Newsweek draws the battle lines

It appears as though the battle for gay marriage is going to be a messy one, and we are just seeing the beginning. Newsweek recently published an article (on the cover, no less), called "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage," and the editor has endorsed the publications stance on this issue. Albert Mohler has examined and picked apart (read: demolished) this article far better than I could, so I'll link the article itself on Newsweek's website, and his response in his blog.

First, though, here's some quotes (and my paraphrases) to get your blood boiling and to entice you to read on a bit. Lisa Miller, author of the article, writes,

"The Bible endorses slavery, a practice that Americans now universally consider shameful and barbaric. It recommends the death penalty for adulterers (and in Leviticus, for men who have sex with men, for that matter). It provides conceptual shelter for anti-Semites. A mature view of scriptural authority requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism. The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it's impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours."

In other words: Screw the Bible. Let's pick and choose some broad, vague themes like "love" and "justice" and justify our arguments that way.

"My friend the priest James Martin says his favorite Scripture relating to the question of homosexuality is Psalm 139, a song that praises the beauty and imperfection in all of us and that glorifies God's knowledge of our most secret selves: 'I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.' And then he adds that in his heart he believes that if Jesus were alive today, he would reach out especially to the gays and lesbians among us, for 'Jesus does not want people to be lonely and sad.'"

In other words: Hey, this Psalm makes me feel happy! I bet it's about gays. Also, I might add that Jesus Christ took on flesh and was crucified so people could be happy, regardless of moral and religious norms. It's in the Bible!

"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 ..."

In other words: Hmmm, these are hard to make fit my point. Let's just throw them out!

And from the editor, perhaps the most ominous ...

"No matter what one thinks about gay rights—for, against or somewhere in between —this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism. Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt—it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition."

In other words: Actually, this one speaks pretty well for itself. If I could type the sound of a slap in the face of conservative Chrsitians everywhere, I would do so here.

Here's the links:

Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy -- Lisa Miller

Turning the Bible on its Head -- Albert Mohler