The Life Is In The Blood

Toby has a new book out: an updated, revised and expanded edition of his classic soft sci fi romance novel
SECRET MATTER -- with its quirky and mystical spin on what it means to be gay. Click on the title for info.
There's a funny coincidence/synchronicity about the release of this novel

Table of Contents Search Site Also on this website: Toby Johnson's books: GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe SECRET MATTER: updated, revised & expanded edtion from Lethe Press with Afterword by Mark Jordan Read Toby's review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco" GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE PLAGUE: A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING. Charmed Lives: Spinning Straw into Gold: Reclaiming Our Queer Spirituality Through Story Books on Gay Spirituality: White Crane Gay Spirituality Series   Articles and Excerpts: The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate Why gay people should NOT Marry Wedding Cake Liberation Gay Marriage in Texas What's ironic Shame on the American People The "highest form of love"  The cause of homosexuality What is homosexuality? What Jesus said about Gay Rights The purpose of homosexuality What the Bible Says about Homosexuality Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men Varieties of Gay Spirituality Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium "It's Always About You" The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara You're Not A Wave Emptiness & Religious Ideas Experiencing experiencing experiencing Going into the Light Meditations for a Funeral Meditation Practice The way to get to heaven Curious Bodies What Toby Johnson Believes The Joseph Campbell Connection Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy The Nature of Religion Being Gay is a Blessing Freedom of Religion The Gay Agenda Gay Saintliness Gay Spiritual Functions The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.  "The Evolution of Gay Identity" "St. John of the Cross & the Dark Night of the Soul." Avalokiteshvara at the Baths.  Eckhart's Eye Let Me Tell You a Secret Religious Articulations of the Secret The Collective Unconscious Driving as Spiritual Practice Meditation Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil Allah Hu: "God is present here"   Adam and Steve Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery" Seeing with Different Eyes What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel? The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis The Techniques Of The World Saviors Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby Part 2: The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Part 3: Jesus and the Resurrection Part 4: A Course in Miracles The Secret of the Clear Light Understanding the Clear Light Mobius Strip Finding Your Tiger Face How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated About Alien Abduction In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance The Rainbow Flag Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta. About Michael Talbot, gay mystic About Guy Mannheimer The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the  "Statement of Spirituality"

The very obvious--but apparently unrecognized--answer to one of the major issues in the debate over abortion and choice is found in a simple Biblical principle. According to the thinking of the Hebrews at the time the various books that comprise the Bible were written, "the life is in the blood." So many of the rules about eating and about slaughtering of animals and preparing food, as well as about making live sacrifices to God on the main altar all have to do with the sacredness of the blood. Blood was NOT to be consumed. Slaughtered animals were drained of blood (and are still today). The blood is the life; the blood belongs to God. An important theological question in the debate over the morality of abortion is "when life begins." When does a fetus become a human being, with legal rights, and personal responsibilities and dignities? A being with a claim to life? The answer is:  a fetus becomes a human being when it has blood. The heart and circulatory system of a foetus develops during the fifth week of pregnancy. The circulatory system is the first functioning organ system in the  body. Before the fifth week, there isn't any blood in the foetus. The blood cells have not evolved out of the mass of differentiating cells that started with fertilization. After the fifth week, there is blood in the foetus's body. There is life. That's a much stricter time frame for performing an abortion of the pregnancy than generally accepted in America under Roe v Wade. But women's right to choose the direction and pace of their own lives and the functions of their own bodies is a different question from when life begins. Well beyond this biological/theological question,  issues still remain about the mother's rights and responsibilities -- and perhaps her duty to protect her child from being born into an inappropriate setting (as unwanted or unaffordable or unwelcome). Termination of a pregnancy can be an act of deep compassion--as, for instance, when a foetus is found to suffer debilitating deformities or when the mother is an inappropriate mother, say a drug-user who is psychologically and toxicologically incapable of motherhood (and, symbolically, whose "blood is tainted"): her decision to have an abortion may well be founded in her horror at bringing a child into her own environment. (Isn't this why caged birds refuse to sit on their eggs? They are aborting their offspring to prevent them from being born caged. This is nature's way.) Many of the available contraceptives--including famously the "day after pill"--are objected to on religious grounds. Some theologians say "life begins at conception." But that would not be the way the Biblical authors would have seen it. They would have believed "the life is in the blood." And so a fetus becomes a human being when it has blood in its body. The day after pill seems like a very natural way to avoid an inappropriate pregnancy. Having women, especially teenagers, take contraceptive p[ills everyday all the time just reminds them they might behave sexually. Better to deal with contraceptive needs only when you need them, not just because you might! Condoms, of course, not only prevent pregnancy, they prevent exchange of microorganisms in the fluids of the sexual organs. Fundamentalist and Catholic Christians agitate to outlaw abortion, believing perhaps rightly that human life is precious and should not be terminated carelessly. They also agitate against acceptance of homosexuals. Homosexual sex results in absolutely no abortions. Indeed, homosexuality is a deterrent to abortion. Perhaps God has evolved homosexuality in human life with clearly intelligent design as an alternative to unintentional breeding. Overpopulation is THE major problem on earth today. "God" would naturally want to control the birth rate to keep it within ecological limits. "God" might intelligently design same sex attraction as a psychologically fulfilling and socially contributing and personally loving way to live without breeding more offspring than the world can hold. Homosexuality is God's perfect contraceptive!

Toby Johnson, PhD is author of eight books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and religious problems, three gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality. In addition to the novels featured elsewhere in this web site, Johnson is author of IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD and THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET (Revised edition): AN APPRECIATION OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL.

Johnson's Lammy Award winning book GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness was published in 2000.

His Lammy-nominated book  GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe was published by Alyson in 2003.