The Bible and Proposition 8
Mockery and Bigotry
The passage of Proposition 8, the ballot measure that banned same-sex "marriage" in California, has stirred the ire of gay activists like little else. Besides thuggish vandalism of church property, that anger is being translated into mockery of the faith community.
Nowhere do we see it more clearly than the viral video, "Proposition 8: The Musical," created by "Hairspray" composer Marc Shaiman, which has now been seen by 2 million people online. In it the religious characters sing, "It's time to spread some hate/ And put it in the constitution."
The short video is full of distortions, and even lies. As radio commentator Dennis Prager of the Hoover Institution puts it, "Hatred based on ignorance is known as bigotry."
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But Shaiman isn't alone. This week Newsweek magazine has come out of the closet with a one-sided support of gay "marriage." The article, entitled "Our Mutual Joy," runs with this teaser, "Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side."
In it, writer Lisa Miller joins Shaiman's chorus of mockery, and there's no shortage of condescension to be found. She begins, "Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife was infertile?"
Miller continues to point to the polygamy of the patriarchs and the singleness of Jesus and Paul in order to wrangle up a so-called biblical defense for gay "marriage." Try as she may, her arguments, including passages stripped out of context like David's love for Jonathan or a new look at Paul's condemnation of men "inflamed with lust for one another," fall short. Her logic is selective, at times using the Bible as a defense, other times as the brunt of her ridicule.
For the record, nowhere in the Bible is homosexual activity praised or advocated. The only mentions of it condemn the practice, some calling it an abomination. On the other hand, the Bible has plenty to say about the marriage of one man to one woman. Take a look at God's commands in the garden, or Christ's words on leaving and cleaving and becoming one flesh, or look at Paul's instructions specifically for "husbands" and "wives" in Ephesians 5.
Miller admits that the argument for a biblical support of gay "marriage" is usually not made from any particular passage but from, as scholar Walter Brueggemann put it, "the general conviction that the Bible is bent toward inclusiveness."
Well, Miller is partly right. Christ's invitation to sinners to come and find salvation truly does include all people. But this invitation is not that we might stay as we are. His love calls us instead to be transformed into His likeness. All of us have the same opportunity to turn from our sins, whether that sin be pride, unbelief, greed, or any number of sexual sins, including the kinds committed by patriarchs, modern homosexuals, and everyday covenant breakers.
No, my friends, God loves us enough that He won't leave us as He finds us. I'll take that kind of inclusiveness any day, over the thinly guised bigotry of tolerance.
