LTTE: Gay Marriage and the Bible

[GiovanniC]

A lady in our newspaper recently wrote a letter to the opinion page stating, among other things, that our saintly moron-in-chief, Republican lawmakers, and other "good Christian" lawmakers would do well to introduce a constitutional amendment securing the "sanctity of marriage" by banning homosexual marriage and/or civil unions. Below is my letter in response.

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I'm writing in response to the December 28 letter which opposed homosexual marriages and civil unions. The reasoning cited was Leviticus 18:22 from the Old Testament of the Bible, which states, "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." I say that if we want to cite Old Testament rules as a reason to oppose gay marriage, that we should hold all of the other Old Testament rules with equal reverence.

Those rules include keeping the Sabboth under penalty of death. In Numbers 15:32-36, a man was found gathering sticks on the sabboth day. The man was arrested, and God told Moses to have the congregation take the man out and stone him to death. Exodus 35:2 says, "For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord . Whoever does any work on it must be put to death."

More examples of God's Old Testament rules comes from Leviticus. Leviticus is one of the coolest parts of the Bible if you're a big fan of the "Smiting and Wrath" version of God, and in addition to the "man shouldn't lie with man as he lies with woman" thing, it also includes hits such as, "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife... both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death" and "If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death."

Alongside the "man shouldn't lie with man" rule comes these other rules, also: "Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." (Leviticus 19:19). I recommend checking your clothing tags immediately.

Leviticus is also the source of some ever-popular rules regarding slavery. "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves" (Leviticus 25:44). God was a funny sort of guy back in those days. Collecting firewood on a Sunday got you beaten to death with stones, but owning other people was okay with Him. In fact, you could even beat your slaves with a rod without fear of punishment, as long as they were able to get up after a day or two (Exodus 21:20-21).

My intention here is not to insult or make fun or religion, Christianity, or the Bible. Instead, I am trying to point out the hypocrisy of people who cite rules from the Bible that fit their agendas, yet ignore or cast aside others.

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[Brian_Expat]

1. Nicely written! :-) n/t

[wtmusic]

2. Well done Giovanni

Into the bookmark hall of fame with that post!

:-)

[YNGW]

3. Interesting

I find it interesting that someone claiming Christianity would use scriptures from the law given to the Jews seeing that Christians don't believe the Law of Moses is in force today, but rather the New Testament Law of Christ.

The passage I see quoted more often is I Cor. 6: 9-10.

[GiovanniC]

5. I See Leviticus a LOT

From the anti-gay "sanctity of marriage" Bible-thumping crowd. It's my overall belief that they don't know enough to differentiate between the laws handed down to Moses and those found in the New Testament.

I also tend to think that people go after the Leviticus passages because of how authoritiarian it sounds, and how condemning. In other words, "Homosexuality is DETESTABLE, so sayeth the LORD." The Corinthians passage is a little more toned down. Basically, if you're a male prostitute, or a homosexual, or a liar, or a thief, or greedy, or a drunkard, you won't "inherit the kingdom of God." It's just not as Fire-and-Brimstone, and doesn't serve the purpose of berating gays as well.

[YNGW]

9. To the Christian...

... when it says you won't "inherit the kingdom of God", that means eternity in Hell. That's pretty "Fire-and-Brimstone" if you ask me.

Maybe it is the wording, but the results are the same.

[GiovanniC]

11. I Understand That

And it is definitely the wording, and the tone.

If someone insults me, I could say to them, "I shall forcefully lunge my foot at you until it makes contact with your posterior, you fatherless son who engages in coitus with your mother!"

Or I could say (and pardon my French here): "I'm going to kick your ass, you motherf*cking bastard!"

Same thing, different words, different tone. They're both equally "fire-and-brimstone", but one *seems* to be more so than the other, particularly if you want to make your point to the lowest common denominator.

[knight_of_the_star]

27. The first one forcefully makes the point too!

ROFLMAO!!! That was beautiful, and it sounds like something someone would sayin the seventeenth century! I wonder what the look on Bush's face would be if you said that to him?

[Caution]

23. An excellent explanation of I Cor,

An excellent explanation of I Cor.. This explanation goes into detail in the original Greek of the new testament. The next time you see some homophobic wingnut discussing this passage point him/her here.

For the record I'm both heterosecual and an atheist and I love pointing this out to my wingnut relatives when they start discussing the evil of homosexuality. It totally confuses them.

[Indiana_Dem]

4. Very good

I commend you for standing up.

I've been writing in my public forum lately, too. I've been receiving phone calls and letters harrassing me since i did but I feel it was worth it to voice my opinion. The subject was mainly about this administrations lies and the Bush family ties to Hitler though.

We need to start voicing our opinions in every way possible.

[GiovanniC]

7. I Think I Raise a Few Eyebrows

Since I'm a straight male, yet have written a couple of letters defending the rights of gays (just as I would defend other minorities).

[Q3JR4]

6. Good one.

That reminds me though. It's about time for me to submit another opinion piece to the editor of the paper here (only allow one piece per month per person).

Hmmmmm...... Thanks for the reminder. :)

:yourock:

[Deesh]

8. GiovanniC --

--very fine work. Thanks for that. We need responses like that in all American municipalities. Would you consent to being cloned?

[foreigncorrespondent]

10. The sad thing is...

...Leviticus 18:22 isn't even referring to homosexuality, but rather to heterosexuals who took part in the baal fertility rituals.

[GiovanniC]

13. And 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

There is some debate among Biblical scholars regarding what Paul was referring to in that passage. The words that Paul used were "malakoi", which can mean "loose" or "not solid", and would be used to describe someone's morals or ethics. The other word that Paul used that is translated as "homosexual" was "arsenokoitai". Literally translated, "arsenokoitai" means "man beds", and some Biblical scholars believe it refers to male pagan temple prostitutes.

By the way, the word that meant "homosexual" in the time of Paul was "paiderasste". That's not the word that Paul used in 1 Corinthians.

[TreasonousBastard]

19. Paul's surviving letters...

seem to be largely aimed at getting the churches of the time back on the right track.

He gets pretty cranky at times, and seems to be complaining about the worst excesses of some of the churches that have lost a bit of the spirit of the whole thing.

Contrast Paul's crabbiness with the Gospels' message of love and acceptance, and it's tough to take some of Paul all that seriously for modern times.

It's easy, though, when you're reading a King James version with no scholarly commentary and take each word literally.

[BOHICA06]

12. After much discussion...

with SWMBO and others, I've come to the idea that the Government needs to get out of the "marriage" business. Leave marriage strictly to secular organizations and have a registration for couples that want the benefits (governmental/contractual) of a union.

So couples would go and register and have registerings - if they did not want to involve a church/temple/mosque. Now if they did want the involvement of a religious organization - then marriage & registration would happen simultaneously. Registration would be viewed by the Government as a life-long contract - in the same way marriage is viewed, and the dissolution of the contract would not be painless nor easy.

Jesus had it right when he said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's!" And property rights, parental rights, health benefits & end-of-life issues, and tax benefits are Caesar's area of interest.

However, you could be registered and not married, but you couldn't be married and not registered

Hey, its just an idea ......

[maveric]

14. Pardon my ignorance, but what is LTTE?

I googled it but what I found was not relevant to your post.

[BOHICA06]

15. Letter to the Editor

nt

[maveric]

16. Thank you. I didnt think that it was The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

n/t

[GiovanniC]

17. What Makes You Think That?

Mr Vellupillai Pirapaharan, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

[TreasonousBastard]

18. Good letter...

and and we have to understand the enormous cultural collison going on here.

We seem to be going through another of those Great Awakenings that are now unique to the US. It is extrememly important that all of us, particularly those of us who are "liberally" religious, fight any attempt to tear down the wall between church and state. We have been too quiet about this for too long.

While there are some individual issues that cross lines, I know of few Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, or others who appreciate this constant yelping about God in politics. There is a fundamental fear that when the state gets involved in religion, it will begin to dictate just what that religion should be.

The growing numbers of Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others should join with us to remember Christ's invocation to "render unto Caesar..."

Jews have long discarded much of the law of the OT, and I see no reason why Christians should selectively bring some of it back.

Christianity is a religion of personal faith and responsibility. While there may be a call to evangelize, most of us have long ago realized there is no call to shove it down people's throats.

We also have to do what we can to stop this nonsense about religious gay-bashing and insinuating it into politics. Homosexuality is fast becoming recognized as a normal behaviour for some, and all the screaming and Bible-thumping in the world won't stop that. This is the civil-rights battle of the 21st Century, and even though most religions are divided internally over it, personal faith and belief cannot spill over into the law.

My own church has two gay couples as members, and they are among the most respected and beloved of the group. Their relationships are simply accepted, as any other relationships, as nobody's business but their own. We doubt God has a problem with it, but if he does, he'll deal with it quite adequately without our assistance.

[Obamarama]

20. Great letter.....reminds me of this script from West Wing....

EDIT - I have no idea where those little yellow faces came from in the text below but I didn't intentionally place them there so I'm not quite sure how to remove them!

I have modified it for my own use to confront ingnorant schmucks who try to use the Bible as mashed potatoes under which to hide their own, unpalatable prejuidices.

Here's the quote from the script. President Bartlett is dressing down a zealot who is clearly supposed to be Dr. Laura:(NOTE TO MODS: I couldn't find the orignal Internet site where I copied this from but full attribution is to NBC /West Wing...don't know the episode).

Bartlet: I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?

While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police?

Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?

Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side-by-side?

Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?

[frogfromthenorth2]

22. A classic that brings tears to my eyes every time I see it....

:cry:

[NicoleM]

24. Under the "message" box

Click this: Check if you DO NOT wish to use emotion icons in your message

It should take the smilies away.

[JesusNoRepublican]

26. Outstanding letter, G, and the source of your piece, KzooDem

may be http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/equality4gays

[populistmom]

21. This is not a Theocracy

Whatever the Bible says is a moot point. Our constitution is not based on the Bible. Religion should be kept seperate.
I am a Christian, albiet my views are from a liberal perspective and I could care less who someone else chooses to love. It's just not my business anymore than it is for judging whether two other strait people should be together.

[xchrom]

25. bravo, giovanni!

keep those hits coming.
although the chrstian right won't thank you for pointing out the obvious.
lastly about paul and his letters -- i'm a christian, not a paulian.

[knight_of_the_star]

28. Good solid shots man!

I'm TRYING the same kind of thing, but it seems that my local paper doesn't like publishing my letters for some odd reason...