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Newsweek Cover Story Challenges Biblical Opposition To Gay Marriage

By Howard M. Friedman

The issue of Newsweek dated Dec. 15 carries a cover story by Lisa Miller on the battle over gay marriage from a different perspective. It challenges the notion that there is strong opposition to gay marriage in the Bible. Arguing that there are few examples of the so-called "traditional family" in the Bible, Miller goes on to contend that the passages which condemn homosexuality are marginal or misunderstood. Pointing out that the Biblical prohibitions first only refer to male homosexuality, she calls the passages in Leviticus "throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world, a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goat...." And she suggests that the New Testament's apparent condemnation of homosexuality in the epistles of Paul is really an attack on the "depravity of the Roman emperors."

Full post as published by Religion Clause on December 16, 2008 (boomark / email).