friendly reminder that yes actually it is hateful to call something that is a part of a person that they can not control a sin. don't let Christians gaslight you into thinking they don't mean any harm by saying you being gay is a sin.

So in general the claim that Christians will make these days is not "being gay is a sin." They know that's a trap. Instead a lot of them will tell you it's totally fine to be gay as long as you don't act on it. This is also homophobic, but it requires a different strategy to counter than the older claim (which, realistically, a lot of them do still think and just don't day because they know they'll lose that argument).

apparently this.is.kosher is a fake and just cosplays as a chasid?? wtf 😒

For those who don't know, there is an Instagram account called this.is.kosher. The account is supposedly by an openly gay chassidic man who is trying to normalize and create a safe space for LGBT orthodox Jews. His bio is "I'm here to be the voice for those who can't make their voices heard." Overall, pretty positive message and goal.

Except recently someone who knows him came out and said it is all fake, "Yaakov Levy" (his fake name) is all a character to get followers. He isn't chassidic. People found his personal Instagram account and he doesn't dress chassidic and his peyos are fake and he doesn't even wear tzitzit or a kippah, and you can hear that he doesn't have a chassidic accent when he speaks. People are alleging that he was making fun of queer jews, that he isn't even gay himself, etc. I'm not here to speculate on his sexuality with no proof and I don't think that's appropriate, but we do have proof that he isn't chassidic. In his recent story he didn't refute the allegations and instead stated he just wanted to make a difference.

I don't really know how I feel about it. He did benefit off of an identity he doesn't have, but at the same time I wonder if the impact is a net good, to show people that queer orthodox Jews exist. But now to find he isn't even orthodox is.. hard to swallow.

Yeah I just learned the news a few hours ago, I've been meaning on making a post about it with reciepts because as a queer Jew who grew up Orthodox, this is a huge betrayal. I'm too busy to make a full post, but basically, in summary:

Yaakov Levy is not his real name. His real name is Erez Oved. Yaakov Levy is a character created in a music video he was in about a year ago. The music video is about homophobia in the Charedi community. As far as we know, and this is all developing information, he was never Charedi.

Based on the fact that Yaakov Levy, a gay Charedi man, is a character in a music video, I believe there are more people responsible for this deception. There are other people featured in his videos, particularly a woman he claims is his sister and a woman he claims is his mother. I don't know yet if they are actually his family members, but I doubt it at this point and suspect they are also actors. I have been trying to do some amateur sleuthing to figure out who they are, but again, my personal life is very busy so I haven't found much.

My issue with This.Is.Kosher is that his content, now that we know he's not actually Charedi (he is actually gay, though), is dangerous.

Why is it dangerous?

It misrepresents what Charedi life is like. While I'm sure there are plenty of Charedi parents and siblings who are supportive of their queer loved ones, the fact of the matter is that it is dangerous to be queer in certain Charedi communities, especially in Israel.

The political climate in Israel is becoming increasingly right-wing. No anti-LGBT legislation has been passed yet, but it's an ever present concern. Homophobia in Charedi communities is a huge issue, and content This.Is.Kosher presents a lie. It would be one thing if Yaakov Levy was real, because then he would be speaking about his experiences. But Yaakov Levy isn't real, Erez Oved is. And he is presenting a world where an openly queer Charedi man is 100% safe and comfortable in his community, when the reality is that a situation like that is rare.

And the thing is, there are queer Orthodox and even Charedi people who have supportive families and live their truth within their communities, but that is not the norm yet. How can we expect homophobia to be taken seriously when Orthodox Jews in denial can just point to This.Is.Kosher and say "homophobia isn't a problem in our community! Look at him!".

Erez Oved is also claiming to be a voice for queer Orthodox Jews, when he is not Orthodox. He is speaking over the voices of actual queer Orthodox Jews, to talk about their experiences, good or bad.

And there's also been evidence that he's been using his This.Is.Kosher account to solicit donations for Yaakov Levy, a gay Charedi man, who isn't even real.

I don't know what Erez Oved's intentions were. Maybe he had good intentions, maybe he didn't, but at the moment he is denying everything on This.Is.Kosher's instagram, and not taking accountibility.

Screenshots:

And here is a link to his Music Video

(goyim I'm going to ask you to refrain from adding your two cents on the matter)

[id in alt text]

Jasvir Singh (via indizombie)

Haram police need to worry about their own holes and go jump off a bridge fr

I'm just done of homophobic Muslims policing every single thing we do or say as if they're not the biggest hypocrites out there.

Liek if none of what you're saying comes from goodwill, what are even opening your stinky mouth.

"you're committing zina" "don't act on your feelings, it's a test" "why are you trying to make it less haram"

GET OFF OUR DICKS and worry about your own Deen. You wouldn't last a second in our place.

Other people have talked about it before but genuinely I'm so tired of seeing history rewritten wrt Queerness in India. Seems like once the dust settled on 377 people (including scholars!) want to act like homophobia and transphobia was never an "Indian problem" to begin with.

Section 377 which criminalised any sexual activity "against the order of nature" (and has since been taken down in 2018) was introduced by the British government when they colonised India. Yes, that is true.

There are depictions of queerness (and things that can be stretched to be interpreted as queer) in Hindu mythology and in a few (FEW, very few) temples. This is also true.

However scholars looking to sound progressive by co-opting the language of post-colonialism have created a living myth of an India that was naturally welcome to queer people, was consequitively corrupted by the Naturally Conservative British People, and has fought as some unified front of Indian Society (against who?) to get the progressiveness back and ridding our glorious country of the Western Evil of Section 377. And let me just include that a lot of these scholars are either upper caste Hindus in Indian universities or non-resident Indians/ people of Indian descent in other nations who have been severely out of touch with the struggles at home.

These kind of perspectives completely erase 1) how very conservative, queerphobic (for lack of a better word), and misogynistic Indian society at large and Hindu values in particular still are and 2) the actual struggle of queer people to get the rights we have today and the ones we are still fighting tooth and nail for.

It seems to be a perspective that happily wishes to forget uncountable cases of conversion therapy, conversion rape, honour killings, and abuse in the name of our "sanskar" (values that are v specifically culturally lifted out of Hindu thought and texts). It happily forgets that depictions of goddesses exist in this culture right alongside tales of grave violence to women who step out of line - these depictions aren't "representation". Vishnu being born in a particular incarnation as a woman is not trans rep. The Hijra community being considered "auspicious" is not trans rep, that's a highly marginalised group that is spurned and locked out of employment and othered away from communities at all times except when they are used tokenistically to assure ourselves that they bring with them some sort of higher blessings. Meanwhile all the good from the NALSA Judgement (like the very basic right of trans people to self identification) has been stripped away by the Trans Act.

Hinduism is not a beacon of progressiveness. And with Hindutva and authoritarianism on the rise in our country this is a very dangerous perspective to align oneself with. Hatred for queerness, hatred for women with agency, hatred for anything that escapes the norms of caste and class - these aren't External British Evils that we as some vague idea of 'Indians' have gotten together to bravely defeat. These were always an awful part of our culturally Hindu (and nominally secular) society and they continue to be a part of it. It's not in the past. The struggle is still here and it was always queer people, dalits, women, and other marginalised groups leading liberation movements against great backlash from our fellow citizens.

Don't erase those struggles and don't erase the pervasiveness of this bigotry as it still exists today. A nationalistic rewriting of history that gives you something to be proud of is not worth losing these fights all over again. It is certainly not worth acting like we were always safe here.

Adam and Eve

I have a genuine question. Why do people say, “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”. I mean come on. Adam and Eve aren’t exactly couple goals. They got humanity kicked out of paradise. Eve supposedly manipulated Adam into a decision that was bad for him. They were literally not couple goals at all. Also does that mean being a lesbian is okay? I have questions.

The main reason they say it is that it’s quick, easy, and rhymes, but on a theological level the idea is that because God made the first humans as a single man and woman that we can therefore know that God’s will is for all marriages to be between a single man and a woman. I don’t think it follows either, but that’s what they’re alluding to.

I do want to be clear that my stance on the Bible is that both the writers of the Tanakh (specifically the writer(s) of Leviticus) and New Testament (specifically Paul and Jude) condemned homosexuality; I just don’t think the story of Sodom is a justifiable place to find that condemnation. I also don’t think that as Christians and Jews we’re beholden to the opinions of those writers.

@garrrusvakarian

Sure, so I’m speaking from a Jewish perspective here, not a Christian one, and more specifically from a progressive frame of reference. The Torah is our heritage and we aren’t free to ignore it, but we are free to interpret it, contextualize it, and introduce new ideas that challenge what it’s likely the original authors intended when they wrote it. The Torah, as handed down to us by our tradition, has a rule against male homosexual sex. We have to acknowledge that that rule is there. What we do with the fact that that rule is there, however, is up to us.

Note that although most Orthodox Jews would not apply that idea to the Levitical prohibition on male homosexual sex, they absolutely do apply it in other instances; most significantly Deuteronomy 21:18-21, but there are other instances.

So the story of Sodom (Genesis 19) should be read parallel to the story of a certain Levite (Judges 19). Both feature roughly the same events, but I especially want to compare Genesis 19:6-8

with Judges 19:23-24

In both passages the host implores the townspeople not to perform a wicked act, but in Judges it’s made abundantly clear why the act is wicked: “this man is [his] guest.” Hospitality was taken seriously in the Ancient Near East, hence both hosts are willing to sacrifice their daughters (and in the Judges story the Levite’s concubine) to the mob to keep harm from their guests. Now, it’s entirely possible that the fact that the men of Sodom and the Benjamine town wanted to rape a man added to the depravity, but the fundamental issue is protection of guests.

Compare also Ezekiel 16:49-50′s explanation of why Sodom was destroyed:

If you want to add a New Testament perspective, the Epistle of Jude is probably your best biblical basis for the sin of Sodom being homosexual sex rather than violating hospitality

Christianity is taking hypocrisy to a whole new level!

By the way Jesus never said a thing against homosexuality. The only claims against it are in the old testament, mostly in Leviticus book. The very same book that forbids pork, tattoos etc as it's mentioned in the original post.

There are clobber verses in the New Testament, the most unambiguous of which is Romans 1:26-27:

It’s noteworthy for being the only clobber verse in the Bible to address female same-sex sexual relations.

coming from a christian with some pretty conservative views, i’m so sick of people’s, “God hates gays” signs. no he doesn’t. You do. Do you really think God, who spoke of loving unconditionally, who even loved and forgave multiple people who commited murder, is going to hate gay people? Do you know what Jesus, who is the perfect human manifestation of God did? he went around feeding hungry and curing sick people. He didn’t go around wasting people’s time by waving stupid signs no one cares about. Why don’t you do that? probably cause it’s too hard, too much effort for you. What are you planning on accomplishing anyway huh? Do you think gay people are gonna be like “huh god hates gays? Never thought of it that way” No. in fact, every single gay person I’ve met is way closer to the loving example Jesus was than you are. You do realize the point of christianity is to bring people closer to God right? Unconditional love right? You’re only pushing people further away. what do you really think you’re going to accomplish? Nothing. Get lost. Go home.

In a lot of ways, I find the “God hates gays” waving sign homophobes less difficult to deal with than the ones who pretend not to be homophobic. They don’t claim to support us only to turn around and reveal that that support is conditional on our not pursuing gay sex and relationships. They say God loves us, but then tell us that if we aren’t celibate we risk burning in hell for otherwise.

Ultimately, both believe the same thing, i.e. that God believes our preferred sexual relationships are an abomination and that we must desist from them in order to be reconciled to God. But only one does so with a smile on their face and with the consolation that they aren’t as bad as those other homophobes.

Just watched a video about the gay panic defense and stuff and I had to see a video of a homophobe from a Baptist Church holding a sign saying "thank god for aids", as if aids isn't killing straight people as well. Anyone who thinks it's perfectly normal or justifiable to hold a sign like that should be considered a terrorist.

That would have been the Westboro Baptist Church, a single-family cult that more or less no longer exists. They deliberately courted publicity by protesting funerals and waving signs (originally the funerals of gay men who’d died from AIDS, but later they started picketing the funerals of soldiers waving signs saying “Thank God for dead soldiers” and that got them a lot more press). In terms of actual harm done they were fairly minimal, except inasmuch as other Christian homophobes could point to them to minimize their own homophobia.

“To be clear, what I am saying is that theology that teaches that heterosexuality is the only sexual orientation acceptable to God—and that all LGBTQ persons must either seek to change their sexuality via therapy/prayer or else remain permanently celibate if they are unsuccessful—is violence.

‘But what about—‘

No. Your theology is not special. You have not found the one magical theology that rejects LGBTQ persons and relationships but isn’t violence. And yes, I have to include ‘and relationships.’ Some people will claim to be affirming of LGBTQ persons as long as they don’t have a sexual or romantic relationship. That’s not affirming, and that’s still violence.”

Emily Joy Allison in “#ChurchToo, How Purity Culture Upholds Abuse and How to Find Healing”

At this point “LGBTQ persons and relationships” isn’t enough. You have to spell it out: “LGBTQ persons, relationships, and fucking.”