Talk:Homosexuality and Zoroastrianism

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I found it odd that the most famous Parsi and gay icon Freddie Mercury was not mentioned here, so I added a short sentence. Though he claimed to be bisexual, I still believe it to be worthy of note here. Khirad 07:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, I come to think of the Swedish bisexual zoroastrian pop star, Alexander Bard, here.

[edit] Religioustolerance.org

This article uses the religioustolerance.org website as either a reference or a link. Please see the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org and Wikipedia:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org as to whether Wikipedia should cite the religioustolerance.org website, jguk 14:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I can probably find different referances to support the article, but then should we just delete religioustolernace.org completely, or leave it in as an external link, or what? Eirra 23:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

The "Homosexuality and Zoroastrian Culture" section needs POV work, I think. The first sentence ("perhaps the reason...") reads like speculative rationalization of Zoroastrian opposition to homosexuality, and seems to ignore the scriptural prohibition cited earlier in the article. The third sentence states that "Zoroastrian communities today are much too small to consider homosexuality (or celibacy) to be grounds for exclusion from the traditions of the faith," which is an opinion that opposition to homosexuality is counter-productive and unreasonable. PubliusFL 11:21, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed you are right, it doesn't read like an encyclopædia. However; as many religious scholars will tell you (whether it be Mary Boyce, Sir James G. Frazer, Joseph Campbell, Reza Aslan, Hew McLeod, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, etc.), religions aren't created in a vacuum. They, and their scriptures reflect the times and the issues of those times that the society faced, just as much as they contained revealed or inspired material. And what was more of a major concern than birth rate to nomads and pastoral peoples? As far as the Vendidad goes, well Zoroastrians don't all follow it to the letter of the law any more than Leviticus is by lay Jews or Christians. Indeed, I've read the whole thing, and it gets into minutiæ after a short while, with all its little prohibitions on every little thing. Still, the conservative strain will consider it authoritative as part of the Avesta, just as some Christians believe the whole Bible to be literal and inerrant (the liberals are more concerned with focusing on the Gathas much as the Gospels are). As for the last comment on the communities being too small to turn anyone away: it all depends on whether they are liberal or conservative - and the conservative are more prominent. I would not agree with that statement as the communities can be harsh enough on mixed children and apostates, let alone gay people. Freddie Mercury; unfortunately, was the exception, not the rule. If the Vendidad seems bad, look into what the Denkard has to say - essentially equating homosexuality with doing the work of Ahriman. Of course, in the strict, logical and dualistic world of Zoroastrianism, anything which does not produce - whether a Catholic priest, Buddhist monk, Shaker, or gay person - are 'daevic'; not producing anything for the benifit/fecundity of the world. In short, homosexuality was seen as counterproductive and unreasonable to the tribal society, therefore it was an unforgivable sin (in life). (Please excuse my rambling I forgot where I was going with my points, just trying to help out a little) Khirad 06:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I did some editing. It seems to be it reads a little better now. What does everyone else think? Eirra 22:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)