This thread is full of lies and exaggerations.
It's full of something that's for sure. Not about the WTS anymore, just a lot of brawling.
New ANTI-GAY video for Kids on jw.org
by ttdtt 234 Replies latest jw experiences
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Xanthippe
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konceptual99
The latest Awake details the organisations view on homosexuality.
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/awake-no4-2016-august/bible-say-about-being-gay/
It repeats several previously stated viewpoints, most of which are pretty easy to understand and follow the WTS reasoning on. Compared to some of the statements you would hear from fire and brimstone preachers, the WTS position is fairly tame on the surface.
I note they continue to be fairly ambiguous position on the homosexuality and biology. Whilst they have become open to the science on this over the years, they continue to equate human sexuality to personality traits such as anger. Even if sort of acknowledging homosexuality can be "deeply ingrained" they assume that it is possible and normal to put that to one side and suppress one's sexuality just as one would try and control one's temper.
Like the video, this is hard to categorise as out and out hate speech or homophobic in the sense that it conveys no "fear" of homosexuals or total non-acceptance of gay people. If you are gay you can be a JW just so long as you do not have any sex.
It is pretty much exactly how I presented the position for years when I was in. I used to work in a UK town with a very high proportion of gay residents and I worked for many years with many gay people. Because of this and my generally younger, more liberally minded attitudes I never had a problem with this and believed the stance on homosexuality was pretty reasonable.
Of course, the hidden messages are not quite so tolerant and this is where the problems occur. For a start, there is still a culture within the organisation that considers homosexuality to be a more despicable sin than other forms of hetrosexual (mis)conduct. People still feel free to come out with some highly aggressive vitriol about gay people going far beyond the position presented publicly. Individuals still have a genuine aversion to gay people, especially if confronted with someone who is loud and proud about their sexuality.
Of course the Witnesses cannot present anything that truly reflects an open, tolerant and modern attitude to homosexuality - their view of the Bible prevents this from ever happening. This is not news in itself but anything that helps people ask about the hidden messages, consider the logical conclusions of following lines of thinking through and question the rhetoric is welcome in my book.
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krejames
I didn't manage to read through all 23 pages of discussion so apologies if this has been mentioned. Has anyone considered that homosexuality is about love as much as about the sex act itself. The bible can be interpreted to condemn the homosexual sex act but what if those two mummies were in a celibate relationship together? They Would still be expected to split up in order to become JWs and worthy of the new system. That goes beyond the bible. The damage to a gay child has already been covered in detail. Hate video or not, it is highly damaging and unhealthy. -
punkofnice
lrg - but now that they are out of the kingdom hall and no longer a JW they express this outrage at an anti-gay message
Some of us have woken up. Some of us never really felt good about the WBT$'s bigoted view on things.
What is your opinion of being gay? I can't tell from your post. Please let us know what your view of gays really is.
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steve2
Konceptual99, yours is an especially thoughtful and nonreactive post on the topic. Thank you for adding to the discussion after several pages of unhelpful sniping and counter-sniping by some.
You are absolutely right in your observation: JW literature avoids the worst fundamentalist excesses on homosexuality so you'd be hard pressed to detect any overt hate speech in the official JW message.
You are also correct that, at the congregation level, there is an unacknowledged venue for more locally blunt speech about "homos" and "deviants" as I learnt over the years of my youth and young adulthood.
One sister who I had at one time admired for her "spiritual maturity" would bluntly tell other brothers and sisters that her own oldest son ( who I never met - he lived oversess) had "committed the worst of the worst sins by having sexual intercourse with deviant males".
Of course, he repented, returned was reinstated and married a young sister. However, they subsequently separated and divorced after having two children.
He was disfellowshipped a second time. His mother became even more vocal in her personal condemnation and joined in with other sisters and brothers in making very derogatory anti-homosexual comments in answering during meetings, talking about depraved individuals who leave Jehovah's spiritually clean organization. Super-righteous JWs find ways to inveigle their own issues into answering during meetings!
Some of the comments were downright bigoted but the sniggering reaction from those in the hall was palpable. There was a clear sense of a hierarchy of sinfulness with homosexuality being aligned with bestiality and sex with children. As far as I remember, there was no balancing counter- voice showing that the sin of homosexuality was no worse than other sexual sins. This added to my own personal despair when attending meetings at that time. I simply felt condemned for being attracted to my own sex, even though then celibate.
You wouldn't find this low grade commentary in the literature but it was well tolerated at the congregation level.
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purrpurr
My mother can go on hour long rants about how disgusting gays are. She does this in front of non jw's too and I used to tell her how shocked they were by what she said (you could see it in their faces although she never noticed) but my mother thinks she's giving a great witness by her ranting homophobia! I guess in a way she is... An anti witness! -
snugglebunny
My mother can go on hour long rants about how disgusting gays are. She does this in front of non jw's too and I used to tell her how shocked they were by what she said (you could see it in their faces although she never noticed) but my mother thinks she's giving a great witness by her ranting homophobia! I guess in a way she is... An anti witness!
I used to get the same from my JW mother. However, I have to say that I believe much of her dislike was based on the fact that gays are usually impervious to feminine wiles.. :-)
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Room 215
It's not surprising that the treatment of the subject in the Awake! magazine would be less strident -- and milder -- than either the study-edition Watchtower or what's said from the podium... it is, after all, the milder, comparatively more benign public face the WT likes to adopt for general consumption.
AS for tolerating celibate JWs, forget it... they're already on record as having said it's unacceptable, citing "that's what some of you WERE" ... 1 Cor. 6:9
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konceptual99
AS for tolerating celibate JWs, forget it... they're already on record as having said it's unacceptable, citing "that's what some of you WERE" ... 1 Cor. 6:9
If you mean two people living together in a celibate relationship then I would agree this would not be acceptable.
If you mean they don't tolerate single, celibate gay JWs the answer is that they do. Bethel is allegedly full of young men suppressing their natural desires . Quite why anyone who is gay would want to be a Witness is beyond me but no one has to sign a bit of paper when they get baptised to say they no longer have gay thoughts and want to be hetrosexual. In fact the latest Awake makes this clear....
In saying “that is what some of you were,” does the Bible mean that those who stopped engaging in homosexual acts never again experienced any homosexual desires? That could hardly be the case, because the Bible also exhorts: “Keep walking by spirit and you will carry out no fleshly desire.”—Galatians 5:16.
Note that the Bible does not say that a Christian will never experience an improper desire. Rather, it says that he or she will choose not to carry out that desire. Christians learn to bring such desires under control, not dwelling on them to the point of acting on them.—James 1:14, 15. [6]
The Bible thus makes a distinction between inclinations and practices. (Romans 7:16-25) A person who has homosexual leanings can control what he allows his mind to dwell on, just as he would control any other wrong desire, including leanings toward anger, adultery, and greed.—1 Corinthians 9:27; 2 Peter 2:14, 15. -
Billy the Ex-Bethelite
I almost forgot to post this explanation of what Bible based marriage really is: