Nothing Holy About Hatred? Not quite…
The online campaign Nothing Holy About Hatred takes a faith-based approach to combat homophobia. But, Brian Pellot argues, hatred is enshrined in many religious texts.
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church hold anti-gay signs at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia (Photo by Reuters/Kevin Lamarque).
Nothing Holy About Hatred is an online campaign that brings together people of all faiths (and none) to stand against homophobia. The campaign pledge, which has been signed by faith leaders across Britain and the world, states: “I believe there’s Nothing Holy About Hatred. I am against homophobia, and the bullying, violence and damage it causes have no place in my community.”
I too am against homophobia, violence and hatred directed at any group, but I can’t sign this pledge. Hatred and homophobia have no place within our communities, but they assume a prominent place in many religious texts. Ignoring this fact by claiming there’s nothing holy about hatred is a lie.
Chapters 18 and 20 of Leviticus, the third book of the Hebrew Bible integral to both Christianity and Judaism, state: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination” and: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
Verse 16 of Surat An-Nisa in the Quran states: “And the two [men] who commit [unlawful sexual intercourse] among you, dishonor them both. But if they repent and correct themselves, leave them alone. Indeed, Allah is ever Accepting of repentance and Merciful.” The Quran does not call for death in this case, but it’s hardly accepting of homosexuality.
Nothing Holy About Hatred is a noble campaign to combat homophobia, but as the above quotes make clear, it is built on an entirely false premise. The founding texts of these three Abrahamic faiths preach love and compassion, but they also preach violence, hatred and discrimination. To say there is nothing holy about hatred is to deny the fundamental texts on which these religions are based and still practised today.
I suspect this campaign roots itself in religion because it wants to challenge popular perceptions and attitudes within faith communities that claim to oppose homosexuality on religious grounds. Such attitudes are more likely a result of social and political circumstances than specific religious dogmas. Appealing to basic human rights, or indeed free expression, rather than people’s faiths might therefore be more productive in combating homophobia.
Perhaps I’m being too harsh. In its own words, Nothing Holy About Hatred wants to “encourage faith leaders to talk about these issues within their own communities, and aim[s] to give people of faith a voice in this conversation.” Its aims and objectives include promoting “an alternative ‘middle ground’ narrative to the wider community regarding the issue of faith and sexual orientation”. Giving people a voice and a platform for discussion is what Free Speech Debate is all about. It’s the campaign’s decision to ignore homophobic and hate-filled religious texts I find troubling. Striking a middle ground by ignoring historical and fundamental realities might be convenient, but it’s also disingenuous.
If texts need to be ignored or reinterpreted to fit modern society, as Nothing Holy About Hatred seems to imply, why rely on them at all? I loved the Hunger Games but I don’t use the violent fictional trilogy as my guiding moral compass. Echoing our seventh draft principle, I “respect the believer but not necessarily the content of the belief”. I respect Nothing Holy About Hatred’s mission but do not respect the campaign’s decision to gloss over homophobic religious verses and thereby imply there truly is nothing holy about hatred. On a side note, I believe homophobic speech should be protected as long as it does not directly incite violence. I apply the same logic to speech that criticises people’s religious and political beliefs.
Religious texts are open for debate, subject to different translations and often interpreted to fit one’s beliefs or to advance social or political agendas. Feel free to add faith-based references, interpretations and arguments about homosexuality in the comments section below.
I’m struggling to see the value of this article for the question of free speech. It seems the author is frustrated at people of faith not being homophobic enough, but he doesn’t touch on whether hate speech should be allowed until the very end, when the author writes it should be protected so long as it does not incite violence. These are two separate questions and the focus of the article seems to be on the former: whether people of faith should concentrate more on Leviticus 18 & 20 and 4:16 of the Qur’an, and realise that their understandings of holiness are necessarily linked to hatred of homosexuality.
Just as how the topic is introduced by the author with a photo of the most extreme anti-gay protesters in right-wing America, there seems to be an underlying determination to categorise people of faith as homophobic. If there was any understanding of religion in this article it would engage with faiths as traditions of thought and not single-sentence quotes.
The real issue here is whether people of faith have as much freedom to express plurality of opinion as those who are “independently-minded” (e.g. those who are able to see how faiths are as fictional as the Hunger Games). On this question, whilst it may appear at first that those who form their moral compass separate to any philosophical, moral or theological tradition are the more free and the more rational, really both types of people are equally capable of rational discourse and often have equally interesting things to say. Even those people who follow a religion are capable of independent thought.