Onto the home turf

Newsweek's cover story this week is Our Mutual Joy: The Religious Case for Gay Marriage by Lisa Miller. Talk about gutsy! It's wonderful to see in a magazine of this stature (though Newsweek, in the 30 years I've been reading it, has always been gay friendly). Some of her points:

* Fundies actually claim the modern one-man-one-woman marriage represents the biblical tradition? Have you taken a look at Biblical marriages lately? Throughout the Old Testament it was one man and as many wives as he could afford. In the New Testament, the two that talk most about marriage -- Jesus and Paul -- are both single.
* In spite of Fundie claims, Jesus said nothing about homosexuality and the bible says very little. Neither the bible nor Jesus defines marriage.
* There really is a difference between civil and religious marriage.
* What about "be fruitful and multiply?" Doesn't that prove that since gays can't procreate they can' marry? Infertile straights get married all the time and gays have access to international adoptions and reproductive technology (besides, with 6.5 billion people we must have kids?).
* Leviticus bans gay acts! Leviticus has more space devoted to how to sacrifice a lamb and how to be ritually clean -- and how to set the proper price for a slave.
* Paul may have been written about homosexuality, but progressive scholars are sure now that he wasn't talking about love between equal partners.
* Our definition of marriage has changed radically over the years and our current definition is less than 100 years old.
* The bible *does* say a lot about acceptance and inclusion, especially inclusion in defiance of social convention. Denying a sacrament such as religious marriage because of sexuality is the same as denying it because of skin color.

Naturally, the article has raised howls of protest, denunciations, and charges of a scandalous hit piece on Christianity. The arguments for and against gay marriage (or gays in general) have usually been fought on the scientific side -- can gays change or are they born that way? -- with the Fundies putting forth some mighty strange "science" to support their cause. That's while they cite religious reasons when they talk amongst themselves. But the tables have been turned. Miller has poked holes in their religious arguments and they now have to defend their home turf. It seems the only ones allowed to use and interpret the bible are the Fundies. Progressive Christians or -- gosh! atheists -- are supposed to keep their hands off. They're allowed to do bad science, but if we touch their bible they are persecuted. This chart says it well.