Some believe in selective principles

By John Tally

This article appeared recently in the Austin American Statesman.

With publicity over gay marriages, the debate over homosexuality and the Bible once again fills the radio talk-show airwaves.

Many of the hosts support gay marriages, but biblical arguments favoring the Christian fundamentalist cause go unchallenged. The debate usually goes something like this.

HOST: So what's wrong with two loving, committed men or women being legally married?

CALLER: The Bible says homosexuality is a sin.

HOST: So you believe everything in the Bible is literally true?

CALLER: Yes.

HOST: Then you believe it's a sin to eat pork or shellfish, or for a man to shave his beard, and that those who work on the Sabbath should be put to death?

CALLER: No, the coming of Jesus brought a New Covenant which freed us from those rules of the Old Testament.

Score one for the fundamentalist.

But with a few hours of Bible reading, the host could unmask the ever-popular New Covenant argument for what it really is: a justification for selective prejudice.

HOST: But even under Christ's New Covenant, the New Testament is still the literal word of God isn't it?

CALLER: Certainly.

HOST: So you believe anyone who marries after divorce commits adultery (Mark 10:11); that women must remain silent, not teach, and have no authority over men (1Tim 2:11); and that slaves must obey their masters at all times (Col. 3:22).

CALLER: Well . . .

HOST: And if the New Covenant freed us from the regulations of the Old Testament, doesn't that do away with all three of its anti-gay passages ?

CALLER: Um . . . no . . . the New Covenant primarily did away with the strict dietary and health rules, not the moral laws, of the Old Testament.

HOST: So when Leviticus prescribes death for all adulterers and for all who curse their parents just before it prescribes the same penalty for any man who lies with another man, each of those moral laws applies to us today?

CALLER: Well . . . I didn't say that . . .

HOST: And when Deuteronomy prescribes death for nonvirgin brides shortly before it claims no homosexual shall be a son of Israel, you agree with both those moral laws?

CALLER: Well, of course not . . .

HOST: So you DO pick and choose which parts of the Bible to believe.

Since fundamentalists are rarely confronted with these and other troubling Biblical passages, most sincerely think they believe every word of the Bible.

When has Jerry Falwell called for the stoning for Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Pete and Gayle Wilson, and everyone else who has remarried after divorce?

When has the Christian Coalition ever organized to ban women from teaching positions and from elected office?

No, it's selective prejudice and old-fashioned fear of the unknown that motivates fundamentalists to target gays and lesbians. Biblical principle has nothing to do with it. Take away the phony claim to a literal view of the Bible, and the religious argument against homosexuality falls like a house of cards.

John Tally is a San Francisco attorney.

This column was first published in the San Francisco Examiner.