On her website, Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow posted a newsletter about homosexuality in the Bible. She writes about how her daughter came home from school and told her that one girl in her class has two mommies. “Two mommies? How lucky is she?!” was Gwyneth’s (seamless) response. At the end of her letter, she asks, “What does it actually say in the Bible that would cause people to be upset by my line of thinking?”
Several religious leaders answered her question, and if you have a minute, it’s an interesting read. Here are my favourite quotes:
“‘I will be what I will be,’ is the name God asked Moses to know him by in the book of Exodus. With that as one line of bearing on my thinking, and the steadily increasing revelation of God’s mercy and compassion as the other, I am compelled by my Christianity to refrain from any behaviors or judgments which arrogantly demean the dignity of another human being, or cause him to lose hope.”
-Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal priest
“There are many verses in the Bible that, when read literally, can be misunderstood and misdirected. The kabbalistic understanding is that scripture is meant to be deciphered and interpreted, and anyone practicing spirituality based on a literal understanding of it, according to the Zohar, is a fool.”
Every person has a unique connection to the Creator that can never be extinguished, and every person has a great soul that can manifest important things in our world. To make a person feel less than they are because of something inside themselves, be it faith, race or sexual orientation, is the greatest sin of all.”
-Michael Berg, The Kabbalah Center
“I am proud to say that I belong to a Church that is fully accepting of gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual persons because we believe that God loves all people, no matter what their walk of life is. Of course, there are those who condemn homosexuals and say that they are immoral. There also still exists racism, bigotry, classism and hate of those different from themselves. Does this make them right? Only you can be the judge of that… or is it God who must be the judge of that… what did Jesus say?”
-Father Vincent C Schwahn
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