Election Year Gay Bashing

Don't these folks read their Bibles?

The religious right makes rejection of homosexuality a litmus test for "Christianity" based on a very few cherry-picked biblical quotes, mostly from the Old Testament. They claim that it is a sin to not obey the word of God or to vote for those who don’t condemn sin. I am confused by a number of matters.

First of all, I wonder if they have read Deuteronomy. You know, where Moses gets the Ten Commandments directly from God. It’s interesting to note that those "biggie sins" include coveting your neighbor’s wife but not homosexuality. In fact a whole lot of rules are set down in this chapter of the Bible.

Later on, in Deuteronomy 27: 20-23, Moses very specifically spells out what types of sexual relations are off limits: with your father’s wife, your sister, your mother-in-law, and animals. One would think that this would be the place to outlaw homosexuality, if it really was so abhorrent to God.

Also in the chapter are a number of forbidden actions that do not seem to be the basis of choosing political leaders or even branding someone as a sinner:

1. Eating pork (14:8)
2. Refusing to cancel all debts owed one every seven years (15:1)
3. Not being "openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land" (15:11)
4. Putting your firstborn oxen to work (15:19)
5. Not loving "those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt" (10: 19)
6. Not placing a parapet around your roof (22:8)
7. Planting two kinds of seed in your vineyard (22:9)
8. Wearing clothes made of both linen and wool (22:11)
9. Charging interest on loans to fellow followers of God (23:19)
10. Sending a recently married man to war (24:5)

Finally, consider what is allowed and/or required in this great spelling out of sins:

1. Cutting off the hand of a woman that seizes a man by "his private parts" ( 25:11)
2. Stoning to death a child who urges you to worship another god (13:10) or is rebellious (21:21)
3. Taking women of enemies in war as your wife (21:11)
4. Having more than one wife (21:15)
5. Stoning to death an unmarried woman who is not a virgin (22:20)

Let’s see if the religious right can find a "pure"candidate regarding these commands given directly to the Israelites by God through Moses.