7.01.2010

The Bible Is Not Cut-and-Paste, kthx.

I was reading a post at Right Wing Watch (bringing me the best of wingnuttery daily since...whenever I RSS'ed them) about some jackhole (Rick Barton of Wallbuilders, if anyone cares) laying out a Biblical case for industry deregulation (for the love of all the gods, the Bible laid out rules for a tribal society in the Bronze Age.  We are not there anymore.  Can we stop trying to pattern our laws on that?)...and this bit caught my eye.  He was quoting the Bible, a few verses in 1 Timothy that describes who the laws should be applied to:
So it says "we know the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, and homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine."
That caught my eye.  I haven't read the whole Bible, but I'm fairly well-versed in the arguments for and against a Biblical treatment of homosexuality, and one of the things I know is that the Bible is really, really nonspecific about homosexuality per se.  There's much talk of "sexual immorality" but it's not really defined as a homosexual thing.  It seemed odd to see it in this context, so I went to one of the many Bible-verse-lookup websites out there and searched.  This is the version of this passage that I found, 1 Timothy 1:9-10:
We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
Funny.  I don't see "and homosexuals" in there.  Even in a discussion of Biblical economic policy, the gay-hating was SO IMPORTANT that this asshole felt the need to insert homosexuality into the list of Bad People.  


Dude.  It's your holy book, which you believe was inspired by your omnipotent God.  If he'd meant for homosexuals to be on the list of Bad People, don't you think he would have put that there himself?  And since he didn't, who the fuck do you think you are to do it for him?  If you're going to claim the excuse of religion to support your bigotry, you could at least have the courtesy to work with the religious text as-is, not your edited version of it.  I seem to recall that the God of the Bible was not a huge fan of arrogance.  You might want to re-think yours.

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