By Jonathan Aronchick
As a gay man, I have been frightened by the recent mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, like many in my alphabet soup of a community. While I hate to concede that social terrorists have accomplished their goal of terrorizing, mission accomplished. When I saw a flood of text messages in the early hours of November 20th alerting me of the tragedy, I had an instantaneous flashback to June 2016 when I woke up in Memphis on a trip with my mother, and we saw the news of the Orlando massacre at another LGBTQ+ nightclub. I was so shaken I could not leave the hotel room. And today, I feel somewhat similar. At least the Memphis memory ends with my mother driving me across state lines to Mississippi (the place of so many historical human rights violations), got me fried chicken for comfort, and told me as we ate in the parking lot that there is no place I could possibly go where I could feel unsafe because she will always be there to protect me. And that did make me feel safe. I wish that all members of the LGBTQ+ community have that type of unconditional love and support, because that is the most important way we can feel safe amidst unnecessary violent attacks on us for merely existing.
But while grappling with a fear of safety, my predominating emotion is one of confusion. Why is the LGBTQ+ community being targeted with acts of violence? I must say that I am speaking only for myself and others who share my feelings, so when I say “we,” I refer only to that group and not the LGBTQ+ community at-large. I am not a spokesman, and I do not write this as a modern-day Apology from the community.
Alas, let’s dissect this confusion, shall we?
As an initial matter, homophobes seem to be missing a very critical point. I have life unappetizing. I have no such problem way about your personal life. Which is precisely why I do not think about it. Or obsess over it. Why do you obsess about something you find unappealing? Pursuant to Occam’s Razor, I suggest that the simplest explanation is that you are dealing with an internal struggle concerning your own identity.
Following, and quite simply, why are you trying to kill me regarding something that has absolutely nothing to do with you? I may have a dinner party, and you may detest onions. While that throws a proverbial wrench in my planned menu, and I therefore certainly will be irritated, I am not going to try to end your life because you detest onions. Nor do I anticipate you wanting to end my life because I like them. Why the seething rage, exactly?
Next, and please take heed. Homophobia is not trendy anymore. No one says “that’s so gay” as was popular twenty years ago. The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized our rights to be treated as humans under federal and constitutional law. Congress has just codified marriage equality across the land. Bell-bottoms may have been resurrected under the alias “boot cut” in the early 2000’s, but that neglects what we all know they were: a very bad mistake. Get with the program, or at least wait a few decades before trying to bring homophobia back in style. “Stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.”
And more, as I wrote my thesis in Religious Studies focusing on early Christianity, let us unpack a bit of the religious defense to homophobia. The oft-cited texts from the New Testament regarding homosexuality come from the Pauline Epistles (Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, etc., which are basically op-ed missives sent by Paul to various communities in antiquity; a biblical Emily Post, if you will). Those passages are found in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Romans 1:26-27. As we know as lawyers, let us not read specific passages of text within a vacuum, but rather read the codex in its entirety. In just a few Chapters later in 1 Corinthians, Paul directs women to remain silent and to be “subordinate,” and also directs a woman to ask her husband in the privacy of HIS home – and only there – if she has any form of inquiry. 1 Corinthians 14:33-35. If you insist on being textualists and originalists about the bible, then, logically, the women who protest at gay funerals – and the men who stand beside them – are heretics by their very own standards.
We may also look to the Old Testament, particularly Leviticus, which outright forbids homosexuality between two men, Leviticus 18:22, a violation which carries a death sentence, Leviticus 20:13. Yet let us again use a fundamental principle of black letter law regarding statutory interpretation and look at the surrounding text. Included in those edicts are some of the following: Any child who curses at his or her parents is doomed to a similar death sentence. Leviticus 20:9. If a man lies with his wife while she is currently menstruating, they both are to be banished from society. Leviticus 20:18. If a man has relations with his mother-in-law, while no debate from my end is an awful transgression, both of them – AND THE WIFE! – shall be burned to death. Leviticus 20:14. Apparently, biblically speaking, a woman scorned is a woman scorched. Now, I do not agree with any of these literal interpretations, nor do many modern scholars who approach these texts from the appropriate historiographical context. Yet homophobes who subscribe to the textualist religious defense are logically missing something. The fundamental essence of orthodoxy is that you cannot pick and choose as if you were at a buffet. It’s a prix fixe meal. Or maybe pursuant to Occam’s Razor, you are simply contrary to your own purported values.
The point is that for whatever reason you detest us, and I wish you would not, at the very least live and let live. I disagree with you, but I am faithfully following that ethic. Please offer the same courtesy and reciprocate.
On a different note, I congratulate the Supreme Court of our Commonwealth on its 300-year anniversary, to which this edition is dedicated. I celebrate the Court for all of its service in applying the rule of law and for its commitment to justice. As Pennsylvanians, we are blessed.
Jonathan Aronchick is co-editor of The Philadelphia Lawyer.
