Rhetoric Race and Religion
Religions are richly variable in their organizations, belief systems, rituals, and practices. This is true across cultures and history. Grand statements about what “all religions” say or believe about anything—especially about such a complex phenomenon as human desire and sexuality—are not just unhelpful, they’re impossible. Nonetheless, this has not prevented many Christian opponents of homosexuality from asserting that all religions condemn homosexuality. This assertion is patently false; it is not even the case that all Christianities condemn homosexuality. The myth that all religions condemn homosexuality passes off one strand of Christian interpretation as a universal moral claim about what “all religions” and “all religious people” believe. In fact, what religions have to say about homosexuality varies considerably not just among religions, but within religions, too.
Religions are internally diverse. Although we are used to referring to Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism in the singular, we could more accurately refer to these dynamic ways of organizing human relationships in the plural: as Christianities, Hinduisms, Judaisms, Islams, Buddhisms. This shift from singular to plural may sound odd, but is helpful when it reminds us that no religion is monolithic. What any religion means in the lives of its practitioners changes across historical periods, geographical locations, and in relation to other social forces.
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