Most religions have had a difficult time dealing with Lesbians, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transvestite (LGBT) issues. With public opinion in Australia swinging in the favour of LGBT and with the recent passing of a bill to authorize same sex marriages, many religious leaders are lost at sea. Some of them continue to oppose what they believe violates their scriptures. Some are sitting on the fence ready to jump whichever way the wind pushes them. Many have come out openly in favour of same sex marriages either because they believe that is the right thing to do or out of fear of loosing a growing chunk of their flock.
While modern democracies are forward looking in that politicians are better able to sense a change in public mood and can quickly loose their jobs if they don’t follow emerging trends, religious leaders by definition are trying to preserve the past. Politicians or statesmen have once been described as those who can sense the inevitable and then work hard to bring in about.
When social attitudes and values depart from what they have been, the first cracks can be seen among aspiring members of parliaments. First there are these fringe groups, coming up with ridiculous and abhorrent ideas which can never be accepted. As public opinion like clouds before a monsoon keep gathering height and depth, the cracks start widening. The edifice of political stability gets threatened by the new boys (or girls or either) on the block. Old guards who had been fiercely defending their view point, now fiercely start defending their votes and constituency. They change from vehement opponents of the new movement to someone who think that it will survive, they wont vow to annihilate it, they will tolerate it and finally join it, not always in that order. Political dealers are fighting for their own selves and adopt the inevitable once it becomes unstoppable and a threat to their power. Some continue to deny the inevitable as does their core constituency till they fade away. The once main stream become a fringe.
While politicians looking at the next election in the future, are adept at such survival strategies, religious leaders looking at a scripture or revelation of the past put up a much tougher and long drawn battle. Unlike public opinion which is constantly in churn and evolving, religious doctrines are set in stone or so its adherents would like them to be. Religious attitudes to societal issues were framed when the religion was first defined or last revived. It could not have survived till date had it not been in tune with what the society accepts as right and wrong at that time. History tells us that those religions movements that were not in tune with the concept of right and wrong in their period, do not thrive. Their followers are punished for upsetting the apple cart of stability. Socrates was said to have been poisoned in the distant past. Osho’s followers believe that he was eliminated because he challenged and upturned attitudes towards heterosexual sex acceptable to the land and time.
Religions by their writing down their code as revealed scriptures attempt to freeze what worked at their beginning and pretend that society will never change. So, when the inevitable change in society becomes unstoppable, they evolve, their clergy that adopts the change manages to keep their followers intact. Those who continue to oppose the new order, tend to a diminishing flock. The mainstream risks becoming a fringe within their own clergy over time.
Whether you are a religious leader or a secular leader, both will succumb to the new order. Those who adopt it will live to claim they brought it about because it was the “just” thing to do. Those who cant adopt will keep shrinking until they cant be seen any more or time fades them away.