how can it be said to oppose knowledge? God forbid! Nay, for God, knowledge is the most glorious gift of man and the most noble of human perfections. To oppose knowledge is ignorant, and he who detests knowledge and science is not a man, but rather an animal without intelligence. For knowledge is light, life, felicity, perfection, beauty and the means of approaching the Threshold of Unity. It is the honor and glory of the world of humanity, and the greatest bounty of God. Knowledge is identical with guidance, and ignorance is real error.

Happy are those who spend their days in gaining knowledge, in discovering the secrets of nature, and in penetrating the subtleties of pure truth! Woe to those who are contented with ignorance, whose hearts are gladdened by thoughtless imitation, who have fallen into the lowest depths of ignorance and foolishness, and who have wasted their lives!” (my emphasis)
‘Abdu’l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 125/6, U.K.edition (noted on the Baha’i Reference library as page 137)

The individual in society – Bahai perspectives

I’ve just read the article, “Human Nature and Human Society: A Baha’i Viewpoint” by William S. Hatcher (available here) where he sets out the Bahai teaching that human nature consists of both spiritual and material capacities. He stresses that in contrast to other religious traditions, Bahais do not believe in “original sin” (the Christian concept that we are born with bad parts that need to be overcome). He wrote: “Bahá’ís view all human capacities, whether physical or spiritual, as potentially helpful to the process of full, adequate, and proper development.” (page 29).

And there is solid support for this view in the Bahai Writings:

O SON OF BEING! Thou art My lamp and My light is in thee. Get thou from it thy radiance and seek none other than Me. For I have created thee rich and have bountifully shed My favor upon thee.” (Baha’u'llah, Hidden Words, Persian #11)
… With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light. … (Baha’u'llah, Hidden Words, Persian #12)

In short: “Man is the supreme Talisman” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, CXXII, pp. 259-260) born “in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26, English Standard Version (ESV)) with lots of potential and no bad bits. However, not all Bahais interpret the Bahai teachings in this manner, see this 1996 selection of quotations: “The Struggle Between the Material and Spiritual Natures of Man“ where the stress is the opposite. And the way the quotations in this selection are chosen and arranged strikes me as being influenced by conservative Christian perspectives. Just to give one example:
Then we must labor to destroy the animal condition, till the meaning of humanity shall come to light. (Baha’u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 34)

Selected in this manner is the impression that Baha’u'llah is stating that the animal (material) needs to be suppressed. Let’s look at the context for this quotation:
…At every moment he beholdeth a wondrous world, a new creation, and goeth from astonishment to astonishment, and is lost in awe at the works of the Lord of Oneness.
…
All these states are to be witnessed in the Valley of Wonderment, and the traveler at every moment seeketh for more, and is not wearied. Thus the Lord of the First and the Last in setting forth the grades of contemplation, and expressing wonderment hath said: “O Lord, increase my astonishment at Thee!”
Likewise, reflect upon the perfection of man’s creation, and that all these planes and states are folded up and hidden away within him.

Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form
When within thee the universe is folded?

Then we must labor to destroy the animal condition, till the meaning of humanity shall come to light.
Thus, too, Luqmán, who had drunk from…” (Baha’u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 33-34) The text goes on to emphasise the importance of dreams.

It is difficult to work out what is specifically intended by the above text, but it certainly is not a Manichaean (material vs spiritual) perspective, given that it comes directly after a phrase in praise of human creation in holistic terms. It could mean that we must strive (use our intellect) not to act like animals or that we have to work hard to discover what being human is. To me Baha’u'llah here is most certainly presenting human creation as a good thing, not as a struggle between good and evil.

Another essay “Morality and Spiritual Growth” on Bahai.org refers to a transformation which is affected, in my view, by a holistic view of human nature: “Moral maturity thus comes from spiritual awareness. As stressed throughout the Bahá’í writings, the primary purpose of God in revealing His will through His Messengers is to effect a transformation in the moral and material conditions of human existence.”

I view “Spiritual awareness” as a holistic perspective (how one would define this is another matter, but there is no indication in the Bahai writings that ‘spiritual’ capacity competes or struggles with the material) because arguing from a differing perspective requires not only changing the context of the quotation but also going against other Bahai Teachings. Baha’u'llah wrote: “Out of the wastes of nothingness, with the clay of My command I made thee to appear, and have ordained for thy training every atom of existence and the essence of all created things.” so not only have we been created, without if and but clauses, but there are no taboes. Everything in the world is an aid for greater understanding.

Hatcher’s article then moves onto how “(t)he Bahá’í concept of morality–of behavioural norms and value choices– is closely linked to the Bahá’í concept of human nature and human purpose”. And summarizes this to mean: “That which tends to favour the development of human spiritual capacity is good, and that which tends to hinder it is bad”. (page 29)

On the face of it this summary might seem to be vague and tenuous, but personally I can’t think of a better way to express this because at the end of the day each of us must be responsible for our own actions and our own conscience, however when we are discussing social actions or society, or a particular Bahai community we need something more solid.
A stating point for a Bahai would be the Bahai teachings and that any Bahai Teaching should match or make sense with other Bahai Teachings. I don’t know if this is expressed as directly as this anywhere in Bahai Scripture but the following Bahai Teachings make a collective sense to me:

Science and Religion agree “And among the teachings of Bahá’u'lláh is, that religion must be in conformity with science and reason, so that it may influence the hearts of men.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 299)

Independent investigation (reading and thinking for oneself and the freedom (and importance) of self expression “The members [of a Spiritual Assembly] thereof must take counsel together in such wise that no occasion for ill-feeling or discord may arise. This can be attained when every member expresseth with absolute freedom his own opinion and setteth forth his argument. Should anyone oppose, he must on no account feel hurt for not until matters are fully discussed can the right way be revealed. The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions.”(Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 87)

Progressive revelation (that religious teachings as much as society are in a continual process of development – the general attitude that things change for the better);

Equality (of all peoples, “Justice and equity are twin Guardians that watch over men. From them are revealed such blessed and perspicuous words as are the cause of the well-being of the world and the protection of the nations.” (Baha’u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 13);

Unity in Diversity (to work together but not necessarily think nor act in the same ways and in fact many Bahais interpret this to mean to value diversity as a sign of a healthy society);
For another listing of Bahai Teachings see: “Eleven essentials: the Bahai principles as taught by Abdu’l-Baha in London” or scroll down for a list of Bahai Teachings written by Shoghi Effendi.

 
While the degree of in-born empathy can be disputted in the scientific world, there is no doubt that it is a trait humans are born with (for an example see the article: Tracing the Origins of Human Empathy).

Looking in history, when there have been examples of a lack of empathy, an ideology has had to be created in support of this. If empathy, an awareness of the other as equal or with equal rights was not something in-born, there would be no need to develop an ideology where some group is to be excluded: ideologies such as Nazism or in today’s world, the anti-gay (you will be respected only if you are celibate for your whole life, don’t tell anyone you are gay, or if you don’t identify yourself as gay) stance taken by some societies.

Baha’ullah’s entreaty (below) for justice and equality support the notion that empathy is so much a given human trait that you cannot have peaceful world without it. “We entreat God to deliver the light of equity and the sun of justice from the thick clouds of waywardness, and cause them to shine forth upon men. No light can compare with the light of justice. The establishment of order in the world and the tranquillity of the nations depend upon it.” (Baha’u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 28-29)
So Baha’u'llah argues for a society based on justice and equality. What else has Baha’u'llah written about the functioning of society? He wrote: “Our hope is that the world’s religious leaders and the rulers thereof will unitedly arise for the reformation of this age and the rehabilitation of its fortunes. …. It is incumbent upon them who are in authority to exercise moderation in all things.” (Gleanings, p. 216)

Moderation, as it is addressed to leaders here, could mean aim for a middle way or to be tolerant so that, I assume, there’s room for more diversity, but I’ve come across Bahais using this passage as an argument that individuals must conform to a majority view or middle of the road perspective. As you can read for yourselves that is clearly not the intent. After all society or any particular Bahai community could never progress, adapt or develop if new ideas from individuals were to be suppressed. “Thoughts are a boundless sea, and the effects and varying conditions of existence are as the separate forms and individual limits of the waves; not until the sea boils up will the waves rise and scatter their pearls of knowledge on the shore of life. … ” Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 109-110

Baha’u'llah’s text continues: “How long will humanity persist in its waywardness? How long will injustice continue? … (R)esolve to root out whatever is the source of contention amongst you. Then will the effulgence of the world’s great Luminary envelop the whole earth, and its inhabitants become the citizens of one city, and the occupants of one and the same throne. … There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God. The difference between the ordinances under which they abide should be attributed to the varying requirements and exigencies of the age in which they were revealed.”(page 216)

To summarize Baha’u'llah’s text: we come from the same source and when there is something that is unjust or that doesn’t make sense, we should resolve to get to the bottom of this and when we do, wonderful things will happen. Here is Abdul-Baha “[To ensure] freedom of conscience and tranquility of heart and soul is one of the duties and functions of government, and is in all ages the cause of progress in development and ascendency over other lands. Other civilized countries acquired not this preeminence, nor attained unto these high degrees of influence and power, till such time as they put away the strife of sects out of their midst, and dealt with all classes according to one standard. All are one people, one nation, one species, one kind. The common interest is complete equality; …” (Abdu’l-Baha, A Traveller’s Narrative, p. 87)

Humans need society and society needs the input of all voices if it is to be a society that reflects diversity. Again Hatcher expresses this very well: “We hold that it is impossible for an individual to develop his or her spiritual capacities in abstraction from the process by which others are developing their spiritual capacities. In other words, it is through the creation of a just, unified, and progressive social order that spiritual capacities can best be developed.”
The very argument, I’d say, for doing our very best to include our gay brothers and sisters in Bahai community life. In fact, I am convinced that one reason why Bahais write awful things such as “being gay is a spiritual disease” is due to an imbalance of their own ideas about what is a healthy society (“And among the teachings of His Holiness Bahá’u'lláh is justice and right. Until these are realized on the plane of existence, all things shall be in disorder and remain imperfect” (Abdu’l-Baha, Tablet to the Hague, p. 8-9)). They have put gays into an ‘another category’ of humanity and called this diseased. Other Bahai’s tell me that they are being neutral by saying “it’s a complex issue” when in fact it is very simple. A community or society acts according to the principles of justice and equality or it doesn’t. And a community, in particular any Bahai community, should in my view, encourage and stimulate “the realm of conscience [where] naught but the ray of God’s light can command,” (Abdu’l-Baha, A Traveller’s Narrative, p. 39) so that each individual acts as “an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression” (Baha’u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 93). In a nutshell it is up to each individual – our conscience doesn’t work in any other way.

 

Bahai Teachings
“The independent search after truth, unfettered by superstition or tradition; the oneness of the entire human race, the pivotal principle and fundamental doctrine of the Faith; the basic unity of all religions; the condemnation of all forms of prejudice, whether religious, racial, class or national; the harmony which must exist between religion and science; the equality of men and women, the two wings on which the bird of human kind is able to soar; the introduction of compulsory education; the adoption of a universal auxiliary language; the abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty; the institution of a world tribunal for the adjudication of disputes between nations; the exaltation of work, performed in the spirit of service, to the rank of worship; the glorification of justice as the ruling principle in human society, and of religion as a bulwark for the protection of all peoples and nations; and the establishment of a permanent and universal peace as the supreme goal of all mankind — these stand out as the essential elements of that Divine polity which He proclaimed to leaders of public thought as well as to the masses at large in the course of these missionary journeys.”
(Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 281-2)”

Choosing to be gay?

Currently in the news are statements made by American “Sex in the City” actress, Cynthia Nixon, 45.

“For 15 years, until 2003, she was in a relationship with a man. They had two children together. She then formed a new family with a woman, to whom she’s engaged. And she told The Times’s Alex Witchel that homosexuality for her “is a choice.”
“For many people it’s not,” she conceded, but added that they “don’t get to define my gayness for me.”

(Cited in the New York times, “Genetic or Not, Gay Won’t Go Away”, 28 January 2012, by Frank Bruni)

There are two questions here: did she choose to be straight to start with? Or is she bisexual and so made a choice?

In society it is tough being gay, so if you are unsure you wouldn’t choose to be gay, or the pressure is so tough is might take an individual 15 years to discover that they really are gay. As anyone who has been in love knows, once you do fall in love and make a commitment based on that love, whatever warm feelings you felt before towards another and thought might have been what could be called love, are nothing like this feeling.

But let me move onto the real issue, she states it was a choice to be gay. A bisexual has the freedom to love either sex but a gay person does not. Many gays have married the opposite sex for all sorts of reasons except for being in love, because who would willingly join one of the most ‘hated and despised minorities’ there is. And perhaps they were not sure until they tried being straight and perhaps by then there were children and they as responsible beings couldn’t just get up and leave. But I am getting side tracked.

If someone states that they are choosing to be gay, then clearly they are bisexual. For someone who is is gay there is no real choice, just as for an individual who can only fall in love with the opposite sex. Note the word ‘real’, I insert this because as I mentioned above, as social beings we do try to please others and so there will be individuals who will settle for a less fulfilling partnership, and if they are a consenting adult that is a form of choice.

So Nixon, a bisexual, it seems to me, has stated it is her right to claim “to choose to be gay” perhaps she has chosen something she was in denial of earlier or perhaps she doesn’t see the difference between being bisexual and being gay.

Why this is in the news is that it brings up the topic of whether one is born gay or whether it is culturally conditioned and if the later, we need to assume that being straight is culturally conditioned. If you belong to any minority group of any social environment, you know very well that you didn’t choose to be there.

You might be proud to be different. I am glad that I am left-handed for example and wouldn’t want to change to being right handed. But that is because I know there’s nothing wrong with being left-handed and I know that being different in this way has taught me a lot about the world. However I would never choose to be left-handed any more than a gay person would choose to be gay. Life would be much easier if I didn’t have to constantly make adjustments for the right-handed world I live in. Life is much easier if you never have to worry about someone giving you a look of disgust because you are holding your partner’s hand. Life is nicer if your Bahai friends naturally ask you how your partner is doing.

Julia Galef in her blog, “Pushing the right beliefs, for the wrong reasons” makes the argument that “…while I agree that the evidence is overwhelming that homosexuality is innate, I’m loath to make that argument, because in my opinion that’s not the real reason we shouldn’t discriminate against homosexuals. The real reason, as far as I’m concerned, is that it’s none of our business if consenting adults want to sleep with each other, as long as they’re not hurting anyone else. By making the “homosexuality is innate” argument, I’d be staking my anti-discrimination case on an empirical question which, if it unexpectedly turned out to be false, would seriously undermine what is actually a very worthwhile case.”(http://www.3quarksdaily.com)

Frank Bruni in his article, “Genetic or Not, Gay Won’t Go Away” cites evidence for ‘being born this way’:
“One landmark study looked at gay men’s brothers and found that 52 percent of identical twin brothers were also gay, in contrast with only 22 percent of nonidentical twin brothers and 11 percent of adoptive, genetically unrelated brothers. Heredity more than environment seemed to be calling the shots.”

And that other “research has posited or identified common anatomical and chromosomal traits among gay men or lesbians, and there’s discussion of a gay gene or, rather, set of genes in the mix. The push to isolate it is entwined with the belief that establishing that sexual orientation is like skin color — an immutable matter of biology — will make homophobia as inexcusable as racism and winnow the ranks of haters.”

However he, like Galef, sees the problem with arguing on the basis of scientific evidence: “…bigotry isn’t rational. Finding a determinative biological quirk, deviation or marker could prompt religious extremists who now want gays in reparative psychotherapy to focus on medical interventions instead. And a person’s absence of agency over his or her concentration of melanin has hardly ended all discrimination against blacks.”

and says that: “the born-this-way approach carries an unintended implication that the behavior of gays and lesbians needs biological grounding to evade condemnation. Why should it?

Our laws safeguard religious freedom, and that’s not because there’s a Presbyterian, Buddhist or Mormon gene. There’s only a tradition and theology that you elect or decline to follow. But this country has deemed worshiping in a way that feels consonant with who you are to be essential to a person’s humanity. So it’s protected.”
…
“Among adults, the right to love whom you’re moved to love — and to express it through sex and maybe, yes, marriage — is surely as vital to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as a Glock. And it’s a lot less likely to cause injury, if that’s a deciding factor: how a person’s actions affect the community around him or her.

I USE the words “moved to love” in an effort to define the significant, important territory between “born this way” and choice. That solid ground covers “built this way,” “oriented this way,” and “evolved this way”; it incorporates the possibility of a potent biological predisposition mingling with other factors beyond anyone’s ready control.”

I agree, society shouldn’t need hard scientific proof in order to grant equal rights and responsibilities. The argument can be made on principle. Principles such as justice and equality. However science is useful for when those arguments fall on deaf ears.

This blog began with a statement about choosing to be gay – choosing who you fall in love with and I can’t say it any better than how Frank Bruni writes below:
“I honestly have no idea if I was born this way. My memory doesn’t stretch to the crib.

But I know that from the moment I felt romantic stirrings, it was Timmy, not Tammy, who could have me walking on air or wallowing in torch songs and tubs of ice cream. These feelings gelled early, and my considerable fear of society’s censure was no match for them.
I know that being in a same-sex relationship feels as central and natural to me as my loyalty to my father, my pride in my siblings’ accomplishments and my protectiveness of their children — all emotions that I didn’t exit the womb with but will not soon shake.
And I know that I’m a saner, kinder person this way than trapped in a contrivance or a lie. Surely that’s not just to my advantage but to society’s, too.”

LGBTQ News

Links to what is in the news

Sean manages this page and adds what he finds in the news. These links will stay here and when I have time I’ll make cross links from the “About” page and other pages on this blog so this can be more useful as a resource and forum for discussion.

April 2012: Strict Parenting > Homophobia March 2012: Are Straight People Born That Way? January 2012: Genetic or Not, Gay Won’t Go Away | LGBT Baha’i News: Haifa, Israel

 
 
Article in The Atlantic, 18 April 2012

Study of the Day: Strict Parenting and Same-Sex Urges Lead to Homophobia

A few excerpts:
New research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that anti-gay prejudice may stem from restrictive upbringings and repressed homosexual desires.

PROBLEM: Time and again, stridently anti-gay public figures like Larry Craig and Ted Haggard are caught in same-sex scandals. Is there a relationship between homophobia and homosexuality?

METHODOLOGY: Researchers led by University of Essex lecturer Netta Weinstein looked into the discrepancies between the overt and implicit sexual orientation of participants in a series of experiments.
…

RESULTS: Across all of the experiments, the subjects with supportive and accepting parents were more in touch with their implicit sexual orientation, while those from authoritarian homes revealed the greatest discrepancy between explicit and implicit attraction.

CONCLUSION: The fear, anxiety, and aversion that some seemingly heterosexual people hold toward gays and lesbians can grow out of their own repressed same-sex desires, says co-author and University of Rochester psychologist Richard Ryan in a statement. “In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward.”

SOURCE: “Parental Autonomy Support and Discrepancies Between Implicit and Explicit Sexual Identities: Dynamics of Self-Acceptance and Defense,” published in the journal Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/102/4/815/

Article in The Atlantic

Are Straight People Born That Way?

A few excerpts from an indepth article referring to scientific data from many sources and perspectives:

“…I put the question to a number of sexology colleagues…
…What do we mean when we say someone is “straight”?
…
In other words, do children give us clues about whether they’re going to ultimately be sexually attracted to males, females, or both? To a certain extent, yes. That’s why plenty of gay and lesbian adults can point to childhood clues that they were “born this way.” Most straight people could do the same, although typically no one asks straights when they knew they were straight. Behavioral patterns in childhood do show some correlation with adult sexual orientation.
…
For instance, in Samoa, boys who are very feminine as young children are understood to be destined for attraction to males. They are relabeled “fa’afafine” — meaning they will live “in the manner of a woman.” Without changing their bodies, the fa’afafine are raised like girls and then live as women, and take straight men as their sex partners.

Sexologists call this kind of phenomenon “homosexual transgenderism” and suggest it is fairly common around the world. Sometimes “homosexual transgenderism” is enacted via a humane cultural system, as in Samoa, and sometimes via a phenomenally oppressive one, as in Iran, where feminine homosexual men have been given the choice of transsexualism or death.

Regardless of the cultural system, social pressure to appear straight seems to be fairly intense cross-culturally. Indeed, one is inclined to wonder, if being straight is just natural, why does it require quite so much policing?

…the “fraternal birth order effect” (FBOE): The more older brothers a male has from the same biological mother, the more likely he is to be a gay adult. The theory is that the mother builds up an accumulating immune response to male fetuses, progressively dampening down masculinity of later-born male fetuses. That’s just a theoretical explanation, although the FBOE itself is unequivocally real; it holds up in study after study across cultures. Blanchard has estimated that the 15 to 29 percent of gay men are gay by virtue of the FBOE. (The effect doesn’t exist with women.)

While the FBOE is usually used to talk about the origins of male homosexuality, it could just as well be seen as suggesting that a particular womb environment is likely to produce babies who will grow up to be heterosexual men. In other words, the FBOE suggests that it is likely that many straight men were born inclined to be straight. Note this wouldn’t be because of these straight men having been born with a “straight gene.” They would be born inclined-straight following complex interactions of maternal and fetal genes.

Is there any evidence for “straight genes,” other than the rather indirect evidence of the large number of people who identify as straight? Researchers have looked at sexual orientation among monozygotic twins … Bailey concludes that the data are “consistent with some genetic influence” for sexual orientation but that the data are “not overwhelming.” He goes so far as to say “the evidence from twin studies for innateness of sexual orientation is pretty weak.

That said, Bailey does see some other evidence for an innate component to sexual orientation, at least in males. He points to cases …

Raymond Hames, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Nebraska,… …early same-sex experiences don’t seem to “turn” the boys gay.

While it has been asserted by some that abuse at the hands of men might incline girls to be more likely to ultimately become lesbians, the evidence for this claim is weak. Boston Children’s Hospital public health researcher Bryn Austin and her colleagues have documented that lesbian and bisexual women report having suffered higher rates of physical and sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence, a finding borne out by other teams’ investigations. But we can’t show any kind of clear causal link between the experience of childhood abuse (sexual or physical) and adult sexual orientation.
…
In short, we don’t really know where human sexual orientations come from yet. What we do know is that the evidence we have that sexual orientation includes an innate component doesn’t seem to point to the existence of simple “gay genes” and “straight genes.
…
Personally, I think it makes sense to let straight-identified people marry, not because they were necessarily born that way, but because it seems silly, in this day and age, to get in the way of their desire to marry…”

Article in the New York times, 28 January 2010:

Genetic or Not, Gay Won’t Go Away

By Frank Bruni

An excerpt: “…
The exact dynamics through which someone winds up gay are “still an open question,” said Clinton Anderson, the director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns Office of the American Psychological Association. “There is substantial evidence of various connections between genes, brain, hormones and sexual identity,” he said. “But those do not amount to a simple picture that A leads to B.” Go to Sonja’s blog in response to this article >>

 
 
LGBT Baha’i News: Haifa, Israel

In the Summer of 2010 an unprecedented event happened in Haifa Israel, the Secretary General of the Baha’i International Community spoke at Haifa’s LGBT Center known as the Haifa Forum (qjew.wordpress.com/tag/haifa-foundation). This talk was a part of a multi-faith panel from Haifa’s diverse religious groups that coincided with Haifa’s Gay Pride in 2010. This is the first time to my knowledge that any Baha’i official spoke at a LGBT Center (or a Gay Pride for that matter). What is most curious is that this event was not shared with the Baha’is of the world, no press release, no story on the Baha’i World News Service website (news.bahai.org) about how active the Baha’i International Community is in the religiously diverse climate of Haifa, nothing …
This event was shared by a lesbian Jewish blogger (qjew.wordpress.com). I took it upon myself to contact the Haifa Forum about the details of this talk, but all I received was a warm e-mail thanking me for contacting them, and their hope that LGBT Baha’is will be embraced by the Baha’i Faith. Why keep such this event from the Baha’i community I ask? It could offer some hope to the LGBT Baha’is who have been historically estranged from their faith community. Could this talk be a “sign” that there is a shift occurring with the International Baha’i Administrative (the Universal House of Justice) in regard to accepting LGBT Baha’i relationships? (currently same-sex relationships are banned in the Baha’i Faith with administrative sanctions imposed on those who do have them such as Daniel Orey in the United States (revolked2.blogspot.com/2009/05/lets-start-with-consultign-about-my.html).

Homosexual Fish

“Oestrogen had gotten into the water and changed the fish. It made them homosexual,”  he said.

A seemingly innocent comment made by a Bahai at a Bahai gathering, got me thinking. It was prejudice to my ears – yet I didn’t have the words at the time to respond so I was silent.

What it told me as listener, was that this person felt comfortable associating homosexuality as something abnormal in the company of other Bahais and while the conversation centered on the fish and pollution caused by the contraceptive pill, the comment also reminded me of another issue Bahais often bring up in connection with gay rights. That nature is geared towards reproduction and from this they imply that any relationship not geared towards reproduction is wrong because in their eyes it is against nature.

Look at any society: a ‘survival of the fittest’ type of rationale for relating to each other would be considered inhuman.

Relationships and partnerships endure because of love and friendship not because of children or how many children are reproduced. We are not fish, which do not form partnerships to start.

These words on the Bahai International Community website are so familiar that they are almost a mantra for Bahais:
“All human beings, Bahá’u'lláh states, have been “created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.” The creation of a peaceful global society that fosters both individual and collective well-being is at the heart of the Bahá’í vision of the future.”

Bahá’u’lláh makes this disassociation with a ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality even more strongly:
“All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization. The Almighty beareth Me witness: To act like the beasts of the field is unworthy of man. Those virtues that befit his dignity are forbearance, mercy, compassion and loving-kindness towards all the peoples and kindreds of the earth. Say: O friends! Drink your fill from this crystal stream that floweth through the heavenly grace of Him Who is the Lord of Names. Let others partake of its waters in My name, that the leaders of men in every land may fully recognize the purpose for which the Eternal Truth hath been revealed, and the reason for which they themselves have been created.”
Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 346 [Some of the above also sourced near the end of Section IV of the "Promise of World Peace", a statement widely circulated in 1985]

And a 2010 statement by the Universal House of Justice specifically concerns homosexuality:
“…With respect to your question concerning the position Baha’is are to take regarding homosexuality and civil rights, … “
“Baha’is are enjoined to eliminate from their lives all forms of prejudice and to manifest respect towards all. Therefore, to regard those with a homosexual orientation with prejudice or disdain would be against the spirit of the Faith. Furthermore, a Baha’i is exhorted to be “an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression”, and it would be entirely appropriate for a believer to come to the defense of those whose fundamental rights are being denied or violated.”

So, yes, any innocent comment made associating homosexuality with abnormality or illness is, in my view, an expression of prejudice or disdain. So how do we change this? How can we change the culture of our Bahai communities so that such comments were be a rare slip of the tongue, to which another could just say “You’re not serious?” to which that Bahai might say “Oh no, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make this negative association” and so then the discussion would be the issue at hand, in that case, how pollution was affecting the population growth of the fish, which had nothing to do with homosexuality.

My silence at the time was not knowing how to voice my discomfort because so often when I do, I’m told I am over sensitive or that it is not prejudice to make such a disdainful association with homosexuality.

Some Bahais have also told me that this 2010 statement by Universal House of Justice is not actually about treating homosexuals with equality because further in the same letter is the following:
“In working for social justice, Baha’is must inevitably distinguish between those dimensions of public issues that are in keeping with the Baha’i Teachings, which they can actively support, and those that are not, which they would neither promote nor necessarily oppose. In connection with issues of concern to homosexuals, the former would be freedom from discrimination and the latter the opportunity for civil marriage. Such distinctions are unavoidable when addressing any social issue. For example, Baha’is actively work for the establishment of world peace but, in the process, do not engage in partisan political activities directed against particular governments.”

Their argument being that they interpret “neither promote nor necessarily oppose” as meaning what they consider as being the status quo which agrees with their personal view that same sex married couples must separate or leave the Bahai Faith or not marry to start with.
As you can read for yourself, you can see that the statement by the Universal House of Justice means that publically, no Bahai community should be seen as ‘for or against,’ but rather, just as on the topic of party politics, any said Bahai community is to take a neutral position. Individuals such as myself are certainly free to vote as they please, and likewise may advocate same sex marriage as valid as any other legally recognized marriage between consenting adults as both a right and a responsibility. I should and would never claim that my views are those of any Bahai community and likewise with any Bahai who holds the opposite view on this topic.

However until now there have been examples of Bahai communities advocating against homosexuality [see: 1996: NSA of the Bahais of the U.K., 1999: Guyana, 2007: Uganda, 2010: Guyana. Here I make some comments about interfaith groups, 2011: Baha'i Office for the Advancement of Women], so in my view to work for a Bahai culture of neutrality, as Bahais we not only need to work at even seemingly innocent comments about diseased fish as posing no opportunity for an expression of disdain towards an aspect of the diversity of humanity, but to voice differing views as I am doing in this blog, so not only our fellow Bahais realise that not all Bahais think there’s something fishy about being gay, but also so that the public in general are aware that there are Bahais who do advocate equal rights and responsibilities for their gay brothers and sisters.

Baha’u’llah & “The Subject of Boys”

A few months ago Baquia wrote a blog of the same name where s/he noted:

“If we search Baha’u'llah’s writings, we find something quite remarkable. Nowhere in Baha’u'llah’s writings is there an explicit mention of homosexuality (and neither by Abdu’l-Baha). Arguably, the only reference we have is an extremely brief mention in the Aqdas (more on that a bit later).

To understand why there is no wider mention of homosexuality and what exactly Baha’u’llah was referring and what Shoghi Effendi translated to the seemingly cryptic words, “the subject of boys”, we have to take a few steps back.

Ban on Interracial marriage between the 1660s and 1967

Sexual dynamics and mores differ greatly between cultures and time periods. What may be accepted sexual behavior at one point in time or within a specific society may be completely unknown or unacceptable in another time or place.”

(See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws_in_the_United_States)

Later in the blog Baquia writes: “That does not mean however that homosexuality did not exist at all in one guise or another during Baha’u'llah’s time. Homosexuality, after all, has been observed in nature among hundreds of species as well as throughout human history.

So while the current definition of homosexual relationships may not have existed, there certainly have always been some forms of homosexuality in human society, just as there have been many other acceptable sexual expressions, beyond the institution of marriage between a man and a woman.

So to understand the extremely limited or non-existent Baha’i treatment of homosexuality, we have to first understand the sexual traditions prevalent in the Middle East during the 1800′s.”

One issue I was unaware of was a form of “lesbianism. It is sometimes referred to as sisterhood sighe and involved the consensual relationship between two women that was sexual in nature but not exclusively so. This was practiced in a society that allowed woman to travel together and spend time together (especially in harems where women were only allowed to frequent with other women freely).” [Link to this blog]

This was news to me and so since this existed during Baha’u'llah’s time, surely he would have made mention of this if this was an issue. In Kitab-i-Adqas Baha’u'llah wrote:
“”We shrink, for very shame, from treating the subject of boys. Fear ye the Merciful, O peoples of the world! Commit not that which is forbidden you in Our Holy Tablet, and be not of those who rove distractedly in the wilderness of their desire.” (page 58, Kitab-i-Adqas, 1992 English edition)

Baquia then illustrated use and context for the Arabic term Baha’u'llah used “ghulaam” which refers to: slave, page; lad, or servant, and exclusively males.
The rest of the blog goes into the ‘subject of boys’ that is, the middle eastern practice young boys being treated like a sex slave. The English 1992 edition of Kitab-i-Adqas has a reference to note 134 on page 223 where the research department or the Universal House of Justice has noted that this refers to paederasty. The next sentence in that note states that Shoghi Effendi has interpreted this reference as a prohibition on all homosexual relations, but as far as I know Shoghi Effendi never wrote anything the topic of homosexuality. What we have and what is then quoted next in the same note is a Letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi.

The blog continues: “These relationships are markedly different from the homosexual relationships that we see practiced today. It is not a relationship between equals. Instead the adult male has resources, power, rank and authority and in effect ‘owns’ the younger male. He provides for the boy’s needs but expects certain reciprocation.”

And then quotes:

“Nineteenth-century Iranian society did not adhere to modern definitions or sensibilities concerning same-sex relations. Although legally prohibited, homosexual sex was common, and homoerotic passion was accommodated. Falling in love with a youth and celebrating that love were recognized practices, as long as the lovers remained circumspect and observed certain conventions. Elite urban men often flouted these conventions. In the royal court and among government officials, wealthy merchants, and clerics, the practice of keeping boy concubines was widespread and commonly known; close, homosexual relations between free adult men were less often discussed or divulged, however.”

p. 104, “Sexual Politics in Modern Iran”, by Janet Afary 1992, Cambridge University Press.

And further in the blog: “Through this vice, livat [lavat], betsche bazi [bacheh bazi], is strongly rebuked in the Qur’an and can even be punishable by death, it is nevertheless today generally widespread, among the lay people, especially… officers, schoolteachers, and even clerics. It is so overt that no one makes an attempt to conceal it. In almost every house of standing there is such a boy, even many, who are there to serve this purpose. No one is reserved about introducing them publicly. Indeed, one takes pride in possessing a splendid specimen. One is especially jealous about them. They are carefully watched and protected from seduction.”
(Polak [1861] excerpt from account of the court gynecologist and obstetrician, Dr. Polak cited in “Sexual Politics in Modern Iran”1982, p.41) [Link to Baquia's blog where there is more from this book]

Baquia then quotes the essay, Sexuality in the Aqdas by R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram:

“It was simply taken-for-granted in Middle Eastern tradition that all men find boys sexually attractive and that men who are attracted to boys are not a ‘different’ type of men but, on the contrary, ‘normal’ men who desire intromissive ejaculation for which a boy taken in liwat is as fit as a woman taken in liwat or vaginal intercourse.

Although egalitarian relationships between pairs of adult men that involved mutual sexual activity have not been unknown in Middle Eastern societies, there was no specific term to cover such liasons before recent decades. They fell outside regular socio-cultural categories, and they were not subsumable under liwat.

If we note the widespread use of dancing boys dressed as girls for prostitution in the Middle East; and the practice of female prostitutes dressing as boys to increase their appeal to customers who would engage in either anal or vaginal intercourse with them; and remember that the customers of both the dancing boys and the travesti girls are married men: It is evident that expecting recent western terms like ‘homosexual’ and ‘heterosexual’ to be readily applicable in this socio-cultural milieu in any meaningful way is futile.“
The Provisions for Sexuality in the Kitab-i-Aqdas in the Context of Late Nineteenth Century Eastern and Western Sexual Ideologies by R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, 1996. The underlined text is my emphasis.

Baquia’s blog continues with more details and information.

The blog then quotes from another article by R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram.

“A remark that it is shameful to keep a catamite presumably means first and foremost that it is shameful to keep a catamite. But from specific comments we may also develop generalizations. We are likely to be aided in generalizing by an understanding of the context in which the statement was made and received. However, apart from this there are two basic directions in which we may take our generalizing. The statement may be generalized to a condemnation of a broader range of homosexual acts; or it may be generalized to a condemnation of those in a position of power exploiting their dependents for their own ends. One type of generalization operates on the basis of presumed analogies among specific outward acts and the one in the statement; the other operates on the basis of a concern for the principles that may be inferred from the statement and how these may be related to motives, responsibilities, and relationships.
The important question is which type of generalization is more likely to produce results that may support a global value system that can flourish and develop in all cultures. Is God more interested in people’s actions than their hearts? Is the road to salvation a mechanically instrumental one? Of course actions matter, but what underlies the actions must matter at least as much if we are not to espouse a materialist view of existence. And not only individual actions matter but also the broader patterns of social interaction in which these actions are situated.
Bahá’í Faith and Sexuality, by R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, February 1996. The underlined text is my emphasis.

Baquia finishes by noting that “we of course pay attention to the translation and interpretation of the Guardian. Juxtaposing the two may provide us with a deeper insight into the discussion of the views and attitudes of the Baha’i Faith towards homosexuality.
Similar to the line of reasoning provided by R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram above, but with one important distinction, here is a question to ponder:
By ignoring the homosexual relationships between women, which were marked by consensual agreement between adult equals, and condemning specifically a despicable act of ritualized pederasty marked by the abuse of power and dominance of an adult over less fortunate minors, was Baha’u’llah telling us more about equality, justice and human rights than about merely a sexual act or orientation?”

About 2 weeks later I commented on 3 May 2011

SS wrote: What do you think of:
“Amongst the many other evils afflicting society in this spiritual low water mark in history, is the question of immorality, and over-emphasis of sex. Homosexuality, according to the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, is spiritually condemned. This does not mean that people so afflicted must not be helped and advised and sympathized with. It does mean that we do not believe that it is a permissible way of life; which, alas, is all too often the accepted attitude nowadays.”
(From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer,
May 21, 1954)

Some Bahais might think to use birth control is against the teachings of the Bahai Faith because a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi states it “as constituting a real danger to the very foundations of our social life.”
(A link to the letter is here – scroll to the comments below for the full letter)

So SS if you choose to treat everything penned by a secretary writing Letters on Shoghi Effendi’s behalf, as if this is scripture to be followed to the letter, I can only assume that you might have problems with Bahais who practice some form of birth control or anything else penned in these letters. As an individual there is nothing to stop you from following the advice in these letters, unless, and this is just my own opinion, your actions contradict any Bahai Teaching.

Some Bahais interprete anything penned by a secretary as if this has the same status as Bahai Scripture so here is a link to some statements about the status of these letters.

These letters have status, but not the same as anything penned by Baha’u'llah, Abdul-Baha, or Shoghi Effendi and here is a link to some of these letters which either contradict Bahai Scripture or have inaccuracies.

As Bahais we need to learn to see these distinctions if we want our Bahai community (here Shoghi Effendi is referring specifically to our administration) to: “be conceived as an instrument and not a substitute for the Faith of Baha’u'llah, that it should be regarded as a channel through which His promised blessings may flow, that it should guard against such rigidity as would clog and fetter the liberating forces released by His Revelation.”
(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u'llah, p. 9)

So in short Shoghi Effendi seems to be saying, let the priniciples of the Bahai Teachings guide us in our actions.

Now to the Letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi which you posted: I googled the phrase: “Homosexuality, according to the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, is spiritually condemned.” and found it is sourced all over the place, including wikipedia, bahaikipedia and so on. However nowhere have I found anything in the Baha’u'llah’s Writings to back this up. Of course I realise many of His tablets are not yet translated but my argument here is, if there is a tablet somewhere that states clearly that homosexuality is spiritually condemned, it would be sourced or a priority would have been given, so such statements in Letters Written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi would have some scriptural basis. We cannot assume that those secretaries had the power of divination to ‘know’ what was in a tablet without having read this themselves. It is not a Bahai Teaching to believe that Bahais such as those who served as secretaries had super-human powers.

But I can understand that anyone using the internet would think, well it must be somewhere in the Bahai Writings, otherwise why would this quotation often be the first thing quoted in places such as wikipedia. I would agree, I find this odd. Why does it seem to be that Bahais are so keen to damn homosexuality? Why do not more Bahais question this? Are Bahais more likely to damn homosexuality than any other individual? If you think so, then I’d say, do something about this.
Asking questions (to others or oneself) and investigating the truth are Bahai Teachings. We as individuals make what the Bahai community is in society – no people, no community. We need to do the investigating ourselves. It is our own responsibility.

Why does a religion that celebrates diversity and has equality as a teaching, have homosexuality as an exception? Where does the idea that homosexuality is bad come from? That’s my question. If it comes from those letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, and other issues mentioned in these letters are treated as advice for the particular individual/s it was addressed to, or not given a focus, then why are those mentioning homosexuality treated differently?

We cannot blame those letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi either, because it us, the Bahais, who are who treating the status of these letters differently to how other letters are being treated. Sen has written a blog which goes into some detail about the Letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi.

SS then asked me:
In that case, what are your views on this:

“The word translated here as ‘boys’ has, in this context, in the Arabic original, the implication of paederasty. Shoghi Effendi has interpreted this reference as a prohibition on all homosexual relations.
“The Bahá’í teachings on sexual morality centre on marriage and the family as the bedrock of the whole structure of human society and are designed to protect and strengthen that divine institution. Bahá’í law thus restricts permissible sexual intercourse to that between a man and the woman to whom he is married.”
(The Universal House of Justice: The Kitab-i-Aqdas: N 134, p. 223)

I responded on 5 May 2011:

I wrote about this on this blog some years ago and this is a direct link to the same post.

Here I show that since the notes section (the quotation you use) is penned by the U.H.J. or the Research department acting on their behalf.

“Whatsoever they decide has the same effect as the Text itself. Inasmuch as the House of Justice hath power to enact laws that are not expressly recorded in the Book and bear upon daily transactions, so also it hath power to repeal the same.
Thus for example, the House of Justice enacteth today a certain law and enforceth it, and a hundred years hence, circumstances having profoundly changed and the conditions having altered, another House of Justice will then have power, according to the exigencies of the time, to alter that law.
This it can do because these laws form no part of the divine explicit Text. The House of Justice is both the initiator and the abrogator of its own laws.”
(Abdu’l-Baha, The Will and Testament, p. 20)

I give more background on this here

Baquia has also pointed out the same in earlier comments. That there is no reference to homosexuality by Baha’u'llah or Abdul-Baha. And Shoghi Effendi did not write a word on the topic either. His secretaries did.

7 May 2011 SS asked me:
In response to your comment re: the authority of letters written on behalf of the Guardian: In a postscript appended to a letter dated 7 December 1930, written on his behalf to an individual believer, Shoghi Effendi described the normal procedure he followed in dealing with correspondence written on his behalf: I wish to add and say that whatever letters are sent in my behalf from Haifa are all read and approved by me before mailing. There is no exception whatever to this rule.

Posted on 25 June 2011
[sorry, I didn't realise that this response didn't get sent. It has been sitting here in the queue since May]

SS, I don’t want to clog up Baquia’s blog with repeating things I’ve already written on this blog, but I realise that it is hard to find links to particular comments, so that is why I posted the link.

Here it is again.  And in particular this link discusses the quotation you mention which is also a Letter Written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, not penned by Shoghi Effendi himself.

I suggest that you look at the other letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi on my blog (all linked from the first link here) and if I’ve missed a letter you know of, then please do quote this, or if you disagree, or see a flaw in my argumentation, please address that here.

Surely you know the difference between ‘reading and approving’ and writing something yourself. And then when Shoghi Effendi was so clear when he was writing in his role as the Guardian. The letters have status, they needed to have status so Shoghi Effendi would not need to write them, so he could focus on his work as Guardian. But having status for the addresse is not the same as Bahai Scripture.

This is also why it doesn’t matter that these letters on his behalf contain errors and inconsistences. Their status was never intended to be treated as if they were interpretation on par with Shoghi Effendi and Shoghi Effendi set limits on his own role here as well.

I find it noteworthy that at those times when clearly Shoghi Effendi did not like the way these letters were being treated that his vehicle for expressing this was to have a secretary pen a letter. What this says to me is that he was being consistent. Using those letters for communication of another status to his role as Guardian. It seems to me, that he knew clearly the status of his writings as interpretator and so refrained from penning anything that did not fit within this framework. It would also mean that it would harder for letters penned by secretaries to become part of the canon of Bahai Scripture, but my guess is that he would operate from principle. That the principle was his role as official interpreter was not the same status or authority or role as those letters written on his behalf, often in response to a question.

Of course Shoghi Effendi did pen personal letters, and exactly what is the status of these and whether the status of all letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi are all the same is something that can be debated. Personally I would treat the status of these letters as being applicable to the addresse because that is has been stated.

The medium Shoghi Effendi used is part of the message.
Sen’s blog has more on this here

So my suggestion would be, if something isn’t clear, go to Bahai Scripture and if it is not there, then assume this is an area the Universal House of Justice can rule on and that a future Universal House of Justice can change.

It’s Getting Better: Baha’i Faith & Homosexuality

 Demonstrator at the August 2007 anti-gay rally in Kampala, Uganda.
 Photo: Rebekah Heacock.

I posted the following blog on Bahai rants (http://bahairants.com/bahai-faith-homosexuality-its-getting-better-1358.html) on January 14th 2011 in response to the Universal House of Justice letter made public in a letter penned by the US N.S.A. on January 3rd 2011.
I’m reposting this here because I’ve been having a discussion on gaybahai.net and would like to be able to make direct links to some points. I also add some of my responses at the bottom and have updated a few external links. I suggest that you go to Bahai Rants where to date there are 95 comments from a great diversity of viewpoints.

On January 3rd, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States sent out a letter to the American Baha’i community, quoting parts of a letter from the Universal House of Justice to an individual:
“…With respect to your question concerning the position Baha’is are to take regarding homosexuality and civil rights, we have been asked to convey the following.
The purpose of the Faith of Baha’u’llah is the realization of the organic unity of the entire human race, and Baha’is are enjoined to eliminate from their lives all forms of prejudice and to manifest respect towards all. Therefore, to regard those with a homosexual orientation with prejudice or disdain would be against the spirit of the Faith. Furthermore, a Baha’i is exhorted to be “an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression”, and it would be entirely appropriate for a believer to come to the defense of those whose fundamental rights are being denied or violated.”
(Letter from the UHJ to an individual, 27 October 2010)

And further in the same letter:
“[The Bahai Faith] does not see itself as one among competing social groups and organizations, each vying to establish its particular social agenda. In working for social justice, Baha’is must inevitably distinguish between those dimensions of public issues that are in keeping with the Baha’i Teachings, which they can actively support, and those that are not, which they would neither promote nor necessarily oppose. In connection with issues of concern to homosexuals, the former would be freedom from discrimination and the latter the opportunity for civil marriage.”

It seems to me that this letter would indicate that the Baha’i community should now not be publicly supporting or opposing actions such as the anti-gay activities in Uganda in 2007.

 Above is a screenshot from the Guardian, 17 September 2007.
 Accessed 6 January 2011.

The article in the Guardian shown in the screenshot above continues, lower on the page:
The rally was organised by the interfaith coalition against homosexuality, an alliance of Christian, Muslim and Bahai organisations.

This wasn’t a case of Baha’is just being associated with any interfaith organization but with an association called the Interfaith Rainbow Coalition Against Homosexuality. It has been suggested to me that an individual Baha’i got caught up in the events without the knowledge of the local Ugandan Baha’i community. When I first heard the reports, I too thought that, while individual Baha’is are certainly free to participate in activities such as this, Baha’is would not be participating in any representative sense, and newspapers can get things wrong. But how then, did the newspaper reports come to mention the word Baha’i, if this was not the case? Moreover, these reports first appeared a month before the Guardian story in the screenshot, and there were, as far as I know, no statements made from the Baha’i Community in Uganda to indicate that Baha’i representatives were not involved.

 Screenshot of an article in the Christian Post, 22 August 2007. Accessed 12
 January 2011. Click on the image to view the whole screenshot in another
 window

The following links, all dated in August 2007 and mentioning Baha’i involvement, indicate that it is not likely that the Ugandan Baha’i community was unaware of this association that had been made:

• USA Today: “Ugandans hold anti-gay demonstration” www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-08-21-uganda-gay-protest_N.htm
• Advocate: “Ugandans call for deportation of American journalist covering gay issues” www.advocate.com/article.aspx?id=39943

• MCNBC: “Ugandans seek deportation for writings on gays” www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20381352/ns/world_news-africa

• Washington Post: “Ugandans Hold Anti-Gay Demonstration”
  www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/21/AR2007082100935.html
• Pravda: “Ugandans hate gays”
  english.pravda.ru/news/society/21-08-2007/96175-gay_uganda-0
• SF Bay Times: “GLBT Ugandans Launch Media Campaign”
  www.sfbaytimes.com/index.php?sec=article&article_id=6778
• Talk to Action: “Ugandan Pastor Leads Campaign Against Gay Rights”
  www.talk2action.org/story/2007/8/25/3390/83947

 
Whether this was one individual who joined this anti-gay coalition or not, the 3rd of January letter from the UHJ seems to mean that it is no longer appropriate for Baha’i communities to take an anti-homosexual stance. This has happened in the past, for example when the UK NSA made submission to a London educational advisory committee in 1996, and in 1999 when the Guyana NSA issued a statement against a government bill for equality.

I realise that this new policy of the Universal House of Justice is going to be difficult for some Baha’i communities, in countries where interfaith groups are against homosexuality, as you see in the screenshot below where Baha’is are named as members of the interfaith group.


 Screenshot of an article in the Voice of Africa article, 30 June 2010.
 Click on the image to view the whole screenshot in another window.
 Accessed 12 January 2011.

Should Baha’is now remove themselves from interfaith groups which take an anti-homosexual stance?
Baha’is have a long history of working with interfaith groups. Rather than leaving these groups, perhaps Baha’is will be motivated to discourage these groups from acts of discrimination against homosexuals.

However there are other also ways Baha’is can act to remove discrimination, and that is within the Baha’i community itself.

In August last year, the North American Association for Baha’i Studies hosted a conference in Vancouver on the theme: “Rethinking Human Nature” and there was an extensive line-up of impressive-sounding presentations.
Under the topic “Psychology and Sociology I” was the announcement of this presentation:

Lynne Schreiber,
Rethinking Same-Sex Attraction and General Principles of How to Overcome It
The fact that some people experience same-sex attraction as unwanted and take measures to overcome it remains somewhat hidden from society, including much of the mental health profession. Shedding light on this process may be encouraging news to those who struggle with such attraction. Understanding the complex factors that commonly shape same-sex attraction unlocks the possibility to conceptualize a new framework for growth.

There’s nothing wrong with an individual expressing their views at a Baha’i conference, although I wonder if a person would have been allowed to present the view that homosexuality does not need to be overcome.

However what drew my attention to this presentation was the fact that a handout she presented had been taken up by at least one American ABM (while the Baha’is do not have clergy, a person in this role has a function akin to a counsellor, and while his or her advice is not mandatory, some Baha’is would give it great weight) in his mission to put pressure on Baha’is who are gay in his area. Moreover Lynne Schreiber is giving presentations and workshops, I assume on how to ‘overcome’ being gay, in Baha’i communities in various locations in the US.

Again, one could argue that this is not discrimination. That it is not discrimination to promote the view that people need to change their orientation. I would disagree. But allow me continue.

Her handout is here and the quotations from the Baha’i writings in relation to morality, obedience and the importance of independent investigation do not refer to homosexuality. But she has placed these here as if there is some connection with homosexuality.

Her handout also includes some quotations from the UHJ, such as:
…the Faith does not recognize homosexuality as a ‘natural’ or permanent phenomenon. Rather, it sees this as an aberration subject to treatment
(to an individual, 22 March 1987)

and I wonder if she used such statements as support for reparative therapies or not. Then what caught my eye were the links at the end of the handout to organizations associated with extreme right-wing political agendas such as Exodus International and in particular to NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuals), which advocates what I would consider barbaric reparative therapies. And while some readers here might think that providing conversion therapy to a five-year-old “prehomosexual” boy is an extreme case, this unfortunately is just one of many many examples in this article.
A summary of the unscientific methodologies of NARTH and their activities can be seen on this webpage.

So then I went to the NARTH website to see for myself and was surprised to see that Baha’is were mentioned as members.

Click to view the screenshot in another window or view the NARTH statement on their website. Accessed 12 January 2011 and still there on 31 May 2011.

Since this page was last updated on 19 May 2008, this support has been on public show for over two years now, making it unlikely that various Baha’i communities are unaware of this. I hope this is removed in the near future, as I interpret this as the Bahai community taking sides by associating themselves with an organization that not only is geared towards ‘curing’ gays but makes clear statements that homosexuality is wrong.

The Baha’i policy as I see it, is that gays should be celibate, that is not the same as saying gays need to be cured or that they are wrong.

Whether individuals who are Baha’is are members of NARTH is another matter. We are free to use our conscience along with our own understanding of the Baha’i Teachings to guide our actions as individuals. For example Baha’is vote as individuals, we may even tell others who we voted for and discuss this, but we do this as individuals.
The Baha’i community doesn’t take a particular position. And likewise some Baha’is might individually support same-sex marriage as a positive thing while other Baha’is would not.
What the 3rd of January letter implies is that gays who are married shouldn’t be discriminated against and that gays are to be treated just as heterosexuals are treated except that the Baha’i community is not to be seen as taking any position for or against same-sex marriage.

The implication of the January 3rd letter is that the area of same-sex marriage is to be treated like the issue of party politics. So the Baha’i position could be, that it does not take any particular position but adopts what the law of the land or that state has as its policy. I say could be, because we have a long way to go as a Baha’i community to work on the prejudice against homosexuality that currently dominates Baha’i discourse. Here are two examples of what I mean by this apart from Lynne’s presentation at a Baha’i conference.

An essay by Sam G. McClellan, M.D., “Some reflections on the Bahá’í Teachings as they relate to homosexuality.” (Prepared in consultation with the Institute on AIDS, Sexuality and Addictions) which used to be on the BNASAA (Bahá’í Network on Aids, Sexuality, Addictions, and Abuse) website, argues for tolerance while at the same time stating that individuals should not call themselves gay or lesbian.

Some Bahá’ís struggling with their sexual orientation have accepted into their core identity the concept “I am gay” or “I am lesbian” as a way of explaining the experience of uninvited sexual feelings towards others of the same sex, and even to imagine giving up this identity and the supportive community that goes along with it can be a fearful experience, calling for a major effort at sympathetic awareness by others of the difficulty involved. To change one’s self-definition requires much effort, support and encouragement, and it will, most likely, be a complex and lengthy process marked by small, cumulative successes and a great deal of struggle.
Excerpt of essay, Some reflections on the Bahá’í Teachings as they relate to homosexuality by Sam G. McClellan, M.D. (Accessed 12 January 2011. This essay is on a page noted as being last updated in November 2004, and in Firefox the main text, about halfway down the page, is white so you need to select the text to read it.)

He ends with:
In 1992, a group of these professionals formed a new organization, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Four Bahá’í mental health professionals attended the annual meeting of NARTH in Philadelphia in May 1994. Within the Bahá’í community a committee was recently appointed to assist Assemblies and individuals dealing with issues of homosexuality.

The website Religious Tolerance summarizes the Bahai position on homosexuality as being:
-The Baha’i Faith teaches that homosexual behavior is unacceptable among its members. Voting rights of some of their lesbian, gay and bisexual members (LGB) who are out of the “closet” have been suspended; some memberships have been terminated.

My hope is that the Bahai community will show that such statements are no longer true.
That, if there are sanctions that these are applied to heterosexuals or homosexuals, equally. That if a gay couple decide to join the Bahai community that their marriage will not be discriminated against and that youth will not be taught that homosexuality is a disease or an aberration, or that they must keep their orientation secret, but rather, the focus will be on celebrating the equality and diversity of humanity. Saying to any individual “we will tolerate you” is still a form of prejudice. In order not to discriminate we need to be welcoming.

–

There are over a hundred comments on Baquia’s blog in response to the above. So I’ve copied some of my own comments below.

Posted by Sonja on 15 January 2011: Located here on Baquia’s blog >>

Thanks for this information about “Uganda’s antigay protests”.
What I note in my blog is that this was not just any interfaith coalition but one with the title: “Interfaith Rainbow Coalition Against Homosexuality“, so it would be hard for the Bahai/s or Bahai representative who joined to be unaware of the goals of this group.

And the misfortune in having the locals news and then the international news pick up on the Bahai involvement could have been avoided if the local Bahais had taken acton as soon as they knew that a Bahai had joined such a group.
I am aware that Bahais had taken action as soon as this was in the [international] news, but the point of my blog and the point, as I see it, is a Bahai shouldn’t have joined such a discriminatory group to start with.

The culture of the Bahai community needs to change so that Bahais don’t think it is OK to join such groups. That Bahais don’t think it is perfectly within the principles of the Bahai Faith to join any group or association which treats or views homosexuality with prejudice. And the references to the NARTH connections illustrate that this is the case and that the BNASAA shares the views that homosexuality is problematic, to put it lightly. Considering homosexuality as problematic is discrimination and the UHJ’s letter stating that homosexuals are not to be discriminated against, is in my view, a start on a change for the better. This is an opportunity for LSAs to start working at showing the community that the Bahai principle of equality applies also to homosexuals.

The reference to the Guyanan news items is different in that it is possible that Bahais were not actively involved in the protests, but yes, perhaps Bahais have to remove themselves from interfaith groups such as this. I agree it would be a wonderful teaching opportunity if they were to state publically why they are removing themselves.

Perhaps, as the Guyanan news item shows, Bahais are going to have to take some steps to show the world that the Bahai Faith is not anti-gay to counter the impression that it is. I see the 3rd January letter as a start in this direction. Another start would be for the BNASSA to stop associating homosexuality with illness.
It is no longer reasonable for Bahais to look the other way when another Bahai expresses their discrimination towards gays. The letter states Bahais must act to combate discrimination.
And if more Bahais publically showed support of gays then the impression would be that not all Bahais discriminate – that the Bahai community is diverse.
We need acts of positive discrimination bring in a change for more diversity. Your example of your involvement in a gay parade is one example. Now Bahais could do a lot of good by being present as a community in these. Bahais could even work as bridges here in fact. Having some presence at a gay pride parade where they promote unity in diversity, society for all, etc.

Posted by Sonja on 16 January 2011: Located here on Baquia’s blog >>

L wrote: “I was never sanctioned in any way at a BNASAA conference for saying I was fine as a Baha’i who was gay. There was surprize mixed with relief that someone present was okay with his being gay, felt a good connection to God, couldn’t understand why Shoghi Effendi wrote what he did as he felt it did not make sense, and had no interest in changing. BNASAA doesn’t associate homosexuality with illness but allows someone with that view to speak about it only as it pertains to the individual speaking. No one speaks for another or discloses another’s story. You may not be aware of this if you have not been to one of their conferences. If you saw something of that nature on their website you may have mistakenly felt that this was the only view of BNASAA. Not being a big fan of computers myself I feel the personal approach is best when exploring the facts about something. You may wish to attend a conference for a more balanced viewpoint where you will hear the truths of all who attend instead of reading an article by someone who feels their intellectual prowess is more enlightening than a person’s spoken truth. If you have been to a conference I don’t understand how you could come away from it with the misunderstanding.”

Thanks for sharing your experiences of BNASAA conferences but the fact that the title of this organization throws sexuality in with addictions seems a very strong indication that BNASAA sees homosexuality as some form of illness. If not, then why not change the title, change the association with illness? It seems incongruous to pretend this is about illness if the conferences are then about treating homosexuality as a part of the diversity of humankind.
My question then is what types of talks were given? Were these talks, as it seems from the website, talks on overcoming homosexuality or on suppressing this?

The BNASAA website (lower on the same page) has a section titled:

Considerations for Assemblies, Dealing with Same-Sex Issues

4. The Assembly should strive to maintain the dignity if the individual. Many women and men struggling with same-sex issues have low self-esteem and are in desperate need of love and acceptance. Confidentiality needs to be maintained and inadvertent exposure carefully avoided.

5. Discuss with the individual the relevant Bahá’í laws and teachings on chastity, marriage, and same-sex issues. Because of the sensitivity of the issue, the individual being counseled may be extremely sensitive, and individuals counseling them may want to take care to ensure that their assistance is received in a spirit of sharing and support.

6. It is impossible to consult on situations without some basic knowledge of the subject itself. The Assembly should recognize that there is no known cure for homosexuality. Comparing same-sex issues to alcoholism is a very helpful method of avoiding the naiveté of suggesting that Bahá’ís struggling with same-sex issues should simply pray, read the Writings and teach the Faith. It is very important to understand that the struggle with same-sex issues may be a lifelong ordeal. Even so, it is fundamentally important for the Assembly to encourage the individual to pray fervently, to continue or begin to deepen, to involve him or herself in the activities of the community – especially in teaching activities – and to develop supportive spiritual friendships within the community.

7. The Assembly is not a “mental health center,” and should not assume responsibilities for functions that it is not competent to carry out. Tactful referral of homosexuals – as in the case of any other person with special needs for skilled professional assistance – should be made to appropriate outside resources. It should be noted that several attempts may be necessary before finding the appropriate therapist. In addition to encouraging the individual to seek therapeutic help, the Bahá’í Network on AIDS, Sexuality, Addictions and Abuse (BNASAA) can provide Bahá’í support and assistance.

I am not suggesting that the atmosphere of any BNASAA conference would be hostile. Not at all, and you can see above, the tone is very gentle.
However the goal, the view or focus compares homosexuality to illness. In this case to alcoholism!

There’s a long history of members of majority groups judging minorities as lesser, as having low esteem for example, because they don’t operate in ways that are familiar or are not visible to the majority. And I’ve been told so many many times by well-meaning Bahai’s, “ah but so and so isn’t really gay or they would be more clear about being gay” and so on.

It is easy to give the stamp of low self-esteem when the other person is silent or does not come back with a similiar mode of expression, when in fact they are hurt and insulted. When operating in a second language here in the Netherlands, I’ve been told that I have low self-esteem, by well-meaning individuals who do not have a clue what my life really is like! They make their judgements on what they see, and so given that the Bahai community in general treats homosexuality as something wrong, it is no wonder that gays who are Bahai’s, have to tread on thin ice when with other Bahais. The Bahai community is not gay friendly. This needs to change.
As a woman I’d feel insulted if the only committee currently allowed to exist in the Bahai community, that dealt in some way with being female, was also a committee on alcoholism, and then here all sorts of talks about how wonderful women are, how women need to be tolerated, given compassion for the affliction of being female, were all made in the spirit of trying to help us because basically there’s something wrong with being a woman to start with. I hope you can see how such an attitude is insulting however lovingly the expressions of tolerance are. It isn’t enough to tolerant, Bahais need to accept gays as equals – as individuals with perspectives and values.

You suggest that what I wrote on my blog above in reference to the BNASAA has little relevence as the website doesn’t reflect the experiences of the conferences, so I asked a friend to share some experiences:

“Yes I don’t think anyone is outright sanctioned. As in names aren’t written down and then the NSA goes ok, and removes his voting rights. HOWEVER, from the very beginning of the meeting it was made absolutely clear that BNASAA was NOT the place to challenge the official view that homosexuality is supposed to be corrected and that it is a wrong lifestyle. I absolutely did not feel like it was a affirming place for someone who is gay, Bahai, and wants to be in an open relationship. The meeting I went to was in Northern California back in 2002. So things may have changed since then, I don’t know. Pose this question to the reader: “Would BNASAA now invite a person like Daniel to come and tell his story about having his voting rights removed for getting married?” I doubt it.
What I got out of BNASAA at my one meeting was that it was a great place for people with some serious issues (sex addiction, incest, rape, drugs, etc.) to find solace and talk openly with others. There really weren’t classes per se, mostly just sharing of stories and prayer circles, which were beautiful and all. But I felt completely out of place. In a weird way, I felt bad for being there because, well… there was nothing wrong with me. It’s wrong of them to lump my sexuality with all these serious issues that people are battling with. My two cents worth. So no, from my experience it is absolutely NOT an affirming place for gay and lesbians who are happy with themselves.”

Daniel formalized his Brazilian marriage when it became legal to marry in California. In response the NSA of the USA removed his voting rights citing his same-sex marriage as the reason (I wrote a blog in response to this here [on Baquia's blog placed later on this blog)] in 2009. Now with this new policy of the UHJ, if the NSA of the USA were to reinstate his voting rights, they would no longer be discriminating against an existing same-sex marriage.

And finally a question out of curiosity, did you experience any talks or workshops given at a BNASAA conference, where the homosexuality was presented as part of the diversity of humankind, or as not needing to be cured or changed? I am aware that Bahais do have these views but until now I’m only aware that presentations from these perspectives within a Bahai context are not allowed or their papers have been rejected.

You wrote that they “allows someone with that view to speak about it only as it pertains to the individual speaking.”, does this mean that current scientific research on this topic would be disallowed.

 
Posted by Sonja on 17 April 2011: Located here on Baquia’s blog >>

Sarmad, would you consider the removal of voting rights from a legally married couple as an individual’s foolish mistake? This is happening to many (but not all) married gay Bahais.

I wouldn’t call this a “foolish mistake” but rather a situation where the Bahai administration is breaking the rules of the country. I realise that in countries such as in the U.S., same-sex marriage has been associated with party politics and I see the wisdom in the letter by the U.H.J. in asking Bahai communities to stay out of the debate, however this is a different situation to then removing voting rights from those who marry or are married. That is gay Bahais, who are legally married according to the laws of their country or state (sometimes these are called civil unions, but the law is a legally recognized union) then lose their voting rights.
The worst thing about this whole scenario, in my view is the constant fear gay Bahais live with knowing that tomorrow they might have their voting rights removed. And for Bahais such as myself, knowing of so many stories where the administration appears to do this after an individual Bahai makes an issue of this.
Meaning that the administration seems to leave gay couples be, if no individual Bahai makes a fuss about this but then they act when some individual does. I can understand that an LSA might find it difficult to proceed and accept a gay union as having the same rights and responsibilities as is accepted by the law of the state or country, if then Bahais complain that homosexuality is forbidden, but I think in light of this latest letter by the U.H.J., L.S.A.s should be able to take a position of not discriminating against those who are married.
I know this is not the same as promoting equality for gays but it is at least not a practice of discrimination.

If administrative decisions are not the essence of a community what are they then? I agree they need not be the essence of a religion, although one would hope that there would be a close connection.

Just calling these “foolish mistakes” misses the point. The point that our Bahai communities have two standards. One lot of values and standards for heterosexual couples and families and another set of values and standards for gay couples and families.

Lady Gaga and “Born This Way”

Click to listen or watch “Born this way” by Lady Gaga

Today someone told me that a psychologist was recently warned against trying to “treat” homosexuality because it wasn’t supposed to be considered as a subject for “treatment”, in other words, “leave us alone, we like it this way”, it’s our “right”.
In response I used the phrase, “what’s wrong with being born this way?” and I remembered all the fuss back in March over Lady Gaga’s hit song “Born This Way”. Her title hit me with a new of sense of profundity. She uses ‘this’ for us, the human race, not ‘that’ – the other, the aberrant, but rather she includes and broadens what being human could mean and now I read her ‘alien’ look as being more than artistic expression. The ‘alienation’ sets us on edge and reminds us to be accepting of what we might find strange. That humanity is bigger than we think.

To recap: on March 25th, 2011, the Daily Express an independent national newspaper of East Malaysia ran the headline: “Lady Gaga deemed to have gone overboard” followed by a number of statements by religious organizations urging censorship of Lady Gaga’s song “Born This Way.” The statement from the Malay Baha’i Office for the Advancement of Women is what made me take notice:
“Malaysia does not promote gays and lesbians, and has rightly banned the offensive content in Lady Gaga’s song, said Yong Su Sien, a member of the Baha’i Office for the Advancement of Women.

“We do not condone abnormal sexual relationships, so we don’t want her song to influence the minds of youngsters,” she said.”

This is counter to the October 28th 2010 letter from the Universal House of Justice sent to an American Bahai and made public for the first time on January 3rd 2011 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States. So most likely the Baha’is of Malaysia were not aware of this.

It states: “…With respect to your question concerning the position Baha’is are to take regarding homosexuality and civil rights, … “
“Baha’is are enjoined to eliminate from their lives all forms of prejudice and to manifest respect towards all. Therefore, to regard those with a homosexual orientation with prejudice or disdain would be against the spirit of the Faith. Furthermore, a Baha’i is exhorted to be “an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression”, and it would be entirely appropriate for a believer to come to the defense of those whose fundamental rights are being denied or violated.”
The full letter is here: http://senmcglinn.wordpress.com

The rest of the letter is mainly directed at civil unions and appears to be a response to the current situation in the U.S. where same sex marriage has been associated with politics. Here in Europe it is associated with human rights.
In my view, there is a dire need for Bahais to state publically that they do not support any form of discrimination towards any gay and lesbians and that begins with not using the word abnormal.

It is not just embarrassing but it shames me that a Bahai representative would refer to “abnormal sexual relationships” as meaning gay or lesbian. As if any gay or lesbian person was ‘abnormal’. This is going much further than the current Bahai policy which does not allow gays or lesbians a Bahai marriage ceremony (as far as I know).

What message is this telling Bahai youth? That it is OK to discriminate and call other youth abnormal?
What message is this telling the world. That Bahais discriminate against gays and lesbians? Is this such an accepted matter of fact that a representative for the Advancement of Women does not see that this is an expression of prejudice?

Bahais have a policy of obeying the laws of their own country and if the representative had referred to this as the reason for support for the censorship of this song, it would be another matter. It would have been even better to have made no comment.
It would be nice to think that this was an isolated incident and that other Bahai representatives were making statements that peoples of all orientation were welcome and treated equally. But if that was the case, the world would know. OK some Bahai communities express prejudice and others don’t.
However so far there have only been public statements showing that Bahais damn homosexuality such as the U.K. Bahai statement, and the association of the Ugandan Bahais with the “Interfaith Rainbow Coalition Against Homosexuality“, the slamming of a film festival Guyana, and the Bahai support of the the anti-gay US organization NARTH.

Bahais have to do something to change the impression that the Bahai community discriminates against gays and lesbians. I realise too, of course, some Bahais might think that this letter would only apply to Bahais in the U.S.A. since it was addressed to a Bahai there and then was allowed to be distributed publically.
My position is if a policy is not clear then look at the principles of the Bahai Faith and what is in Bahai Scripture. Perhaps this letter is not clear because one Bahai has already informed me that in their view Bahais would still be free to discriminate because of the later part of the letter:

“In working for social justice, Baha’is must inevitably distinguish between those dimensions of public issues that are in keeping with the Baha’i Teachings, which they can actively support, and those that are not, which they would neither promote nor necessarily oppose. In connection with issues of concern to homosexuals, the former would be freedom from discrimination and the latter the opportunity for civil marriage. “

Here the argument is that the words “nor necessarily oppose,” could mean it is optional for a Bahai to oppose same-sex marriage. Since the rest of the letter makes a comparision with the Bahai principle of non-involvement in party politics and given that in the U.S. the issue of same-sex marriage is often mixed up with this, I think it means, individuals can do as they wish as individuals, but as Bahai representatives or as a community, the Bahais must remain neutral.

Here is the end of the letter: “Such distinctions are unavoidable when addressing any social issue. For example, Baha’is actively work for the establishment of world peace but, in the process, do not engage in partisan political activities directed against particular governments.”

Note that the U.H.J. refer to marriage as a social issue, just as Abdu’l-Baha listed this in the Will and Testament. Being a social issue this is an area for the U.H.J. to rule on.

And so to Lady Gaga’s song itself. Since there was a such a protest about it, I thought I’d better go and see what was so awful about the song that Bahais would show support of it being censored.

This is a country version – click play to listen while you scroll down to read.

The lyrics come from here It doesn’t matter if you love him, or capital H-I-M Just put your paws up ‘Cause you were born this way, baby My mama told me when I was young We’re all born superstars She rolled my hair, put my lipstick on In the glass of her boudoir “There’s nothin’ wrong with lovin’ who you are” She said, “‘Cause He made you perfect, babe” “So hold your head up, girl and you’ll go far, Listen to me when I say” I’m beautiful in my way, ‘Cause God makes no mistakes I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way Don’t hide yourself in regret, Just love yourself and you’re set I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way (Born this way) Ooo, there ain’t no other way Baby, I was born this way Baby, I was born this way (Born this way) Ooo, there ain’t other way Baby, I was born this way Right track, baby I was born this way Don’t be a drag, just be a queen Don’t be a drag, just be a queen Don’t be a drag, just be a queen Don’t be! Give yourself prudence and love your friends Subway kid, rejoice the truth In the religion of the insecure I must be myself, respect my youth A different lover is not a sin Believe capital H-I-M (hey, hey, hey) I love my life, I love this record and Mi amore vole fe yah I’m beautiful in my way, ‘Cause God makes no mistakes I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way Don’t hide yourself in regret, Just love yourself and you’re set I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way Ooo, there ain’t no other way Baby, I was born this way Baby, I was born this way (Born this way ) Ooo, there ain’t other way Baby, I was born way I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way ( Queen , Don’t be , Queen ) Don’t be a drag, just be a queen Whether you’re broke or evergreen You’re black, white, beige, chola descent You’re lebanese, you’re orient Whether life’s disabilities Left you outcast, bullied or teased Rejoice and love yourself today ‘Cause baby, you were born this way No matter gay, straight or bi lesbian, transgendered life I’m on the right track, baby I was born to survive No matter black, white or beige chola or orient made I’m on the right track, baby I was born to be brave I’m beautiful in my way ‘Cause God makes no mistakes I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way Don’t hide yourself in regret, Just love yourself and you’re set I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way, yeah! Ooo, there ain’t no other way Baby, I was born this way Baby, I was born this way (Born this way ) Ooo, there ain’t other way Baby, I was born this way I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way I was born this way, hey! I was born this way, hey! I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way, hey! I was born this way, hey! I was born this way, hey! I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way, hey!

The song begins with a reference to God as H-I-M. As a feminist, this is not how I’d refer to God, but Bahais don’t have rules about how one should refer to the divine. Baha’u'llah wrote: “O CHILDREN OF MEN! Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. …” The Hidden Words (The Hidden Words (Arabic Hidden Word, Number 68) From info.bahai.org In case anyone might think the references to oneness mean acting the same, Abdu’l-Baha stresses the importance of diversity: How unpleasing to the eye if all the flowers and plants, the leaves and blossoms, the fruit, the branches, and the trees of the garden were all of the same shape and color! Diversity of color, form and shape enricheth and adorneth the garden, and heighteneth the effect thereof. In like manner, when divers shades of thought, temperament and character, are brought together under the power and influence of one central agency, the beauty and glory of human perfection will be revealed and made manifest.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of The Divine Plan, p. 102 “And if this prejudice be the prejudice of nationality consider that all mankind are of one nation; all have sprung from the tree of Adam, and Adam is the root of the tree. That tree is one and all these nations are like branches, while the individuals of humanity are like leaves, blossoms and fruits thereof.” Selections of Writings of Abdu’l-Bahá p. 299 Surely phrases such as “Man is the supreme Talisman.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, CXXII, pp. 259-260) and “I loved thy creation, hence I created thee.” (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Word, nr 4) are like the words: “I’m beautiful in my way, ‘Cause God makes no mistakes” In fact I’m surprised at the spiritual values in the song. She even sings that we should believe in God! Believe that God is there. And other lines echo Baha’u'llah’s words, My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting. (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Word, nr 1) The song is about loving who you are and how you are born. With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light. Be thou content with it and seek naught else, for My work is perfect and My command is binding. Question it not, nor have a doubt thereof. … (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Word, nr 12) So I guess what upsets people are the lines: Don’t be a drag, just be a queen The lines mean don’t hate yourself, love yourself. Don’t be unhappy, be proud. I created thee rich, why dost thou bring thyself down to poverty? Noble I made thee, wherewith dost thou abase thyself? Out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being, (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Word, nr 13) O SON OF SPIRIT! My claim on thee is great, it cannot be forgotten. My grace to thee is plenteous, it cannot be veiled. My love has made in thee its home, it cannot be concealed. My light is manifest to thee, it cannot be obscured. (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Word, nr 20)

Or is the protest because she mentions gays and straights and bisexuals and transexuals – all of humanity?

No matter gay, straight or bi
lesbian, transgendered life
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born to survive
No matter black, white or beige
chola or orient made
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born to be brave

Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee: therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty.
(Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Word, nr 3)

There’s nothing in Bahá’u'lláh’s writings to suggest that some types of people were not made in His image. So thank you Lady Gaga, I’m one Bahai who is inspired by your lyrics celebrating diversity.

Bahá’u'lláh wrote that the

“Arts, crafts and sciences uplift the world of being, and are conducive to its exaltation.”
Bahá’u'lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Wilmette, Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1979), p. 26.

And while some might find the idea of pop music the antithesis of what they would call inspiration, that’s a question of taste. In my view Lady Gaga’s lyrics exalt people to “(a)bide then in thy love for Me, that thou mayest find Me in the realm of glory.
(Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Word, nr 14)

And art, such as this song, means you need to listen, need to make the effort to find out what ‘the story’ is for yourself. Is it about making the strange or estranged human? familiar? Is it about celebration? What is the role of the divine in the song? What are the birthing scenes about in the video? New ideas? Questions about what is cultured (man-made) and what is nature? What is human nature then?

"as one soul," limited edition lithograph by Sonja van Kerkhoff, 1991

On show in Leiderdorp until June 26th, 2011.

We need to make it better now!

David Kato, Ugandan gay activist, from his facebook account

From Baha’u'llah: “The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes…“

Yesterday, David Kato, a spokesperson for Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) was murdered in his home in Uganda.

Three weeks ago I wrote a blog on bahairants referring to this letter from the Universal House of Justice sent the the National Assembly of the U.S.A.

“The purpose of the Faith of Baha’u’llah is the realization of the organic unity of the entire human race, and Baha’is are enjoined to eliminate from their lives all forms of prejudice and to manifest respect towards all. Therefore, to regard those with a homosexual orientation with prejudice or disdain would be against the spirit of the Faith. Furthermore, a Baha’i is exhorted to be “an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression”, and it would be entirely appropriate for a believer to come to the defense of those whose fundamental rights are being denied or violated.“
(Letter from the UHJ to an individual, 27 October 2010) Emphasis added.
The whole letter is here.

Further on in the blog I mentioned some instances of Bahais being associated with anti-homosexual organizations such as the “the Interfaith Rainbow Coalition Against Homosexuality” group in Uganda. I went into some detail there to show, that these examples were not just random nor small things and ended my blog with a plea for equality, a plea not to discriminate. In order to do that Bahais will need to change the current negative image towards a positive one of openness towards gays.

This blog is my attempt, and also a form of protest on hearing of the murder of Ugandan gay activist, David Kato.

Here is the story and please comment (anonymously or not).

From The Guardian, 21 October 2010:

“Human rights activists have warned that the lives of gay people in Uganda are in danger, after a newspaper published a story featuring the names and in some cases photographs of 100 homosexuals under the headline “Hang Them”.

At least one woman named in the story has been forced to leave her home after neighbours pelted it with stones, while several other people have been verbally abused, according to the campaign group Sexual Minorities Uganda…

The widely read tabloid Red Pepper has already “outed” dozens of gay people under headlines such as “Top Homos in Uganda named”. But the Rolling Stone story goes further in apparently inciting violence against gay people.

…Inside, a headline reads: “Hang them; They are after our kids!!” The article lists personal details of those named, including their addresses. There are also photographs of about a dozen people listed in the story. …

Frank Mugisha, chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda, said his organisation initially chose to ignore the Rolling Stone story, since the newspaper was not widely read. It was launched in August and has a circulation of 2,000. But after a few days he started to receive reports of harassment from some of those who were named. In the worst case, a woman who works for a gay rights organisation was unable to leave her home after it was stoned. …

“We didn’t want to give the newspaper publicity so we held off on legal action,” he said. “But now the threat against our members is real, so we are considering going to court… “

Read the full article here:

Some background:

“Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) is a non-governmental organization based in Kampala, Uganda. It pushes for the protection and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Ugandans.

In response to an article in the Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone (of no relation to the American publican of the same name, which rejected the Ugandan paper and its actions as “horrific”), published a gallery of “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak” and stated “Hang Them” [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39742685/ns/world_news-africa/], three members of SMUG whose faces appeared in the magazine – David Kato Kisulle, Kasha Jacqueline and Onziema Patience – filed a petition to the High Court seeking for the ending of the paper’s circulation of the article. The petition was granted on November 2, 2010, effectively ruling for the end of the Rolling Stone publication.

However, at 1 p.m. on January 26, 2011, Kato, whose picture was among the 100 listed in the Rolling Stone article and was featured on the cover of the edition, was assaulted in his home in Mukono Town by an unknown male assailant who hit him twice in the head before fleeing on foot; Kato later died on route to the Kawolo Hospital. The murder was decried by Human Rights Watch[http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/01/27/uganda-promptly-investigate-killing-prominent-lgbt-activist], with senior Africa researcher Maria Burnett adding that “David Kato’s death is a tragic loss to the human rights community”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Minorities_Uganda

Some more background:

“LGBT Ugandans have lived under a menacing atmosphere for more than a decade. The anti-gay hysteria has increased significantly since the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill into parliament in 2009. That bill, which remains under review Parliamentary committee, would impose the death penalty on LGBT Ugandans under certain circumstances and criminalize all advocacy by or on behalf of LGBT people. It would also criminalize even knowing someone who is gay if that person fails to report their LGBT loved one to police within 24 hours. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for February 18, and the bill is expected to be considered after Parliament returns for a lame-duck session before the new Parliament begins in May.

This horrendous murder adds to the fears that LGBT Ugandans regularly face over their safety. Brenda Namigadde, a lesbian asylum seeker in the U.K. has been threatened with deportation back to Uganda. Just yesterday, she received an ominous message from M.P. David Bahati, the author of the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill, in which he said that Brenda must “repent or reform” when she returns home.. “

Read the full artile here:

So Baha’is don’t wait, do something today in your home, in your community, to make things better for “The best beloved of all things in My sight“

Vote below as an act of solidarity or go to David’s page on Facebook and post a note on his wall or light a candle for him.

I will light a candle for him this evening, here in the Netherlands.

“We will all, verily, abide by the will of God.”

This is the Bahai marriage vow. I always loved the sentiment here — that individuals give themselves to God, rather than the promise to obey each other. In 1984 my spouse to be and I recited this at the same time, as it seemed fitting as an expression of equality. Our partnership as two consenting adults.

So roll on a decade or two and the hot discussion in some Bahai circles is the conviction that gays and lesbians cannot do the same, cannot “verily” state their committment as equals. They are not allowed marriage, family and a lifelong committment of partnership. There are some exceptions, some Bahai communities accept their married gay Bahais, however the majority don’t.

A very important Bahai Teaching is equality.
In fact I’d even say that it is probably the most important Bahai Teaching, along with a stress on diversity. The numerous quotations from the Bahai Writings about all the flowers in the garden being of value support this. There’s nothing there about some being more equal than others, being allowed to “verily” commit while others are not.

In other postings I’ve gone more into the status of the letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi. First trying to see why there is this seeming contradiction with equality in the letters that condemn homosexuality. (By “homosexuality” I mean orientation, being gay or lesbian.)
On one level it is true that these letters are expressions of the values of the times of the 1930-1950s, as guidance for individuals of the times and in a some cases as guidance for an institution, and all these letters have some authority, an authority that is not clearly defined but is something less than Shoghi Effendi’s own. Because this authority is not clear, I think that any issues depending on these letters are a matter for the Universal House of Justice, which gives some flexibility, some possibility for change now or in the future.
As I see it the Bahai Faith has two aspects: Scripture (not flexible nor changeable) and Authority (executed through the Bahai administration which is flexible or changeable) or in other words the carrying out of the day-to-day administration of how that scripture applies to our lives.

Being changeable does not mean that authority is less important than scripture but I would say that scripture should inform or guide the actions taken by Bahai administration and Bahai communities. I suspect that when Bahais get upset at me when I discuss the flexibility in the Bahai Teachings, they think I’m demeaning the value and importance of the Letters Written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi. That is not my intent. My intent is to see how they might fit – how Shoghi Effendi might have intended them to be used and most importantly how are they used by the Bahai community at large. Are these Letters used as guidance, as inspiration or are they being used like a big stick, used to promote prejudice or intolerance? I hope not.

You might be wondering why I bother, when the authority of these Letters is not the same as the authority of Baha’u'llah’s writings, is not the authority of Abdul-Baha’s writings nor that of Shoghi Effendi when he wrote in his role as official interpretator of Bahai Scripture.
Well many Bahais place great value on these letters. And in 1983 the book “Lights of Guidance” compiled by Helen Hornby came out, and it seems now that many Bahais treat this book as if it is Bahai Scripture. Actually more like a book of rules. And in this book, Letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi are placed underneath various sections such as “1221. Acts of Immorality” as if this is Bahai Scripture. So one can hardly blame Bahais for assuming that Letters Written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi have the same status as what Baha’u'llah wrote. [See a few of these letters which show that they do not have the same status as Bahai Scripture]

Homosexuality title in Lights of Guidance

[This link goes to where this screenshot was taken from]

But I have realised that I am possibily approaching the issue of inequality from the wrong direction as it seems that when I argue about the status and authority of the Letters Written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, Bahais see red and in one case a Bahai responded to me recently writing that anyone treating these letters as if they were not written by Shoghi Effendi was “challenging covenantal authority.”

So it got me to thinking, why did I start down this line of thinking?

The current Bahai practice is that some people are more equal than others. That some individuals may not marry, may not raise children, may not voice themselves openly, should believe that they are diseased or need to keep their orientation secret so that they are treated with respect.
This hurts me deeply. It hurts me deeply that my Faith is allowing individuals to tell other individuals that they are not equal.
They might not use those words. These Bahais might even believe that it is equality afterall  –  as is often said, you volunteer to be a Bahai, you can leave. This is like saying, well this flower can’t blossom here. This Bahai garden is just for straight voices. I know of course, Bahais celebrate diversity, I see it everywhere. But you can’t celebrate diversity without equality.