Our Mutual Joy

Heidi H., a reader and friend from Ohio, pointed this Newsweek article out to me nearly a week ago; I've just now gotten around to posting.

The author presents a very cohesive, well-documented and nicely thought-out argument in favor of gay marriage, pointing out many of the misconceptions and logical fallacies held by conservative Christians who claim that Jesus and the Bible only define marriage as being between a man and a woman. One of my favorite passages, at the beginning of the article, points out what many Biblical marriages were like, and asks the reader if he or she would truly like to base their own marriages on that model. It also makes a point of the fact that divorce is mentioned--and condemned--far more often in the Bible than is homosexuality.

Later, the author deals with the book of Leviticus, which many Christians turn to first when condemning homosexuality in general:

The Bible does condemn gay male sex in a handful of passages. Twice Leviticus refers to sex between men as "an abomination" (King James version), but these are throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world, a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goat—or a lamb or a turtle dove. Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices; our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions. Why would we regard its condemnation of homosexuality with more seriousness than we regard its advice, which is far lengthier, on the best price to pay for a slave?

The full article can be found here.

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On a personal note, I apologize to my readers (all three or four of you that I have evidence of so far, haha) for my recent neglect of this blog. Unfortunately, when an endeavor is the effort of a single person, real life sometimes supercedes cyberland. Rest assured that I have not been silent in my real world, even if I have been here. Hopefully things will get back to a calmer place in my life, and I'll be able to post more frequently. --DP