Against the Bible Phonies

In the ongoing confluence between popular junk food and religion-driven morality, I've noticed the return of a venerable meme. It purports to show that Bible-based opponents to gay marriage are necessarily Christian hypocrites.

It doesn't, actually. I wrote about this some years back under the heading "What's the difference between homosexuality and a ham sandwich?" I'll reprise here some of what I learned back then.

You have no doubt noticed that the debate de jour pits the supporters of gay-friendly Oreos against the stalwarts of no-gay-marriage Chick-fil-A. (And how weird is our modern world that such a sentence makes sense?)

Here's a representative current example of an argument from the Left, quoted in a post by Joe Conason at the National Memo:

"The Bible also condems [sic] eating non-kosher foods such as lobster, shrimp and crab, and of course pork, so I expect you and yours will keep the faith by avoiding Long John Silver's and boycott Jimmy Dean's sausage.

"The Bible endorses the mass slaughter of men, women, and children whose lands they covet, the institution of slavery, the exclusion of women from society during their [menstrual] periods...I expect that you're consistent in your beliefs [and] do so as well."

Canason also notes Old Testament injunctions against mixing threads, shaving beards, and letting cattle of more than one kind graze together. All of which proves, he says, that those who claim a biblical basis for opposing gay marriage but don't follow those rules are "phonies."

After all, Jesus himself said that he was changing "not one jot or one tittle" of the old laws.

But whatever one thinks about whether couples of the same sex should be allowed the benefits available to heterosexuals, Conason et al are ignoring more than 2,000 years of Christian history in their attack.

Start with the Jewish legal structure described in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Talmud. Almost none of those various laws and edicts were understood to apply to Gentiles. (Ask Mr. Google about the Noahide Laws if you want to see some exceptions.)

But even if you accept the idea that Christianity is a true graft onto the Jewish rootstock and that Christians aren't exactly Gentiles, that graft never grew the same as the older faith. Pruning started very early on.

Check out Mark 7 where Jesus publically disses the entire structure of kosher food restrictions. And Acts 10 where God apparently does likewise to Peter. So much for Christians needing to pass on a lobster salad or ham sandwich.

By the time Paul was writing what became the standard cant, even the central Jewish sacrament of circumcision was taken off the table for Christians (Galatians 5:6), which no doubt helped the growth of membership in the infant religion.

Such textual specifics still left the early church with plenty of decisions about which of the old laws were still in force. Christian theologians through the ages went back to categories that applied to Gentiles: those against idolatry, those that defined appropriate sexual behavior and those that generally established the sanctity of life. And they also looked to see which of the laws seemed primarily ceremonial in nature, which seemed to have more of a civil purpose and which were primarily moral and religious.

Not mixing threads seemed ceremonial. The design of the bet din court was deemed civil. Both sent to the dustbin of history, for Christians.

So what's moral and religious? Discussions and arguments continue. If a topic gets mentioned in the New Testament, as homosexuality appears to be, that pushes it higher on the list of laws likely to have found historical support from Christian authorities.

Which doesn't mean that Christians who turn to their Bibles to oppose gay marriage can't be twitted for religious inconsistency. In addition to killing many of the old laws -- or at least declaring them "fulfilled" by the sacrifice of Jesus -- the New Testament birthed its own new restrictions.

Like, say, divorce followed by remarriage. That was perfectly fine in Jewish law, with a whole set of civil rules associated with it. But Jesus and Paul seem pretty unambiguous:

"I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." (Matthew 19:9.)

"To the married I give this command -- not I, but the Lord -- a wife should not divorce a husband (but if she does, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband), and a husband should not divorce his wife. (I Corinthians 7:10-11)

Now I know that there exists a long historical body of theological discussion about what these passages mean or do not mean in context. And that there are putatively conservative Christians who believe they've found ways to religiously justify divorce and remarriage. Some of whom nonetheless deny even the possibility of such discussion about same-sex relationships.

Which from my seat in the theological bleachers sounds like arguments over, ahem, fig leaves. If you're allowed to wear 'em, why can't everybody?