Book review: 'The End of White Christian America' part II: Distinctly Catholic: Jones writes about the role gay rights issues have played in the recent history of white Christian America.
By MGB: The reason religion and class are so important in this election is that Trump chose his voters that way. White protestants are the core of the Republican Party, although more authoritarian Catholics fall into that category too. It is why Trump clumsily changed his public stance on abortion (no one really knows what he really believes about it or anything else). Note that the black church has been has anti-gay as the white Protestants - but Obama may be changing that, even among the pastors.
Using the stages of grief,is not a bad way to look at this. White Protestants (and Trad Catholics) tend to be biblical literalists and the literal references are clear on homosexuality - although most of them are dicta, not revelation. Anyone with any kind of sound biblical scholarship knows that Leviticus is the work of Rabbis during the Babilonian exile and was about differentiating the Jewish people for the wider world. That this is not a Mosaic text is heresy to biblical literalists - yet pro-gay Christians argue quite effectively that the bans on homosexuality are equivalent to those against eating shellfish and having tatoos. Quite shattering if you believe Leviticus was dictated by God to Moses - for the Bishops too. That takes some grieving and the end result must be a rethinking of biblical authority and eventual relgious gay marriage.
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