"I want to be free."

I don’t really think that God even has the time to care about if people are gay like if he’s got a whole world to run there are more important things anyway

And if God is love, he’s not just loving me if I am what he wants; he’s loving me as the person he made me to be, which is a queer person

You can’t say “I love you, and I made you gay but I’m sending you to hell you awful sinner” my dude that doesn’t make sense it’s not like hell has a low population is it

Hell, in Kenneth Davis’s Don’t Know Much About The Bible, there’s a passage that absolutely blows my mind and proves just how much we can misinterpret with simple translation mistakes: 

“In researching the world’s oldest city, for instance, I learned that Joshua’s Jericho is one of the oldest human settlements. It also lies on a major earthquake zone. Could that simple fact of geology have had anything to do with those famous walls tumbling down? Then I discovered that Moses and the tribes of Israel never crossed the Red Sea but escaped from Pharaoh and his chariots across the Sea of Reeds, an uncertain designation which might be one of several Egyptian lakes or a marshy section of the Nile Delta. This mistranslation crept into the Greek Septuagint version and was uncovered by modern scholars with access to old Hebrew manuscripts.”

The bible is one long-ass game of telephone, whispered around the world in dozens if not hundreds of languages, for thousands of years. I have a hard time knowing what my grandpa is talking about, when he starts going on about the technology or practices of his youth, and that was only about 80 years ago, in the same country and in the same language as me. So why every Joe on the streets thinks they can take one or two verses, completely out of context and probably mis-translated several times to boot, and use it to spout propaganda and hatred for an entire group of people will forever be beyond me. 

You guys know that verse in Leviticus that homophobes like to trot out? Well, I’m here to tell you:

They don’t read Hebrew and they don’t know shit.

And now here’s something you probably won’t hear from any of those Fine Christian Folks ™ anytime soon, either:

We do read Hebrew and we still don’t know shit.

Here’s the thing. The most “accurate” word-for-word translation of that verse would say “a man shall not lie with another man; it is forbidden.”

Here’s the issue.

The grammar surrounding “men” in that sentence isn’t correct, and the word I’ve translated as “forbidden” is “toevah,” a word so fucking old we literally don’t know what it meant anymore.

The strange sentence construction suggests that “lie with another man” uses a feminine construction you wouldn’t normally find in a sentence that’s entirely about men, and while “toevah” means “forbidden,” it’s not actually clear what is forbidden. Here’s an incomplete list of possibilities:

Pederasty (adult male/adolescent male sex) is full-stop forbidden, a man sleeping with a male prostitute is full-stop forbidden, a man sleeping with a man as part of any kind of sex magic or fertility ritual is forbidden.

And my rabbi’s personal interpretation, based on the sentence construction: a man shouldn’t sleep with another man in a woman’s bed. (So basically: don’t cheat on your wife with a dude, which is probably treated separately from “don’t commit adultery” because adultery would come with the risk of an illegitimate child.)

You’ll notice none of these involve “ew, you disgusting gays.”

Unless you accept a word-for-word literal translation with zero consideration for the social mores and other tribes surrounding Israel contemporary with the writing of Torah, nothing about this commandment has anything to do with our modern understanding of queer people having committed relationships. Once you start taking the rituals and practices of Israel’s contemporaries into account, it suddenly becomes clear why these prohibitions would have been put into place (sex magic was common in the cult of Ba’al, for example, while pederasty was practically a requirement in Greece).

If you’re just a person out there loving other people of the same gender as you? The Torah says nothing against you. But do you know what our literary tradition does say?

It puts you in the company of Naomi and Ruth.

Ruth is considered the first convert, and her vow to her mother-in-law Naomi (after Ruth’s husband’s death) forms the basis of our modern marriage vows. “Where you go, I shall go, and where you lodge, I shall lodge; your people shall be my people, and your G-d my G-d; and where you die I shall die, and there shall I be buried.” Ruth remarries as prescribed by law at the time, but even when a child is born of that new union, nobody calls it “Ruth’s and Boaz’s child”–they all say a child has been born to Ruth and Naomi.

It’s SO old school but like, fucking amazing???

- funnier than I expected

- like top-notch humour, I’m impressed

- Xena is so sassy

- Surly Burly Warrior with Soft Gooey Centre and Heart Of Gold

- surprisingly good with children, whoda thunk it

- Gabrielle

- Gabrielle omg where do I even begin

- she is the purest of the Cinnamon Rolls

- Angel Pants with Warrior Heart

- 87% smiles and cuddles; 13% smarts; 10% trying to be tough

- “I’m not very good at this horse thing”

- this show is SO GAY WHAT EVEN

- YALL WEREN’T EXAGGERATING

- SO. GAY.

Gabrielle: I bet there’s room for me behind you on that horse

Xena: girl wut

- literally everything Gabrielle says to Xena is like flirting

- ‘best friend’ sure yep cool just gals bein pals right

- the way Gabrielle looks at Xena

- and Xena’s muscles

- Xena’s snarky affection towards Gabrielle

- just kiss already

by you:

An Unfamiliar Tongue - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Stress Relief - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Below Decks - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Honey, But I Always Could Accessorize - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Earning It - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Working Late - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Aural Sex - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Quod Erat Demonstrandum - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV), swan queen - Fandom, Swen [Archive of Our Own]

Dark Swan Queening - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Nostalgiagasms - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

How Regina got the Mayor Gig Back - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Under Her - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

The Function of Muscle - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV), swan queen - Fandom, Swen [Archive of Our Own]

Our Lady of Madge-ic - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Saving the Savior - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Life Swap - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

An Unexpected Culmination - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Taste - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Ice Bucket - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Green-Eyed Monster - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Magical Hands - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Learning Curves - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Kink: A Choose Your Own Adventure - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Making Amends - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

A Tempest in the Tearoom - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Limits - angstbot - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

by Scarimor

Bad Mayor, Bad Cop - scarimor - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Good Queen, Good Thief - scarimor - Once Upon a Time (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

—-

Tilda Swinton risked arrest waving a rainbow flag in front of the Kremlin in violation of Russia’s new homosexual propaganda bill. And she wants everyone who can to reblog it in solidarity.

Photo by: @vetkovskaya.photo (instagram)