Gays Bring Christians, Muslims, and Jews Together

What can bring Muslim cleric Abdel Salem Menasra (left), Archbishop Aristarchos, of the Greek Orthodox Holy Land Patriarchate (second from left), Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah (middle), Israeli chief Sephardic rabbi Shlomo Amar (second from right), and Chief Ashkenaki rabbi Yehuda Metzger (far right, together in agreement?

Yesterday, Wednesday, March 30, 2005, after nearly 1500 years of fighting, three major religions of the world have united in a common cause: gay people. American evangelicals and Jews are getting into the mix as well.

In a joint press conference, at a hotel in Jerusalem, Israel's chief rabbis, the heads of three Christian faiths in the Holy Land and a senior Islamic cleric made an unprecedented joint stand Wednesday against plans to hold an international gay festival in Jerusalem this summer.

The subject of gays and Christianity have been covered here in the past, but I really don't see that as the story here.

It's the fact that these guys got into the same room to agree on anything. It is truly historic and monumental.

Is this the beginning of world peace among the world's faiths, with gays and lesbians being sacrificed for it?

Probably not.

Let's face it, these guys probably couldn't agree on what to have for dinner (especially on Fridays), much less on a point of theology.

Yet their dislike of homosexuality is something in their shared Abrahamic tradition, most likely due to its (at least 3000 years ago) paganistic connotations.

But this meeting, which in of itself is a good thing (aside from the issue involved), is a truly spectacular thing. It was a breakthrough in the last century for the Catholics and the Orthodox church to meet and discuss things, much less meeting amongst representatives of other faith traditions -- at least among the theologically conservative.

Liberal branches of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths have had a dialogue for some time.

What does this mean for 21st Century religion?

Perhaps, the real schism between faiths will become more of an conservative-liberal split, rather than a Jewish-Muslim one.

But is that better or worse?

God knows.

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