This was from the San Jose State University newspaper:
'This Queer Life'
The choir preaching back
Michael Rizzo
Issue date: 2/21/08 Section:Opinion
Later adapted to be "once upon a time," it's the classic phrase that begins all good fairy tales: the stories of mythical creatures with supernatural powers causing all kinds of mischief, and in turn teaching us - mere humans - our grandest lessons.
Ever wonder, what if no one's watching? Lamentations
It was 2002. I was 17. I sat in a conference room at my Kingdom Hall, alone with three other men, elders in my congregation, their average age about 60.
I was a Jehovah's Witness, and the body of elders had brought me up on judicial charges of porneia, a Greek word that means "fornication." This was a hearing.
We prayed, and then the questioning began. I wasn't able to respond. I could only cry and sob horrifically. Soon, I was off my chair and on the ground.
I locked myself into fetal position and wept at their feet. I beat the ground and crawled into the corner. I wallowed. Wretched and miserable. Guilty.
The Sodomites
We can thank Genesis 18:1-19:22 for the modern terminology used to describe an act that everyday couples - both gay and straight - make part of their regular sexual routine: sodomy.
God destroyed the ancient city of Sodom, the legend goes, due to rampant homosexual activity.
Some modern religious conservatives contend this was also the reason God ravaged the city of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. He is a deity of precedent.
But an honest Hebrew-fairy tale translator would not disagree that it's possible God destroyed Sodom because its people were haughtily inhospitable, not overtly sexual.
Hebrew-to-English translations aren't the easiest, especially when the Hebrew word "yadha," as it's used in this account, can mean either "to engage in coitus" or "to get acquainted with" - depending on the whim of the writer (and eventually, the translator).
Judges
My interrogation with the elders lasted two hours. When I think about it long enough, I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was six years ago, this month.
They wanted to know whether I had ever masturbated, how often, when I started, where I did it, the details of my fantasies.
They were disappointed, I think, that I was still a virgin - it made things much less cut and dry. But still, my confession was masochistically honest, and there was no question of my guilt.
I told them fear had kept me from confessing earlier, but that for five years I had spent countless hours in prayer, buried in the Bible, reading church material, engaging in the door-to-door field ministry and attending church. All I ever wanted to do was fight it.
I still loved God, and I was sorry. I told them more than once. Then I left the room, and they decided my fate.
The Mosaic Law
Leviticus 20:13: "When a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail. Their own blood is upon them."
In the surrounding verses, God also hands out death to any man who has sex with a woman on the rag or with another guy's baby's mama.
Elsewhere, the laws of the Old Testament condemn men who shave ("trim the extremity of the beard"), take blood transfusions ("eat blood"), play football ("touch a dead pig"), or wear cotton/polyester blends ("put on a garment of two threads").
At least hell won't be lonely. See you there.
Exodus
While the elders deliberated, I sat in an adjacent meeting room and reflected on what I had just done. My shoulders loosened and my mind became weightless. I wasn't pinching every muscle in my torso anymore, and I was able to breathe, deeply.
I prayed to God, and I thanked him. I thanked him for helping me to come clean and tell the truth, and for being my friend, no matter what. Now I would get the help I needed, and I'd be able to fix everything, I told him. Then the elders called me back in the conference room.
"It's clear you are ashamed of your actions," they said, "but you have not repented from your sins."
They excommunicated me.
Contrary to Nature
Romans 1:26-27: "God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene."
Grab a National Geographic:
Male bonobos engage in homosexual intercourse regularly as a public display of conflict reconciliation. Male flamingo couples have mated for life and even built nests to raise foster chicks. Two male penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo have a healthy sex life together, despite plenty of access to potential female partners.
Beetles, sheep, fruit bats, dolphins, orangutans, ostriches, Japanese macaques - they all do it, and God don't make no junk.
Revelation
The destruction of New Orleans was not God's plan to purge the gays. Adhering to the Mosaic Law is like saluting a bunch of almost prehistoric superstitions. And no act of consensual sex can rightfully be considered unnatural.
Too many people who read the Bible develop an irrational loyalty to its words - a loyalty that allows them to justify vilifying an entire orientation of people.
And yet, the lessons the book teaches are no grander than those taught in Cinderella or one of Aesop's fables.
Is it possible that when we die, we're just dead? What if God is just some notion someone put in our heads?
All I know is that I spent most of my life devoted to God, but when I looked behind me, there was only one set of footprints in the sand - and they were my own.
'This Queer Life'
The choir preaching back
Michael Rizzo
Issue date: 2/21/08 Section:OpinionLater adapted to be "once upon a time," it's the classic phrase that begins all good fairy tales: the stories of mythical creatures with supernatural powers causing all kinds of mischief, and in turn teaching us - mere humans - our grandest lessons.
Ever wonder, what if no one's watching?
Lamentations
It was 2002. I was 17. I sat in a conference room at my Kingdom Hall, alone with three other men, elders in my congregation, their average age about 60.
I was a Jehovah's Witness, and the body of elders had brought me up on judicial charges of porneia, a Greek word that means "fornication." This was a hearing.
We prayed, and then the questioning began. I wasn't able to respond. I could only cry and sob horrifically. Soon, I was off my chair and on the ground.
I locked myself into fetal position and wept at their feet. I beat the ground and crawled into the corner. I wallowed. Wretched and miserable. Guilty.
The Sodomites
We can thank Genesis 18:1-19:22 for the modern terminology used to describe an act that everyday couples - both gay and straight - make part of their regular sexual routine: sodomy.
God destroyed the ancient city of Sodom, the legend goes, due to rampant homosexual activity.
Some modern religious conservatives contend this was also the reason God ravaged the city of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. He is a deity of precedent.
But an honest Hebrew-fairy tale translator would not disagree that it's possible God destroyed Sodom because its people were haughtily inhospitable, not overtly sexual.
Hebrew-to-English translations aren't the easiest, especially when the Hebrew word "yadha," as it's used in this account, can mean either "to engage in coitus" or "to get acquainted with" - depending on the whim of the writer (and eventually, the translator).
Judges
My interrogation with the elders lasted two hours. When I think about it long enough, I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was six years ago, this month.
They wanted to know whether I had ever masturbated, how often, when I started, where I did it, the details of my fantasies.
They were disappointed, I think, that I was still a virgin - it made things much less cut and dry. But still, my confession was masochistically honest, and there was no question of my guilt.
I told them fear had kept me from confessing earlier, but that for five years I had spent countless hours in prayer, buried in the Bible, reading church material, engaging in the door-to-door field ministry and attending church. All I ever wanted to do was fight it.
I still loved God, and I was sorry. I told them more than once. Then I left the room, and they decided my fate.
The Mosaic Law
Leviticus 20:13: "When a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail. Their own blood is upon them."
In the surrounding verses, God also hands out death to any man who has sex with a woman on the rag or with another guy's baby's mama.
Elsewhere, the laws of the Old Testament condemn men who shave ("trim the extremity of the beard"), take blood transfusions ("eat blood"), play football ("touch a dead pig"), or wear cotton/polyester blends ("put on a garment of two threads").
At least hell won't be lonely. See you there.
Exodus
While the elders deliberated, I sat in an adjacent meeting room and reflected on what I had just done. My shoulders loosened and my mind became weightless. I wasn't pinching every muscle in my torso anymore, and I was able to breathe, deeply.
I prayed to God, and I thanked him. I thanked him for helping me to come clean and tell the truth, and for being my friend, no matter what. Now I would get the help I needed, and I'd be able to fix everything, I told him. Then the elders called me back in the conference room.
"It's clear you are ashamed of your actions," they said, "but you have not repented from your sins."
They excommunicated me.
Contrary to Nature
Romans 1:26-27: "God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene."
Grab a National Geographic:
Male bonobos engage in homosexual intercourse regularly as a public display of conflict reconciliation. Male flamingo couples have mated for life and even built nests to raise foster chicks. Two male penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo have a healthy sex life together, despite plenty of access to potential female partners.
Beetles, sheep, fruit bats, dolphins, orangutans, ostriches, Japanese macaques - they all do it, and God don't make no junk.
Revelation
The destruction of New Orleans was not God's plan to purge the gays. Adhering to the Mosaic Law is like saluting a bunch of almost prehistoric superstitions. And no act of consensual sex can rightfully be considered unnatural.
Too many people who read the Bible develop an irrational loyalty to its words - a loyalty that allows them to justify vilifying an entire orientation of people.
And yet, the lessons the book teaches are no grander than those taught in Cinderella or one of Aesop's fables.
Is it possible that when we die, we're just dead? What if God is just some notion someone put in our heads?
All I know is that I spent most of my life devoted to God, but when I looked behind me, there was only one set of footprints in the sand - and they were my own.