Defunct
103-533: Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other The Chalcedon Foundation is an American Christian Reconstructionist organization founded by Rousas John Rushdoony in 1965. Named for the Council of Chalcedon , it has also included theologians such as Gary North , who later founded his own organization,
206-402: A Prussian anti- sodomy law . In 1886, the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing used the terms homosexual and heterosexual in his book Psychopathia Sexualis . Krafft-Ebing's book was so popular among both laymen and doctors that the terms heterosexual and homosexual became the most widely accepted terms for sexual orientation. As such, the current use of the term has its roots in
309-616: A board member of Rushdoony's Chalcedon Foundation for approximately 15 years before resigning in 1996. Ahmanson said he had left the Chalcedon board and "does not embrace all of Rushdoony's teachings." Time magazine covered the Ahmansons in their 2005 profiles of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America, classifying them as "the financiers." Former American oil billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt also made heavy contributions to
412-561: A conspiracist text by the John Birch Society author, Larry Abraham . North went as far as declaring that the enemies of the United States were “a conspiracy of super-rich and super-powerful insiders.” The Chalcedon Foundation advocates homeschooling , believing "that the right place for a child's education is his home, and the right teachers are his parents". Rushdoony, a staunch advocate of homeschooling, viewed it as
515-414: A contemporary construction of sexuality that would have been foreign to their times. Other scholars see continuity instead. In social science, there has been a dispute between "essentialist" and "constructionist" views of homosexuality. The debate divides those who believe that terms such as "gay" and "straight" refer to objective, culturally invariant properties of persons from those who believe that
618-654: A culture that did not want it. Kayser points out that the Bible advocates justice, and that biblical punishments prescribed for crimes are the maximum allowable to maintain justice and not the only available option, because lesser punishments are authorized as well. Rousas Rushdoony wrote in The Institutes of Biblical Law : "The heresy of democracy has since [the days of colonial New England] worked havoc in church and state" and: "Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies", and he said elsewhere that "Christianity
721-463: A death sentence would include murder, homosexuality, adultery, incest , lying about one's virginity , bestiality , witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy , public blasphemy, false prophesying , kidnapping , rape , and bearing false witness in a capital case. However, Greg Bahnsen points out that such a system would only be possible if the culture at large were a Christian culture, and that the force of government could not be used to impose Christianity on
824-525: A free adult male and a free adolescent, was valued for its pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, though occasionally blamed for causing disorder. Plato praised its benefits in his early writings but in his late works proposed its prohibition. Aristotle , in the Politics , dismissed Plato's ideas about abolishing homosexuality (2.4); he explains that barbarians like the Celts accorded it
927-578: A handful of accounts by Arab travelers to Europe during the mid-1800s. Two of these travelers, Rifa'ah al-Tahtawi and Muhammad as-Saffar, show their surprise that the French sometimes deliberately mistranslated love poetry about a young boy, instead referring to a young female, to maintain their social norms and morals. Israel is considered the most tolerant country in the Middle East and Asia to homosexuals, with Tel Aviv being named "the gay capital of
1030-402: A homosexual orientation (the other is sheep). Many gay and lesbian people are in committed same-sex relationships. These relationships are equivalent to heterosexual relationships in essential psychological respects. Homosexual relationships and acts have been admired as well as condemned throughout recorded history, depending on the form they took and the culture in which they occurred. Since
1133-536: A much more informal, unpublicized movement among British intellectuals and writers, led by such figures as Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds . Beginning in 1894 with Homogenic Love , Socialist activist and poet Edward Carpenter wrote a string of pro-homosexual articles and pamphlets, and "came out" in 1916 in his book My Days and Dreams . In 1900, Elisar von Kupffer published an anthology of homosexual literature from antiquity to his own time, Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur . There are
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#17327879101541236-461: A negative connotation . Gay and lesbian are the most common alternatives. The first letters are frequently combined to create the initialism LGBT (sometimes written as GLBT), in which B and T refer to bisexual and transgender people. Gay especially refers to male homosexuality, but may be used in a broader sense to refer to all LGBTQ people. In the context of sexuality, lesbian refers only to female homosexuality. The word lesbian
1339-465: A person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions." Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality , homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum . Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor biological theories . There
1442-532: A punishment but must be confessed to the monastery. These codes apply to monks only and not to the general population. The Kama Sutra written in India around 200 AD also described numerous homosexual sex acts positively. There were no legal restrictions on homosexuality or transsexuality for the general population prior to early modern period and colonialism, however certain dharmic moral codes forbade sexual misconduct (of both heterosexual and homosexual nature) among
1545-482: A role in promoting the trend toward explicitly Christian politics in the larger American Christian right . This is the wider trend to which some critics refer, generally, as dominionism . Also, they allegedly have an amount of influence which is disproportionate to their numbers among advocates of the growth of the Christian homeschooling movement and other Christian education movements that seek independence from
1648-642: A special honor (2.6.6), while the Cretans used it to regulate the population (2.7.5). Some scholars argue that there are examples of homosexual love in ancient literature, such as Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad . Little is known of female homosexuality in antiquity. Sappho , born on the island of Lesbos , was included by later Greeks in the canonical list of nine lyric poets . The adjectives deriving from her name and place of birth ( Sapphic and Lesbian) came to be applied to female homosexuality beginning in
1751-742: A state could criminalize sodomy , but, in 2003, overturned itself in Lawrence v. Texas and thereby legalized homosexual activity throughout the United States of America . It is only since the 2010s that census forms and political conditions have facilitated the visibility and enumeration of same-sex relationships. Same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 to all 50 states in 2015, through various state court rulings, state legislation, direct popular votes ( referendums and initiatives ), and federal court rulings. In East Asia , same-sex love has been referred to since
1854-427: A way to combat the intentionally secular nature of the U.S. public school system. He vigorously attacked progressive school reformers such as Horace Mann and John Dewey and argued for the dismantling of the state's influence in education in three works: Intellectual Schizophrenia (a general and concise study of education), The Messianic Character of American Education (a history and castigation of public education in
1957-542: Is Genesis 1:26–28, in which God declares that man shall have dominion over all the earth. This is seen as a mandate for believers to create both a Christian government and a Christian culture . It has been primarily associated with Rushdoony's Reconstructionism movement, as espoused by the Chalcedon Foundation. Rushdoony himself supported the John Birch Society , while North wrote the epilogue to
2060-598: Is a Greek and Latin hybrid , with the first element derived from Greek ὁμός homos , "same" (not related to the Latin homo , "man", as in Homo sapiens ), thus connoting sexual acts and affections between members of the same sex, including lesbianism. The first known appearance of homosexual in print is found in an 1868 letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs by the Austrian-born novelist Karl-Maria Kertbeny . arguing against
2163-766: Is a far more neutral and better method of civil government than a direct democracy, stating "[t]he [American] Constitution was designed to perpetuate a Christian order". Rushdoony argues that the Constitution's purpose was to protect religion from the federal government and to preserve "states' rights." Douglas W. Kennard, a Professor of Theology and Philosophy at the Houston Graduate School of Theology , wrote with regard to Christian reconstructionism, that Christians of non-Calvinist traditions, such as some "Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, [and] Orthodox", would be "under threat of capital punishment as fostered by
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#17327879101542266-541: Is a natural and normal variation in human sexuality and is not in and of itself a source of negative psychological effects. There is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation . The most common terms for homosexual people are lesbian for females and gay for males , but the term gay also commonly refers to both homosexual females and males. Other common labels that include gay people are LGBTQ and queer . The percentage of people who are gay or lesbian and
2369-466: Is also a word referring to same-sex love, homophilia . Some synonyms for same-sex attraction or sexual activity include men who have sex with men or MSM (used in the medical community when specifically discussing sexual activity) and homoerotic (referring to works of art). Pejorative terms in English include queer , faggot , fairy , poof , poofter and homo . Beginning in
2472-399: Is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy ," and characterized democracy as "the great love of the failures and cowards of life". He nevertheless repeatedly expressed his opposition to any sort of violent revolution and advocated instead the gradual reformation (often termed "regeneration" in his writings) of society from the bottom up, beginning with
2575-450: Is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation than social ones, especially for males. A major hypothesis implicates the prenatal environment , specifically the organizational effects of hormones on the fetal brain. There is no substantive evidence which suggests parenting or early childhood experiences play a role in developing a sexual orientation. Scientific research shows that homosexuality
2678-432: Is contrasted with the "autonomous" dominion of mankind in rebellion against God. Homosexuality Homosexuality is sexual attraction , romantic attraction , or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender . As a sexual orientation , homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It "also refers to
2781-531: Is derived from the name of the Greek island Lesbos , where the poet Sappho wrote largely about her emotional relationships with young women. Although early writers also used the adjective homosexual to refer to any single-sex context (such as an all-girls school), today the term is used exclusively in reference to sexual attraction, activity, and orientation. The term homosocial is now used to describe single-sex contexts that are not specifically sexual. There
2884-504: Is desperately needed today if the church is to be faithful to the task of gospel witness entrusted to her in the present age… It is only as the church… puts aside the lust for worldly influence and power – that she will be a positive presence in society. Rodney Clapp wrote that reconstructionism is an anti-democratic movement. In an April 2009 article in Christianity Today about theologian and writer Douglas Wilson ,
2987-485: Is normative for the civil magistrate and government in the New Covenant era". He views their denial of the threefold distinction between moral, civil, and ceremonial law as representing one of the severe flaws in the reconstructionist hermeneutic. The late Professor Meredith Kline , whose own theology has influenced the method of several reconstructionist theologians, adamantly maintained that reconstructionism made
3090-620: Is promoted by the Chalcedon Foundation. The book is a commentary on the Ten Commandments , and provides an outline of a program for establishing a Christian theocracy . According to American journalist Frederick Clarkson , reconstructionism has played an important role in shaping the contemporary Christian Right citing that Reconstructionists who have already moved into positions of significant power and influence are two directors of Chalcedon Foundation, philanthropist Howard Ahmanson and political consultant Wayne C. Johnson, epitomizing
3193-523: Is the traditional Calvinist view of the relationship between the Old Covenant and Christianity . Christian reconstructionism is closely linked with postmillennial eschatology and the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til . Christian reconstructionists advocate a theonomic government and libertarian economic principles. They maintain a distinction of spheres of authority between self, family, church, and state. For example,
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3296-796: The Civil Marriage Act , which legalised same-sex marriage across Canada. Canada has been referred to as the most gay-friendly country in the world, ranked first in the Gay Travel Index chart in 2018, and among the five safest in Forbes magazine in 2019. It was also ranked first in Asher & Lyric's LGBTQ+ Danger Index in a 2021 update. In 1986, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that
3399-672: The Aztecs , Mayas , Quechuas , Moches , Zapotecs , the Incas , and the Tupinambá of Brazil. The Spanish conquerors were horrified to discover sodomy openly practiced among native peoples, and attempted to crush it out by subjecting the berdaches (as the Spanish called them) under their rule to severe penalties, including public execution , burning and being torn to pieces by dogs. The Spanish conquerors talked extensively of sodomy among
3502-560: The Chalcedon Report was renamed Faith for All of Life . The Chalcedon Foundation describes itself as a Christian educational organization oriented toward promoting Christian reconstruction , emphasizing the Cultural or Dominion Mandate . The Foundation's founder, Rousas John Rushdoony, who is known as “father of Christian Reconstruction” theology, advocated the imposition of Old Testament laws. Newsweek magazine described
3605-635: The Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Jesus in all aspects of life. In keeping with the biblical cultural mandate , reconstructionists advocate for theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continued applicability. These include the death penalty not only for murder , but also for idolatry , homosexuality , adultery , witchcraft and blasphemy . Most Calvinists reject Christian reconstructionism and hold to classical covenant theology , which
3708-462: The Criminal Code in 1969 to provide that anal sex between consenting adults in private (defined as only two persons) was not a criminal offence. In advocating for the law, the then-Minister of Justice, Pierre Trudeau , said: "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." In 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is a protected personal characteristic under
3811-631: The Duke of Buckingham , served to highlight the issue, including in anonymously authored street pamphlets: "The world is chang'd I know not how, For men Kiss Men, not Women now;...Of J. the First and Buckingham: He, true it is, his Wives Embraces fled, To slabber his lov'd Ganimede" ( Mundus Foppensis, or The Fop Display'd , 1691). Love Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson
3914-543: The Great Commission as a command to exercise that authority in his name, bringing all things (including societies and cultures) into subjection under his commands. Rousas Rushdoony, for example, interpreted the Great Commission as a republication of the "creation mandate", referring to Genesis 1:28 Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of
4017-569: The List of capital crimes in the Bible ). Christian reconstructionism's founder, Rousas Rushdoony , wrote in The Institutes of Biblical Law (the founding document of reconstructionism) that Old Testament law should be applied to modern society, and he advocates the reinstatement of the Mosaic law 's penal sanctions such as stoning. Under such a system, the list of civil crimes which carried
4120-505: The death penalty for homosexuals, opposed interracial marriage , denied the Holocaust , and included "incorrigible children" as a group of people deserving of the death penalty. Christian Reconstructionist Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of R. J. Rushdoony , Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on
4223-416: The law and the church established sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature . The condemnation of anal sex between males, however, predates Christian belief. Throughout the majority of Christian history , most Christian theologians and denominations have considered homosexual behavior as immoral or sinful . Condemnation was frequent in ancient Greece; for instance,
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4326-545: The 1990s, some of these have been reclaimed as positive words by gay men and lesbians, as in the usage of queer studies , queer theory , and even the popular American television program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy . The word homo occurs in many other languages without the pejorative connotations it has in English. As with ethnic slurs and racial slurs , the use of these terms can still be highly offensive. The range of acceptable use for these terms depends on
4429-480: The 19th century. Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and both genders. The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various females, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate. In Ancient Rome , the young male body remained a focus of male sexual attention, but relationships were between older free men and slaves or freed youths who took
4532-399: The Bible is God's standard of morality ... in all points of history ... and for all societies, Christian and non-Christian alike... It so happens that Rushdoony, Bahnsen, and North understood that sooner.' He added, 'There are a lot of us floating around in Christian leadership—James Kennedy is one of them—who don't go all the way with the theonomy thing, but who want to rebuild America based on
4635-462: The Bible.'" Michael Horton of Westminster Seminary California has warned against the seductiveness of power-religion. The Christian rhetoric of the movement is weak, he argues, against the logic of its authoritarian and legalistic program, which will always drive reconstructionism toward sub-Christian ideas about sin, and the perfectibility of human nature (such as to imagine that, if Christians are in power, they will not be inclined to do evil). On
4738-590: The Chalcedon Foundation as "a think tank of the Religious Right, including the Moral Majority ." Rushdoony himself claimed that his movement had 20 million followers, although not all of them are members of an organization. Chalcedon Foundation roots in the late 1960s evolved from Rushdoony's career as an Orthodox Presbyterian pastor. Rushdoony, and a handful of Ph.D.s and ex-seminarians wrote books and articles that were not especially popular at
4841-569: The Chalcedon Foundation was designated an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The Chalcedon Foundation promotes Christian Reconstruction and calls for the "imposition of Old Testament law on America and the world." According to the SPLC, this "embraces the most draconian of religious views", being "opposed to modern notions of equality, democracy or tolerance." The SPLC also stated that Rushdoony supported
4944-428: The Chalcedon Foundation. Key members of the Chalcedon Foundation over the years have included Gary North , Greg Bahnsen , David Chilton , Gary DeMar , Kenneth Gentry , and Andrew Sandlin . North has defined his politics as Neo-Puritanism. Rushdoony died February 8, 2001, and was succeeded by his son Mark Rushdoony, who continues to run the organization. In 2004, Ross House Books merged with Chalcedon, and in 2005,
5047-611: The Christian Reconstructionism movement which "believes Christians must take control of society for 1,000 years before the Second Coming of Christ can be achieved." Rushdoony believed the Bible should be adopted as law, including Scriptures advocating the death penalty for homosexuality , striking or cursing a parent, adultery, and lying. Rushdoony developed and articulated Christian Reconstructionism in his book The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), which
5150-568: The Institute for Christian Economics. The Chalcedon Foundation provides educational material in the form of books, newsletter reports and various electronic media, toward advancing the theological teachings of Rushdoony's Christian Reconstructionism movement. It is notable for its role in the influence of Christianity on politics in the U.S. and has been described as "a think tank of the Religious Right ." Rushdoony's son Mark now heads
5253-754: The Middle East" and considered one of the most gay friendly cities in the world. The annual Pride Parade in support of homosexuality takes place in Tel Aviv. On the other hand, many governments in the Middle East often ignore, deny the existence of, or criminalize homosexuality. Homosexuality is illegal in almost all Muslim countries. Same-sex intercourse officially carries the death penalty in several Muslim nations: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania , northern Nigeria , and Yemen . Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , during his 2007 speech at Columbia University , asserted that there were no gay people in Iran. However,
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#17327879101545356-581: The Riddle of Man-Manly Love. In 1867, he became the first self-proclaimed homosexual person to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws. Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis , published in 1896, challenged theories that homosexuality was abnormal, as well as stereotypes , and insisted on
5459-613: The U.S.), and The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum (a parent-oriented pedagogical statement), each of which are still promoted by the Chalcedon Foundation. In Harsh Truth About Public Schools published by the Chalcedon Foundation, writer and attorney Bruce N. Shortt, who homeschooled his own children, writes of the "dishonorable conduct, degenerating academic standards, and defensive bureaucracy that are jeopardizing America's future, courtesy of teacher unions' self-interest and increasingly derelict parents". In 2005,
5562-592: The ancient world. However, there were diverse sexual practices that varied in acceptance depending on time and place. In ancient Greece, the pattern of adolescent boys engaging in sexual practices with older males did not constitute a homosexual identity in the modern sense since such relations were seen as phases in life, not permanent orientations, since later on the younger partners would commonly marry females and reproduce. Other scholars argue that there are significant continuities between ancient and modern homosexuality. In cultures influenced by Abrahamic religions ,
5665-403: The broader 19th-century tradition of personality taxonomy. Many modern style guides in the U.S. recommend against using homosexual as a noun, instead using gay man or lesbian . Similarly, some recommend completely avoiding usage of homosexual as it has a negative, clinical history and because the word only refers to one's sexual behavior (as opposed to romantic feelings) and thus it has
5768-477: The cause in a neutral/scientific manner. Numerous artworks and literary works from this period also describe homosexuality. The Pali Cannon, written in Sri Lanka between 600 BC and 100 BC, states that sexual relations, whether of homosexual or of heterosexual nature, is forbidden in the monastic code, and states that any acts of soft homosexual sex (such as masturbation and interfumeral sex) does not entail
5871-569: The classical pattern of Greece and Rome. But even as many of the male population were engaging in same-sex relationships, the authorities, under the aegis of the Officers of the Night court, were prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning a good portion of that population. From the second half of the 13th century, death was the punishment for male homosexuality in most of Europe. The relationships of socially prominent figures, such as King James I and
5974-410: The context and speaker. Conversely, gay , a word originally embraced by homosexual men and women as a positive, affirmative term (as in gay liberation and gay rights ), came into widespread pejorative use among young people in the early 2000s. The American LGBT rights organization GLAAD advises the media to avoid using the term homosexual to describe gay people or same-sex relationships as
6077-538: The context of the giving of the law to the redemptive community of the Old Testament. This constitutes an approach to the nature of the civil law very different from Calvin and the rest of the Reformed tradition, which sees the civil law as God's application of his eternal standards to the particular exigencies of his people." Duncan rejects the reconstructionists' insistence that "the Old Testament civil case law
6180-669: The contrary, Horton and others maintain, God's law can, often has been, and will be put to evil uses by Christians and others, in the state, in churches, in the marketplace, and in families; and these crimes are aggravated, because to oppose a wrong committed through abuse of God's law, a critic must bear being labeled an enemy of God's law. J. Ligon Duncan of the Department of Systematic Theology of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi , warns that "Theonomy, in gross violation of biblical patterns and common sense, ignores
6283-589: The critical term "dominionism" with this movement. As an ideological form of dominionism, reconstructionism is sometimes held up as the most typical form of dominion theology. The Protestant theologian Francis Schaeffer is linked with the movement by some critics, but some reconstructionist thinkers are highly critical of his positions. Schaeffer himself disavowed any connection or affiliation with reconstructionism, though he did cordially correspond with Rushdoony on occasion. Authors Sara Diamond and Fred Clarkson suggest that Schaeffer shared with reconstructionism
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#17327879101546386-423: The direct oversight or support of the civil government. Because their numbers are so small compared to their influence, they are sometimes accused of being secretive and conspiratorial. In Matthew 28:18 , Jesus says, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." This verse is seen as an announcement by Jesus that he has assumed authority over all earthly authority. In that light, some theologians interpret
6489-515: The earliest recorded history. Homosexuality in China , known as the passions of the cut peach and various other euphemisms, has been recorded since approximately 600 BCE. Homosexuality was mentioned in many famous works of Chinese literature. The instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described in the classical novel Dream of the Red Chamber seem as familiar to observers in
6592-481: The end of his reign, expanded the proscription to the active partner as well (in 558), warning that such conduct can lead to the destruction of cities through the "wrath of God". During the Renaissance , wealthy cities in northern Italy — Florence and Venice in particular—were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable part of the male population and constructed along
6695-425: The end of the 20th century, there has been a global movement towards freedom and equality for gay people, including the introduction of anti-bullying legislation to protect gay children at school, legislation ensuring non-discrimination, equal ability to serve in the military , equal access to health care , equal ability to adopt and parent , and the establishment of marriage equality . The word homosexual
6798-433: The enforcement of moral sanctions under theonomy is carried out by the family and church government, and sanctions for moral offenses are outside the authority of civil government (which is limited to criminal matters, courts and national defense). However, some believe these distinctions become blurred, as the application of theonomy implies an increase in the authority of the civil government. Reconstructionists also say that
6901-512: The epic, change genders, such as Shikhandi , who is sometimes said to be born as a female but identifies as male and eventually marries a woman. Bahuchara Mata is the goddess of fertility, worshipped by hijras as their patroness. Historians have long argued that pre-colonial Indian society did not criminalise same-sex relationships, nor did it view such relations as immoral or sinful. Hinduism has traditionally portrayed homosexuality as natural and joyful. The earliest Western documents (in
7004-579: The equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms . The federal Parliament and provincial legislatures began to amend their laws to treat same-sex relations in the same way as opposite-sex relations. Beginning in 2003, the courts in Canada began to rule that excluding same-sex couples from marriage violated the equality clause of the Charter . In 2005, the federal Parliament enacted
7107-404: The experiences they name are artifacts of unique cultural and social processes. "Essentialists" typically believe that sexual preferences are determined by biological forces, while "constructionists" assume that sexual desires are learned. The philosopher of science Michael Ruse has stated that the social constructionist approach, which is influenced by Foucault, is based on a selective reading of
7210-487: The extreme Theonomist." On the other hand, Ligon Duncan has stated that "Roman Catholics to Episcopalians to Presbyterians to Pentecostals", as well as "Arminian and Calvinist, charismatic and non-charismatic, high Church and low Church traditions are all represented in the broader umbrella of Reconstructionism (often in the form of the "Christian America" movement)." Although it has a relatively small number of self-described adherents, Christian reconstructionism has played
7313-503: The figure of the Two-Spirit individual (the term itself was coined only in 1990). Typically, this individual was recognized early in life, given a choice by the parents to follow the path and, if the child accepted the role, raised in the appropriate manner, learning the customs of the gender it had chosen. Two-Spirit individuals were commonly shamans and were revered as having powers beyond those of ordinary shamans. Their sexual life
7416-534: The form of literary works, art objects, and mythographic materials ) concerning same-sex relationships are derived from ancient Greece . In regard to male homosexuality, such documents depict an at times complex understanding in which relationships with women and relationships with adolescent boys could be a part of a normal man's love life. Same-sex relationships were a social institution variously constructed over time and from one city to another. The formal practice, an erotic yet often restrained relationship between
7519-494: The foundation. The Chalcedon Foundation has been listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center . The Chalcedon Foundation, which is named after a 451 A.D. council that proclaimed the state's subservience to God, was officially founded by Rousas John Rushdoony in summer 1965. In 1971, Gary North was hired part-time, and two years later North was hired full-time while Greg Bahnsen
7622-812: The historical record that confuses the existence of homosexual people with the way in which they are labelled or treated. The first record of a possible homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum , an ancient Egyptian male couple, who lived around 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art , surrounded by what appear to be their heirs. The anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships" called motsoalle . The anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors in
7725-432: The idea of male anal sex being "unnatural" is described by a character of Plato 's, though he had earlier written of the benefits of homosexual relationships. Many historical figures, including Socrates , Lord Byron , Edward II , and Hadrian , have had terms such as gay or bisexual applied to them. Some scholars have regarded uses of such modern terms on people from the past as an anachronistic introduction of
7828-458: The individual and the family and from there gradually reforming other spheres of authority, including the church and the state. Rushdoony believed that a republic is a better form of civil government than a democracy. According to Rushdoony, a republic avoided mob rule and the rule of the "51%" of society; in other words "might does not make right" in a republic. Rushdoony wrote that America's separation of powers between 3 branches of government
7931-548: The last Englishmen to be so hanged. To this day, historians are still arguing about the question of the Sexuality of Frederick the Great (1712−1786), which essentially revolves around the taboo of whether the myth of one of the greatest war heroes in world history is allowed to be psychologically deconstructed. Between 1864 and 1880 Karl Heinrich Ulrichs published a series of 12 tracts, which he collectively titled Research on
8034-680: The law" (Rom. 8:4)… Man is summoned to create the society God requires. Elsewhere he wrote: The man who is being progressively sanctified will inescapably sanctify his home, school, politics, economics, science, and all things else by understanding and interpreting all things in terms of the word of God. Many evangelical Christians of all types have embraced Christian Reconstructionism in part or in whole. Evangelical leaders who endorsed it explicitly or implicitly include Jerry Falwell Sr. , Bill Gothard , Jay Grimstead, D. James Kennedy , Tim LaHaye , Doug Phillips , Howard Phillips , Pat Robertson , Francis Schaeffer , and Wayne Whitehead. Gothard and
8137-665: The magazine described reconstructionism as outside the "mainstream" views of evangelical Christians . It also stated that it "borders on a call for outright theocracy". George M. Marsden , a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame , has remarked in Christianity Today that "Reconstructionism in its pure form is a radical movement". He also wrote, "[t]he positive proposals of Reconstructionists are so far out of line with American evangelical commitments to American republican ideals such as religious freedom that
8240-556: The medieval Tang dynasty (618–907), attributed to the rising influence of Christian and Islamic values, but did not become fully established until the Westernization efforts of the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China . South Asia has a recorded and verifiable history of homosexuality going back to at least 1200 BC. Hindu medical texts written in India from this period document homosexual acts and attempt to explain
8343-511: The mistake of failing to understand the special prophetic role of biblical Israel, including the laws and sanctions, calling it "a delusive and grotesque perversion of the teachings of scripture." Kline's student, Lee Irons, furthers the critique: According to the Reformed theocrats apparently… the only satisfactory goal is that America become a Christian nation. Ironically… it is the wholesale rejection (not revival) of theocratic principles that
8446-534: The natives to depict them as savages and hence justify their conquest and forceful conversion to Christianity. As a result of the growing influence and power of the conquerors, many native cultures started condemning homosexual acts themselves. Among some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in North America prior to European colonization, a relatively common form of same-sex sexuality centered around
8549-576: The northern Congo routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands. As is true of many other non-Western cultures, it is difficult to determine the extent to which Western notions of sexual orientation and gender identity apply to Pre-Columbian cultures. Evidence of homoerotic sexual acts and transvestism has been found in many pre- conquest civilizations in Latin America , such as
8652-565: The number of true believers in the movement is small." Popular religious author, feminist, and former Roman Catholic religious sister Karen Armstrong sees a potential for " fascism " in Christian reconstructionism, and sees the eventual Dominion envisioned by theologians R. J. Rushdoony and Gary North as "totalitarian. There is no room for any other view or policy, no democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom." Traditional Calvinist Christians have argued that Christian reconstructionists have "significantly misunderstood
8755-478: The opposite sex. During the colonial period, both the French and the British criminalised same-sex sexual relations. Anal sex between males was a capital offence. Post-Confederation, anal sex and acts of "gross indecency" continued to be criminal offences, but were no longer capital offences. Individuals were prosecuted for same-sex sexual activity as late as the 1960s, which led to the federal Parliament amending
8858-518: The political strategy of the new Christian Right. Dominionism or Dominion Theology is a grouping of theological systems with the common belief that the law of God, as codified in the Bible, should exclusively govern society, to the exclusion of secular law, a view also known as theonomy . Reconstructionists themselves use the word dominionism to refer to their belief that Christians alone should control civil government, conducting it according to Biblical law. The central biblical text for Dominionists
8961-606: The positions of Calvin, other Reformed teachers and the Westminster Confession concerning the relationship between the Sinai covenant's ethical stipulations and the Christian obligation to the Mosaic judicial laws today." Some sociologists and critics refer to reconstructionism as a type of dominionism . These critics claim that the frequent use of the word dominion by reconstructionist writers strongly associates
9064-523: The present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexual people during the same period. Ming dynasty literature, such as Bian Er Chai (弁而釵/弁而钗), portray homosexual relationships between men as more enjoyable and more "harmonious" than heterosexual relationships. Writings from the Liu Song dynasty by Wang Shunu claimed that homosexuality was as common as heterosexuality in the late 3rd century. Opposition to homosexuality in China originates in
9167-467: The probable reason is that they keep their sexuality a secret for fear of government sanction or rejection by their families. In ancient Sumer , a set of priests known as gala worked in the temples of the goddess Inanna , where they performed elegies and lamentations. Gala took female names, spoke in the eme-sal dialect, which was traditionally reserved for women, and appear to have engaged in homosexual intercourse. The Sumerian sign for gala
9270-475: The proportion of people who are in same-sex romantic relationships or have had same-sex sexual experiences are difficult for researchers to estimate reliably for a variety of reasons, including many gay and lesbian people not openly identifying as such due to prejudice or discrimination such as homophobia and heterosexism . Homosexual behavior has also been documented in many non-human animal species , though humans are one of only two species known to exhibit
9373-430: The receptive role in sex. The Hellenophile emperor Hadrian is renowned for his relationship with Antinous , but the Christian emperor Theodosius I decreed a law on 6 August 390, condemning passive males to be burned at the stake. Notwithstanding these regulations taxes on brothels with boys available for homosexual sex continued to be collected until the end of the reign of Anastasius I in 518. Justinian , towards
9476-425: The sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing… For Rushdoony, the idea of dominion implied a form of Christian theocracy or, more accurately, a theonomy. For example, he wrote that: The purpose of Christ's coming was in terms of the creation mandate… The redeemed are called to the original purpose of man, to exercise dominion under God, to be covenant-keepers, and to fulfil "the righteousness of
9579-426: The tendency toward dominionism. Christian reconstructionists object to the "dominionism" and the "dominion theology" labels, which they say misrepresent their views. Some separate Christian cultural and political movements object to being described with the label "dominionism", because in their mind the word implies attachment to reconstructionism. In reconstructionism, the idea of "godly" dominion, subject to God,
9682-459: The term is "frequently used by anti-gay extremists to denigrate gay people, couples and relationships". Some scholars argue that the term "homosexuality" is problematic when applied to ancient cultures since, for example, neither Greeks or Romans possessed any one word covering the same semantic range as the modern concept of "homosexuality". Nor did there exist a distinction of lifestyle or differentiation of psychological or behavioral profiles in
9785-502: The theonomic government is not an oligarchy or monarchy of man communicating with God, but rather, a national recognition of existing laws. Some of the prominent advocates of Christian reconstructionism have written that according to their understanding, God's law approves of the death penalty not only for murder , but also for propagators of all forms of idolatry , open homosexuality , adulterers , practitioners of witchcraft , blasphemers , and perhaps even recalcitrant youths (see
9888-441: The time. Forty years later, however, secular journalists characterize Rushdoony's movement as "the spark plug behind much of the battle over religion in politics today". Rushdoony's work via the Chalcedon Foundation challenged conservative Christians to "take the whole Bible seriously—including inconvenient verses in the Old Testament that most Christians, even biblical literalists, politely ignore." The Chalcedon Foundation advocates
9991-570: The two Phillipses, for example, used Christian Reconstructionism to build the evangelical homeschooling community of the 1970s and 1980s. Robertson and Kennedy hosted Rushdoony on their television programs, and Robertson also used dominionist language in his book, The Secret Kingdom , and in his 1988 presidential campaign. Grimstead, of the Coalition on Revival, summarized the position of many evangelical leaders: "'I don't call myself [a Reconstructionist],' but 'A lot of us are coming to realize that
10094-458: The ubiquity of homosexuality and its association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Although medical texts like these (written partly in Latin to obscure the sexual details) were not widely read by the general public, they did lead to the rise of Magnus Hirschfeld 's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee , which campaigned from 1897 to 1933 against anti-sodomy laws in Germany , as well as
10197-467: The upper class of persists and monks, and religious codes of foreign religions such as Christianity and Islam imposed homophobic rules on their populations. Hinduism describes a third gender that is equal to other genders and documentation of the third gender are found in ancient Hindu and Buddhist medical texts. There are certain characters in the Mahabharata who, according to some versions of
10300-512: Was also hired. Rushdoony founded Ross House Books in 1976, the same year in which North and Bahnsen left the Foundation to pursue careers elsewhere. In 1977, the Foundation's first office building was built. A decade later, the organization's Newsletter became a magazine, the Chalcedon Report . In the 1970s multimillionaire Howard Ahmanson became a Calvinist and joined Rushdoony's Christian Reconstructionist movement. Ahmanson served as
10403-456: Was published in 1723 in England, and is presumed by some modern scholars to be a novel. The 1749 edition of John Cleland 's popular novel Fanny Hill includes a homosexual scene, but this was removed in its 1750 edition. Also in 1749, the earliest extended and serious defense of homosexuality in English, Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified , written by Thomas Cannon ,
10506-589: Was published, but was suppressed almost immediately. It includes the passage, "Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts." Around 1785 Jeremy Bentham wrote another defense, but this was not published until 1978. Executions for sodomy continued in the Netherlands until 1803, and in England until 1835, James Pratt and John Smith being
10609-570: Was with the ordinary tribe members of the same sex. During the colonial times following the European invasion, homosexuality was prosecuted by the Inquisition , sometimes leading to death sentences on the charges of sodomy, and the practices became clandestine. Many homosexual individuals went into heterosexual marriages to maintain appearances, and many joined the (unmarried) Catholic clergy to escape public scrutiny of their lack of interest in
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