34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.

35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. .

But 1 Timothy 2:12 is more general:

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

Read the whole of 1 Timothy 2. It’s clear it applies generally.

9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;

10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

I can agree with 9, 10, and 15 – though childbearing was, much to my regret, biologically impossible for me. I count my blessings in that I was able to bend the rules and have a child anyway.

11-14, not so much. Just one of the reasons I’m not Christian. The Bible says what it says, take it or leave it.

I left it.

Others are able to convince themselves that it must really mean something else, and who knows, maybe they’re right. I wasn’t able to do that though. Neither was Mr Johnson – if he even tried. Many men are quite happy with this verse.

We differ in that I chose Caritas; he chose the Bible.

“The Bible is not a series of ahistorical, timeless “factoids” that give simple truths that are applicable at all times and in all circumstances. It is historically contingent in many ways, and contingent upon the situation on the ground. There *is* an objective, unchanging ethic taught in the Bible, to be sure, but it takes theological work to get there, and cannot be lifted out of individual texts as if the Bible were a set of simple ethical factoids. Indeed, most Christians in the history of interpretation have recognized this on some level, at least with Old Testament law.”

I think that is very well put. I might go further and say that the ‘objective, unchanging ethic’ is not actually ultimately to be found on the pages of the Bible, but in the life – and, more particularly, the Passion – of the Word Himself.

One of the shortest Gospel readings is that for the Vigil Mass for the Assumption of Our Lady. A woman calls out as Jesus is speaking. Does he tell her to be quiet? No. Rather he takes what she says and develops it further. Luke 11 : 27 – 28.

StraightGrandmother = LOL Krissy, you gave me a chuckle. You know all this oppression of sexual minorities gets me depressed sometimes. I need a little chuckle now and then.

What I am waiting for every day is the Decision in the Federal 9th District Court of Appeals in the Prop 8 and two other related cases to Prop 8. The oral arguments were over a year ago last December 12th, as in 2010 December 12, and we wasted a whole year waiting for the California Supreme Court to weigh in. The last oral arguments on two separate but related cases, releasing the trial tape and should Judge Walker have disclosed that he was gay were on December 8th of 2011. It has been over a month since the last oral arguments and I keep telling myself now any day, any day we will have a decision.

Then the loosing side can ask for the same Appeal to be heard all over again, by ALL the Appellate Judges for the 9th Circuit, a hearing “en banc,” The Appellate Judges in the 9th Circuit all vote on if they want to hear the case en banc or not, majority rules, and if they vote yes that is another prolly 9 months, and then after that it would go to the Supreme Court.

I have to say I am sick and tired of all the politics around civil rights for American Citizens who are sexual minorities. Once the Supreme Court rules that sexual minorities are to be afforded all rights as heterosexuals all of these fake “values” issues played out in our body politic and letters from the Catholics etc. will cease and desist. In the meantime we all have to put up with all the political BS while we wait, and wait, and wait.

Scriptural understanding can be complicated. Fortunately we have a source of clarity. Christ said that all Law and all Prophets (and surely all Epistles) hang on one principle: love God and (as naturally flows) love your neighbor.

And lest we go for the abusive relationship form of “love”, Jesus clarified that the kind of love he’s talking about is the kind that “THEY will know you are my disciples”.

Using that perspective it becomes easy. Do those around me have difficultly seeing love in my theology? Then it isn’t loving my neighbor. And without loving my neighbor, I can’t love God.

I might go further and say that the ‘objective, unchanging ethic’ is not actually ultimately to be found on the pages of the Bible, but in the life – and, more particularly, the Passion – of the Word Himself.

And, I would argue that a similar trajectory is found with the subordination of women in any sphere, including the home, based solely on their sex. I personally don’t see a parallel theological trajectory in the Bible when it comes to homosexuality, but I’m open to it.

It’s okay. I’m sure that you’ll get to wherever God wants you on the subject. All the Holy Spirit needs is an open heart.