Friday, November 17, 2023

Homosexuality In Entertainment

To merely exist as a person with homosexual feelings is not what the Bible condemns in verses like Leviticus 20:13 or Romans 1:26-27.  Similarly, it is not sinful to be born into a predisposition towards feelings of sadism because it is beliefs and actions that make someone righteous or vile.  Emotions and desires that someone cannot choose are not only involuntary, but they also do not have to be expressed in irrationalistic beliefs or emotionalistic actions.  While the intentions of someone's heart are of great moral significance (Matthew 15:18-19)--and this is true irrespective of the Bible since anything that is morally good should have the interest and allegiance of someone's mind--just having desires that a person restrains or does not choose is never an instance of sin.

Now, the general portrayal of homosexual behavior, including positive portrayal, has indeed become more and more prominent.  There are numerous incredible stories that stand very tall on their philosophical and artistic merits (though artistic truths and concepts are but a subcategory of philosophy) that do feature dialogue in favor of homosexual behaviors or onscreen depictions of them.  Though many of these inclusions are motivated according to their storytellers as an invitation to or celebration of people with a homosexual orientation, associated with the belief that homosexual activities are morally permissible or good, the portrayals themselves are not sinful to watch.

First, it is true that homosexuals are also people, as are heterosexuals, and if people have worth simply because of their humanity, then even homosexuals do to, regardless of their behaviors.  This follows by logical necessity from the idea that all people bear God's image (Genesis 1:26-27).  Moreover, it is not as if homosexual interactions are the worst of interpersonal sins, or even the worst of sexual sins, though homosexual intercourse is a capital sin.  There is also the fact that, according to what the Bible does and does not say, it follows that it is even nonsinful for homosexuals to masturbate to thoughts or images of people of the same gender, as this is not a homosexual deed [1].  It is the physical act of performing sexual deeds with other people of the same gender, especially homosexual versions of intercourse, that the Bible condemns.  With all of this said, there is also the fact that if it is evil to view a sin like homosexual interactions onscreen, then the same would have to be true of many other things.

Murderer and kidnapping and sorcery are portrayed onscreen, and, yes, there are some evangelicals who legalistically oppose anything that features or emphasizes these acts as well.  As with the way that The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are hypocritically treated by many Christians, this is often a very selective, inconsistent condemnation of some things.  The Bible says to kill all who practice sorcery (Exodus 22:18, which by logical extension would apply to male sorcerers as well), yet Tolkien's story that is very loosely modeled on Christian theology has some of its wizards as protagonists, as servants of Eru Iluvatar.  In this universe, Eru's (God's) moral nature might be such that sorcery is not immoral unless it is used for selfish or malevolent ends, but it is still sorcery, and yet many Christians do not object to The Lord of the Rings and even admire it.

For sorcery or other sins, does the Bible say it is contrary to God's nature to read about, witness, or, in the case of video games, interact with evil beings and their actions?  Not only does it not say this even as Deuteronomy 4:2 says not to add to God's moral revelation (for it is complete, and conscience and tradition are objectively irrelevant to moral metaphysics), but it would be sinful to read the Bible by the Bible's own philosophy if it did!  The Bible contains accounts of everything from theft to deception, murder, abduction, sorcery, blasphemy, and even some of the worst tortures mentioned in the historical record in the New Testament (Roman crucifixion, one of the most Biblically unjust legal penalties of all time).  Heterosexual sins are among these reported immoralities, such as adultery and even rape, and unfortunately, even rape is not always condemned as harshly by Christians as the basic nonsinful experience of homosexual desires.

What is true of reading or viewing these deeds would also be true of homosexuality in cinema, television, gaming, and literature.  Additionally, there is the fact that a morally perfect, omniscient/omnipresent deity would see all sorts of immoral deeds, homosexual behaviors (between people) included.  Sin is what deviates from God's nature, and God himself cannot deviate from his own nature!  Evangelicals affirm omnipresence while believing in concepts that contradict it (another such case being their simultaneous belief in the ideas that hell is separation from God, that God is omnipresent, and that all the unsaved suffer in hell forever).  A homosexual orientation is not the sin, and seeing homosexual characters or behaviors in entertainment is not itself sinful either.  This is not a philosophy of liberal emotionalism that is adhered to only out of conflicted sympathy for homosexuals.  It is the rationalistic truth about Biblical doctrines on the matter.


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