The Bible and Homosexuality.

The Westboro Baptist Church plans to protest Heath Ledger's memorial service because, all together now, God Hates Fags. This latest Westboro moment has reminded me of a goal I've had for a while now. I want to go through the Bible and find every verse related to homosexuality and then find verses from the same books which no one heeds anymore.

For example, I would post Leviticus 18:22:
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."

I would then post Leviticus 11:10-12:
"But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to detest. And since you are to detest them, you must not eat their meat and you must detest their carcasses. Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you."

Because, to me, it seems reasonable to argue that if one can completely ignore Leviticus 11:10-12 then it is also reasonable to completely ignore Leviticus 18:22. If only because any "logic" used to argue that it's now ok to eat lobster despite what God said (if we are to take that view of the Bible) will also support the idea that it's now ok to suck dick despite what God said. That is, of course, unless we are to distinguish between eating and sucking. And, really, I'd just like to hear a Christian fundamentalist nutcase make that argument; hopefully with diagrams and a demonstration.

The problem with my little goal is that
1) It is a lot of work.
2) I am really, really lazy.

Additionally, people have already made arguments similar to the one I want to make as well as arguments which are far better. Hell, wikipedia has an entry on the Bible and homosexuality which goes through, verse by verse, detailing the history and context and translation. There are also real websites which explore the Bible verses related to homosexuality and note particularities of translations and what the original Hebrew actually meant.

If we want to abandon the verse-by-verse argument and adopt a "in general" or broad view of the Bible and homosexuality there are sites which approach the debate from that angle as well. We can read about three same-sex relationships described in the Bible, exploring both the particular verses and their relation to the work as a whole.

What I do not understand, after spending the four minutes on google required to find all of this information, is how people can take this nuanced, historical, scholarly argument which explores the Bible as a historical text and simplify it all down to, "God hates Fags. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

If one honestly gives a shit about The Bible and if one honestly believes that there is an invisible man living in the sky who inspired the book and has a message to communicate to us I would think that such a person would, I don't know, read the fucking book and pay attention to scholars and interested parties who put forth the effort require to compile all of this information in an easily accessed manner.

The problem, I think, is that people do not desire to assess the work from an unbiased perspective. Insane people like the Westboro Baptist Church and Rick Santorum have an objective in mind when they approach the debate: They really don't like gay people. So instead of reading the Bible and understanding the nuance and particulars and complete bat-shit-insanity of Leviticus they stumble upon Leviticus 18:22, close the book, close their minds, consider their viewpoint justified, and let forth verbal torrents of hate at fellow human beings who happen to be homosexuals.

And the only thing worse than someone who thinks there is an invisible man living in the sky is someone who uses the child-like innocence of delusional fuckwits to rally support for their own hate-driven, intolerant message.

If you're going to ignore your day to day experiences, build onto reality the fabricated notion of an invisible sky daddy, and latch onto The Book which a group of historical grifters foisted onto your forebears under the guise of Godly dictation then at the very least you ought to read the damn thing and research the historical context of the work and the nuances of translation required to understand what The Book actually says.

Even if that does negate all of the premises upon which you base your belief in invisible sky daddy and your justification for your intolerant, narcissistic gay bashing.