It was to be expected, of course. Newsweek editor, Jon Meacham, unworried, said, in so many words, "bring 'em on!"And they have! Christianist wingnuts everywhere are coming loose over the Newsweek article supporting gay marriage.
Albert Mohler takes Newsweek religion editor, Lisa Miller, to task for her one-sided approach to biblical teachings. Mohler argues, for example, that while "family" in the Old Testament meant something different than we do, at the center of the biblical unit "stands the institution of marriage as the most basic human model of convenantal love and commitment."
Oh, if only it were so. Assuming momentarily that the partriarchal figures were historical, one can only laugh at Mohler's gratituitous comment. Generally, marriage in those tribal units meant an old man grabbed a young girl of his liking and threw her in his tent. Then, he grabbed another young girl; and another. If, down the road he decided he no longer wanted one of his "wives," he threw her out of his tent like an old wine bottle. That's not really a "human model of covenantal love and commitment."
Mohler has much more to say and you can read it all here if you're interested. You won't find anything new. It's a rehashing of the same old "biblical" arguments. But it is a good case study on why the answers to this and many other of life's questions are not to be found in that musty collection of ancient scribblings known as the Bible.
Mohler does register a bit of paranoia, however. And, as one might suspect, the media are at the heart of it! Mohler says the reason Newsweek published this article is because:
"The national news media are collectively embarrassed by the passage of Proposition 8 in California. [I wonder if he includes Fox News or the WSJ in his definition of 'national news media?'] Gay rights activists are publicly calling on the mainstream media to offer support for gay marriage, arguing that the media let them down in November. It appears that Newsweek intends to do its part to press for same-sex marriage. Many observers believe that the main obstacle to this agenda is a resolute opposition grounded in Christian conviction. Newsweek clearly intends to reduce that opposition."
Uh, oh! Watch out all you good christianists 'cause the national media's gonna grind you down and help establish gay marriage and that means your traditional marriage is no damn good anymore! It says so in the Bible! Of course, more than half of you get divorced anyway, so it probably doesn't matter much.
The American Family Association calls Miller's article "one of the most biased and distorted pieces concerning homosexual marriage ever published by a major news organization," and calls upon all good christianists to e-mail Newsweek saying that "you are disappointed with its distorted interpretation of scripture."
Jim Brown at onenewsnow.com writes that "Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute, believes there is ample evidence of media bias on the marriage issue, but calls this example one of the worst he has seen. Knight says Newsweek published a 'cartoon' version of Scripture that is a gay activist's dream."
Knight claims that Lisa Miller's trying "to take the Bible and make it say something it flat-out does not say is journalistic malpractice."
Omigod! "Journalistic malpractice!" I wonder if that's against the law? I'll check in Leviticus and get back to you.
Not only so, Mr. Knight also claims that "the article is an attack on the authority of scripture, evangelical Christians, and absolute truth."
I would hope so!
Then we have the Family Research Council, which has also come out of its cave to step into the fray. Tony Perkins goes straight to the Hebrew Bible and straightens Ms. Miller out. It's hard to make sense of what he says, though. For example, in his rebuttal to Miller, notes that many of the Bible's "fathers and heroes were polygamists." Well, says Perkins, that's because "There is a difference between how the Bible defines marriage and how it depicts it in all it's sin-corrupted reality. It is defined in the creation."
You know, when Adam and Eve stood before the serpent in the garden and Eve brushed back her veil and gave Adam his ring and promised to love him only and forever. See Genesis 2. There doesn't seem to be any "traditional" marriage in the Genesis 1 creation story! Damn, this gets confusing!
There's more of Perkins here. Ugh!
Another wingnut, this time a "biblical scholar," Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a fundamentalist school affiliated with the fundamentalist Presbyterian Church, USA.
He disagrees, naturally, with Miller's take on the Bible. "Miller," he says, "restricts her research to biblical scholars supportive of homosexual unions and exaggerates discontinuity between Scripture's marriage values and our own."
Hmmm. Did he just say there is, in fact, "discontinuity between Scripture's marriage values and our own," and Miller's problem is she "exaggerated" that discontinuity.
By god, I think he did!
Gagnon's arguments are another good example as to why referencing the Bible on this or any other "moral" position is a losing proposition. As we steadfastly maintain, "Every evil cause on the fact of the earth is and has been justified on the basis of the Bible."
Gagnon has a rather long article arguing against Miller here.
Richard Land, the self-righteous Southern Baptist poohbah, isn't worried at all about any of this. "If they [Newsweek?] think they're going to cause Evangelical Christians or Bible-believing Christians of different stripes to somehow say, oh, the Bible doesn't matter on marriage, I think they're mistaken. I don't think too many in the Evangelical world are too concerned about what Newsweek has to say."
He's probably right. But that doesn't mean Newsweek is wrong. It means Christians of his kind of stripes drift through life with closed minds. And if these "Christians" try to open the doors and let some fresh air in, Land and his cohorts are there to nail it shut again. That's their job, doing the work of god.
Finally, some of these wingnuts make us wonder what they hell they want. Politico.com writes about how they go through all this biblical justification to oppose gay marriage, and then turn around and say, as did Ralph Reed, [the ethically-challenged former director of the Christian Coalition and close pal of convicted felon, Jack Abramoff],
"There's more of a practical, sociological foundation for why we seek to affirm marriage as an institution than I think is generally understood by those who want to legalize same-sex marriage."
Huh? "A "practical, sociological foundation"? What does that mean? Is Reed saying what the Bible says isn't all that important because his case against gay marriage is based on "a practical, sociological foundation"? And if so, what would that be?
Land concludes by saying something of the same thing. The arguments used around the country in the "anti-same-sex marriage referenda" did not mainly involve "biblical instructions," but "secular arguments, arguing about marriage being a civic and a social institution, and that societies have a right to define marriage. Broadening the definition of marriage could 'shatter' the social role married couples have traditionally played.
So what is it? Are the wingnuts opposed to gay marriage because the Bible says it's a bad thing and god's gonna get you, or are they opposed to gay marriage because it's bad for society and will mess up traditional marriages (as if they're not messed up enough anyway!)?
It's really hard to play god, isn't it? It's really hard to preach "absolute truth" based on the bible when no one has a frigging clue what that is! And then you end up being a sociologist. Or maybe a sociopath?
Don't you feel sorry for the wingnuts?
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