LGBT Peoples Rights in Christianity and Judaism - Research Paper Example

The purpose of this essay is to review the opinions held by the two religions and their media profiles on LGBTQ.

Discrimination
Why has homosexuality become such a major issue with some even claiming it to be the most dangerous threat to Christian life and to the gospel, part of the cosmic battle that Satan is waging against the church? The interesting thing is that it need not be so central. It is quite clear that in the Bible homosexuality does not receive a lot of attention. In Canada, Judaism and mainline Protestant faiths are usually seen as the most liberal, followed by Catholicism. The majority of Catholics are accepting of LGBT but not their leaders. Catholic Church leaders remain antagonistic towards it. Relative to other religious groups in Canada, conservative Protestants are typically seen as having the least accepting attitudes.

In the media, articles, and features concerning LGBT more often than not paint Christian institutions as discriminative towards LGBT. Cases of lawsuits against church institutions in response to discrimination are becoming frequent. There are also cases where teenage suicides are attributed to be caused by stigma experienced by homosexual teenagers in Christian schools. The Church maintains that they do this to keep in line with their faith which is intolerant toward any sexually deviant behavior. In response to legal action, the Church maintains that this is discriminatory toward them. The issue that arises is that the discrimination that the Church reports is in response to laws that prevent them from discriminating against LGBT people.
The Jewish Community, on the other hand, holds a different view. Among the Jewish community, sexual orientation is considered to be biological and not a choice hence the wide acceptance of LGBT. The Jewish community, however, does not hold as much influence as the Christian faction and is therefore rarely featured in news articles. This is also in part because it supports LGBT people. Despite this, there exist minor assemblies within the Jewish community who hold antagonistic views towards LGBT by the numbers are too minuscule to make the news except once in a blue moon.
Catholics are more supportive of legal recognition of same‐sex relationships than members of any other Christian tradition and Canadians overall. Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43%) or allowing them to form civil unions (31%). Only 22% of Catholics say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship.

When same-sex marriage is defined explicitly as a civil marriage, support is dramatically higher among Catholics. If marriage for gay couples is defined as a civil marriage “as you get at city hall,” Catholic support for allowing gay couples to marry increases by 28 points, from 43% to 71%. A similar pattern exists in the general population, but the Catholic increase is more pronounced.
Beyond the issue of same-sex marriage, Catholic support for the rights of gay and lesbian people is strong and slightly higher than the general public. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Catholics favor laws that would protect gay and lesbian people against discrimination in the workplace; 63% of Catholics favor allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly in the military, and 6-in-10 (60%) Catholics favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children.

Compared to the general church-going public, Catholics are significantly less likely to hear about the issue of homosexuality from their clergy, but those who do are much more likely to hear negative messages. Only about 1-in-4 (27%) Catholics who attend church services regularly say their clergy speaks about the issue of homosexuality, but nearly two-thirds (63%) of this group say the messages they hear are negative.

Compared to other religious groups, Catholics are significantly more likely to give their church poor marks for how it is handling the issue of homosexuality. Less than 4-in-10 (39%) Catholics give their church top marks (a grade of either an A or a B) on its handling of the issue of homosexuality.
Seven-in-ten Catholics say messages from America’s places of worship contribute a lot (33%) or a little (37%) to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth. Read More