Manny Pacquiao Uses Bible to Rebuke Obama's Support for Gay Marriage
Manny Pacquiao, Christian Filipino boxer and congressman, has reportedly disagreed with President Barack Obama's support of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, and has insisted people should always put God's word first.
After Obama vocalized that he was in support of gay marriage earlier this week, Pacquiao was adamant that the president had got it wrong. In an interview with the National Conservative Examiner while training in Los Angeles, Calif., Pacquiao spoke about the need for society to put "God's words first."
However, Obama has attempted to explain his reasoning for supporting a redefinition of marriage, using the Golden Rule of loving your neighbor as justification for ignoring other verses condemning homosexuality in the Bible.
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"Do unto others as you would have them do to you," the president said in an ABC News report. "At a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."
While the 33-year-old boxer said he respected Obama, he told the Examiner that the president should read the bible or "manual of life" to better society.
"God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other," Pacquiao said. "It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old."
The Examiner reporter who interviewed the boxer then added in a quote of Leviticus 20:13 which states: "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
However, the reporter later confirmed that Pacquiao had not actually cited that Bible verse to him, but that he just added it in himself. That addition created a firestorm for Pacquiao and had led some to believe Pacquiao was calling for homosexuals to be put to death. However, the boxer later clarified he had simply explained to the reporter that he believed same-sex marriage to be against the law of God.
Pacquiao, nicknamed "Pacman," is a Roman Catholic who has talked recently about ending his fighting career to focus on his religious beliefs. The boxer told ABS-CBN News that his fight against Timothy Bradley Jr. at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on June 9 might be the last of his career.
