Remember, God hates Fags... and would kill them if he could...

Here am I sputtering about negativity while others discuss real issues.

Let me turn you on again to Bob Harris' terrific Blog. Recently he spoke with Kevin Drum, writer for the Washington Monthly, about the recently outbreak of hatred against homosexuals on the part of the so-called "Christian" right:

... Homosexuality is another good one. They cite Leviticus 18:22 ("you shall not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is an abomination") and 20:13 ("If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.")

Sounds clear enough at first. Although note that man-on-man action is what's being explicitly discussed in both passages, so lesbians can remain among God's Chosen. And I say good on that.

But "abomination" explicitly meant breaking the purity rules, which served politically to keep the Israelites separate from the fertility-rite-oriented Canaanites. It's an identity-politics thing from thousands of years ago. (Interestingly, the exact Hebrew in the text is "forbidden," not the word meaning "intrinsically wrong," a distinction which survived into the Greek translation). Which means that lots of other things are in the same batch. Like mixing seeds in your field or wearing clothes made from two types of material (Lev 19:19), cutting your hair or trimming your beard (Lev 19:27), eating shellfish (Lev 11:10) or consulting spiritualists (Lev 20:27). These are all "abominations," forbidden. Not one of them is actually described using the Hebrew word for "intrinsically wrong."

That's why shaving is so rarely a death-penalty offense these days.

So, um... contemporary God-Hates-Fags stuff is unjustified from any serious reading of the text, and has more to do with hate and sexual insecurity.

Otherwise... why aren't these people also protesting synthetic fabrics, GM foods, barber shops, Jon Edward, and Red Lobster?

And that's why there's nothing more amusing than seeing a clean-shaven minister in a polyester suit spouting off about gays and the Bible.