Dear Dr. Laura

by J. Kent Ashcraft

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
4. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?
9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan,

J. Kent Ashcraft

Editor's Note: This little gem has been circulating the net. It illustrates the absurdity of a selective and wooden literalism, even if it is not illustrative of Dr. Laura's thinking, other than her dogmatic stand against homosexuals. The copyright, if any, belongs to its author.

Young Love

Love is the most fun you can have without laughing. - Anonymous

When I was in junior high I realized, after the initial rebuffs, that it was going to be years — an eternity to a thirteen year old — before I got laid. When I got old I would have a son, and I would tell him what I went through, so that it might go a little better for him. I even kept a diary. Now I'm not your father, and you're not my son. My diary I'll keep to myself. In its place I substitute my thirtysomething thoughts on my teenaged days.

As a teenager I was a human becoming more than a human being. This fact, this launching of myself toward adulthood, conditioned all my relationships, intense or casual. Falling in love under those conditions was like trying to move into an apartment in a skyscraper before the floors were poured — lots of pitfalls and construction noise. In choosing a girlfriend I was choosing a self to try to be — developing a sense of self that was genuine because it was mine, rather than my parents'. I was also measuring my self-worth — seeing what kind of girl I could trade myself for. With the young ladies' help I was doing the urgent and creative work that all teenagers must do — I was creating me. And I loved whom I wanted or needed my girlfriends to be more than who they were, or were becoming. Those who did not reject me reciprocated in kind.

Thus my first criticism of high-school romance: the emotions are intense because the hormone levels are high and the psychological needs are great, but real intimacy under such circumstances is nearly impossible. And my first praise of it: by finding out how difficult it is to achieve intimacy, I came to value it and to understand what I was willing (and unwilling) to sacrifice for it.

Besides love, intimacy, and a sense of self, high school romance is largely about sex, whether or not the desire is acted upon. In my experience of this phenomenon (through my own escapades or those of my friends and acquaintances) we used our sexuality to experiment with new behaviors (Did you get to first base?), to assert our emotional independence from our parents (What's the matter, are you afraid?), to gain social status (He can't be a fag — he's dating someone!), and self-confidence (Whatever she wants, I can handle it.).

All of this emotional loading may heighten the intensity of sexuality but tends to diminish its other qualities, an idea which may be lost on adolescents, who rarely appreciate that sexuality has dimensions other than intensity. The quest for intensity often leads teenagers into relationships that are emotionally — and occasionally physically — abusive. There is nothing quite like "first love," especially when one is in love with a beautiful or handsome emotional roller coaster jockey.

And what if despite all odds, the teenager makes some fleeting contact with the real person, the "inner child" of the other? Sometimes one finds the love of one's life. My relationships followed the far more usual course, ending because we were growing teenagers who grew apart. And then, because I had been changing so fast at that age, there was no normal state of being for me to return to. I couldn't go back to being the old me, because the old me was a kid. In that sense, I never "got over" my teenage romances. I just moved on after a couple of years, when I realized that the state I was in was as normal as I was going to get.

I don't know what of this you might say to your teenagers, in addition to the usual drug, pregnancy, and venereal disease information. Maybe that, despite the message of popular culture, they might look to God for the affirming love they often seek from each other. Maybe just that it might do them more good to look for a close friend rather than a lover. But teenagers tend to talk more than they listen, and to do risky things because they need to prove themselves and because they're too young to appreciate how risky they are. That's why they're used as soldiers.

Oh, well. As Jimmy Durante used to say, "God bless you, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are." Or was it just "Good night?"

A Soldier's Story

I mean, you want to know if I'm moral enough to join your army, to burn women, kids, houses, and villages, after bein' a litterbug? — Arlo Guthrie, "Alice's Restaurant"

This is what happened to Russ in Vietnam. On R&R in Saigon, he and a beautiful Vietnamese woman fell desperately, and secretly, in love. After the madness was over, they would come to America and make a life for themselves. But for now, they would meet furtively, rarely, briefly. Nobody who knew either of them could know about both, because her brother was Vietcong. Technically, they were each sleeping with the enemy.

And then, at their meeting place, she didn't show.

"That one?" said one of his buddies casually, "They say she was killed by a mine two weeks ago."
The feeling of a kick in the stomach, the taste of acid on the tongue. And he had to hide it, to stay a soldier.

"Here today, gone tomorrow," he shrugged, feeling suddenly like a traitor -- not to his country, but to her memory and to himself. But if he shared his grief with his buddies, they would say it was to his country, and he would be dishonorably discharged, at best. So he fought on, silenced about what was becoming an incurable wound.

Funny. Here he was depending for his life at times on people he couldn't trust. And ready to give his all for those who would turn on him if they only knew.

When he got stateside, he didn't try to replace the love he'd lost. The singles bar scene was all he wanted, and he went for it with abandon. Alcohol and casual sex were his anesthetics for a while. Eventually he gave them up, left the service, and settled down to a wife and a tolerable job. And though he looked good on the outside, he had two constant companions that were slowly killing him. One was depression, and the other was the virus he'd picked up during one of those dates after the war.

The story of Russ (not his real name) is true, mostly. Except that his lover was not the enemy. His lover was an American pilot who got his name put on the big, black wall in Washington for giving "that last full measure of devotion" while flying a combat mission in Vietnam.

So, when I think of the people who oppose liberalizing the US military's position on gay and lesbian soldiers, I think of Russ and how he suffered under that policy. I think about the statistics on homosexuality, and how they imply that, along with that of Russ' lover, the names of as many as a thousand homosexuals may be written on the Vietnam War Memorial.

Those homosexual soldiers fought, slept, ate, showered, and died as heroes alongside heterosexual soldiers. They knew how to handle themselves in all those situations. Their heterosexual buddies did not, forcing them to keep their secret, most of them to the grave.

Now we Americans are concerned about the effect of gay and lesbian soldiers on military morale and discipline. But a thousand names carved in stone say that's not a gay soldier's problem. It's a straight soldier's problem. People are concerned because that is the nature of homophobia — homophobia occurs when straights who have problems with gays try to make gays solve those problems for them — even if it's just by keeping their homosexuality a secret. A thousand names say the concern is based on mythology believed by straights who don't think they know any gay people.

Except for the concern about how the straight soldiers will behave. On the other hand, gay bashing is another form of sexual harassment, an area that the military needs to deal with anyway, as shown by the Tailhook scandal.

So, I think we should move forward on the legalization of gay and lesbian soldiers. Doing so will take courage and self-discipline, and a sense of security in our own sexuality. It will take, as a soldier might put it, "balls."

On Becoming a Christian

But Jesus said, Forbid him not; for there is no one who shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. — Mark 9:39

I suppose I should confess that I joined a Defense Research Lab before I joined the Church. The order of things isn't all that important, since they came about nearly simultaneously. I went to church because we were new in town and my wife wanted to go.

I toyed with the idea of dropping her off at the door and picking her up when she was done. After eighteen years in the Bible Belt, I distrusted Christians, even though I had been raised as one. Still, I was searching for a "wholesome discipline." I had begun reading up on various religions, especially Zen Buddhism, while treading the mill in Corporate America, because I needed a source of inspiration to withstand the grind. Finally, I realized that I had gained as much as I could from studying about religion, and that to become transformed, to become whole, I would have to practice one. Christianity was the one whose symbols meant the most to me, but I had doubts about it. Christians seemed to me to be people who either used church to show off their best behavior and clothes, or to further their political agenda, or to show off to God how obedient they were by crucifying everyone but themselves and recruiting like mad. In short, I thought Christianity was a dead religion.

But I walked in with her, sat down, and was amazed. The man in the pulpit gave literate and thoughtful sermons, interpreting Christ's message with care, inspiration, and compassion. I began to respect the pastor as a thinker and a moralist. But what really convinced me that he was honest about his Christianity was that my wife and I surmised that he was gay. Not only was he a Christian in spite of what the church did to people like him, he was like Christ in that he was ministering to people who would, and eventually did, almost literally crucify him when they realized who he was. When he spoke the Word, I knew he meant it. (Those who would quote Scripture in an attempt to discredit him I answer with the former blind man's words to the Pharisees in John 9:30, "Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.")

And that is how I began becoming a Christian. I also had help from some other special people. As part of my wholesome discipline, I took 50 hours of training to become a Stephen Minister (a lay pastoral caregiver or peer counselor). The people I ministered to helped me tremendously by allowing me to walk a little way along life's journey with them. Through my experiences helping them I gained a greater understanding of what it means to think of God as acting in the world (in spite of suffering) and of what prayer is about (and I gained a great respect for my pastor as a caregiver, teacher, and supervisor).

One of those special people was a young gay man with AIDS who had been ejected from his Fundamentalist congregation. For him, I was just barely "Christian enough" at first. On my part, I had to come to terms with a number of things in order to counsel him effectively: my antipathy toward Fundamentalism, my fear of AIDS, and my understanding of myself as a man. Straight men are usually uptight around gays because gays present an alternative variety of manhood, in the presence of which straight men realize that they never really looked into their own manhood. Fearful of what they might find, they avoid the questions by avoiding (if not picking on) the gays. I was no exception. So I had to get comfortable with myself as a straight man in order to affirm him as a gay man.

Which was part of the key to his survival. In order for his somatic (bodily) self to resist his disease, his psychological and spiritual self needed healing. He had to come to an understanding and acceptance of himself as a gay, Christian, man. I'm glad I was around to help, and to witness his transformation from a man on his deathbed (the doctors had given up on him, sending him home on pain medication to die) to a long term survivor.

So I get angry when I read about the "controversy" in various churches regarding ministry with gays and lesbians, gay or lesbian marriages, and ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. The controversy is caused by good and pious people who ask in tones of shock and disbelief, "Do you really believe homosexuality is acceptable to the Lord?" I want to ask in reply, "Do you really believe you are acceptable to the Lord?" If one of these folks answers "No, not really," then we have an opportunity for some serious ministry. And if he or she answers "Yes," I would challenge, "Then love others as God loves you." Those I have met who walk in God's Love as an ongoing experience respond with love, even for those defined by human society to be unlovable. Because they experience acceptance of themselves, they hardly question it regarding others.

For many others, who I think doubt their acceptance, homosexuality is a purity or cleanliness issue. This is ironic, because all present day Christians would have been considered unclean by the earliest Christians. According to the Bible, it took Divine Intervention (Peter's vision in Acts 10:10-28) to get Peter or any of the first Christian community (who were all Jews) to enter the house of a Gentile (a non-Jew, all of whom were considered unclean), and even then he did it cautiously, taking witnesses with him so that he could explain himself to the folks back home. In other words, people who have themselves had special dispensation to be considered clean enough to enter the Church give thanks for it by calling someone else unclean. It's like joining a fraternity only to have contempt for the new pledges.

And so I watch my Church make war against itself over the "homosexuality question." To steal a phrase from Dr. King, somewhere I read, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Which is peacemaking — to affirm all God's people, or to deny part? Which promotes unity — to deny the witness of the minority, or to affirm the witness of all? When Jesus fed the five thousand, I doubt that he checked for affectional orientation or recent genital activity. If the loaves and fish can be taken as a metaphor for God's Love, we seem to be anxiously counting our portion rather than giving generously to the multitude. We might do well to remember (Mark 4:25), "For he that hath, more shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath." Perhaps acknowledging the Word from whomever speaks it, and affirming the committed relationship of whoever loves each other are ways we are called to share what we are given. Perhaps more shall be added to us when we do.

See also Lutherans Concerned North America's Reconciling in Christ program.