"That same passage goes on to condemn those who commit adultery to death as well. Yet Jesus himself abrogated this very portion of the law"

Partly right and partly wrong. Jesus abrogated the punishment, not the underlying sin (“Go, and sin no more”).

The modern day bible thumper would simply say, with respect to Leviticus 20:13 (“If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them), “Okay, so we don’t put homosexuals to death anymore, but it’s still a sin, and we should not allow this sin to be sanctioned by law.” I believe the shrimp argument attempts to respond to this counterargument.

“But, of course, if a Christian were to cite Deuteronomy 5:17 in support of the proposition that murder is morally wrong, no one would derisively countercite Leviticus 11:9-12 and think it a sensible let alone clever refutation.”

Very true. The problem, of course, is that there’s a very powerful secular justification to laws that forbid murder (i.e., if everyone went around killing each other society would be unstable). Gay marriage opponents, however, don’t seem to put forth plausible secular arguments. They’re instead content to say, “Homosexuality is immoral. See Leviticus 20:13 (or, in general, The Bible).” If they’re going to rely solely—or mostly—on the Bible, they deserve to have ridiculous passages thrown back in their face.

We’re in a war for the public’s hearts and minds, not writing legal arguments.

See also my comments over at Rickey's www.threeyearsofhell.com.

ASDF:

How many hearts and minds does one win by saying the self-evidently foolish, however?

First, I think that I've explained why I don't think that Anthony's arguments apply to the matter at hand. He sees the argument as an attempt to make Biblical arguments; I see it as an attempt to say "well, this is why we should stick to the merits of the matter and not result to religion." I think we disagree about what McDermott meant.

Second--Anthony, the self-evidently foolish will inherit the earth.

T,
I'd like to answer to be "none," but I'm afraid that the answer is “more than you’d expect.” First, I’d hazard a guess that the vast majority of the electorate are foolish (either by nature or by being deliberately indifferent to the issues).

Second, on this issue, assuming *arguendo* that the biblical counterargument is foolish, then so be it—I happen to think it’s much more effective than the treatise (which would cite “rabbinical commentary, papal encyclicals, the best ecclesiastical writing of the last several centuries”) you propose we write (note: I’m only taking the position that the bible should not be cited for the proposition that gay marriage should be constitutional, not that the bible justifies gay marriage). The masses don’t read treatises; never have, never will. Put even more simply, I think the end here (equality for gays) would justify the means. For instance, if the majority of slave owners would become abolitionists if I told them that because the sun rises every day that means slavery should be outlawed, I’d be the first one to make the argument.

Third, look to the century to see evidence that self-evidently foolish things hold sway (anti-Semitism, anti-Irish sentiment in America, the reasoning behind Korematsu), not to mention the current presidential election—the entire debate is one self-evidently foolish sound bite. I’d like to think that if a politician came along with articulate, well-reasoned arguments, detailed by writings with hundreds upon hundreds of footnotes, he would even the slightest chance of getting elected. However, if I were a betting man, I’d say that his chances of election would hover around 0. That, of course, doesn’t make it right, but it makes it so.

Except, Heidi, that if it is an argument to say 'let's not rely upon religious arguments,' it's a very, very poor one. One of the dumbest ways to say, "My opponent's views are irrelevant" is to substantially misstate them.

And if the substantially-foolish inherit the earth, I'm sure they'll mortgage it to those of us who aren't, and end up defaulting when the money they've invested in fur-bearing trout-farms disappears. If you and ASDF want to say that it doesn't matter if something is a bad argument if it sways the masses, then I'll let you sway the masses and keep with the satisfaction that any masses with a three-week Sunday school education aren't going to be swayed by that.

Clerk-

Your argument proves too much. If in fact we can rely on a thousand years of tradition to bolster a particular (NT) interpretation, then it would stand to reason that we should look to that tradition to bolster all (or reasonably all) NT interpretations.

But . . . whatever our holy mother church's teachings and practices on adultery over the last two thousand years have been, they do not amount to "go forth and sin no more."

So what gives? Did the New Testament alter our covenant with God by softening the harshness of the Old? And if so, why aren't we paying better attention to it?

Simon

PS -- And incidently, appropo your comment that "some teachings have survived . . . while others have not," I'd love to hear you explain how we should determine which of those teachings have not survived because they are bad teachings and which have not survived because we are all sinners.
(And, of course, when you're done with that, you can explain how a good textualist ever determines which (admittedly a-textual) stare decisis is worth following and which isn't.)

I have a horse in this race. As an active Christian with a liberal bent and a member of a church currently being stretched to the breaking pointby conglict over homosexuality, I have a keen interest in the argument.

Romans 1 is a good place to start, but it should be recognized that the chapter divisions are a late additio to the original texts. The pertinant parts of Romans 1 runs on into the beginning of Romans 2. Here the author, traditionally believed to be Paul, identifies a group of people who have "traded natural intercourse for unnatural" and cites all of the negative effects this has had upon them as people. "They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents,f 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them."

But Paul continues in Chapter 2 "Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."

This is Paul's point, the judgement toward others is the problem. Romans 1&2 condemns those who oppose gay unions more than it condems those who support it.

Ruidh:

Although I think that the argument that you make is of the sort that Christians ought to take seriously—as opposed to random citation of any and every Old Testament verse that comes to mind—I am not as certain that the meaning of Romans 1 is as you suggest when considered in context with the remainder of Romans. I think that Romans is rather complex, and I hesitate to offer an opinion on the merits.

Nice post, Mr. Clerk.

imagine Lenten Fridays under the laws of Leviticus you quote...

Given the Biblical arguments, I wish someone would explain, from a Christian standpoint, why there's not a Constitutional amendment in the works to forbid the remarriage of divorced persons. Jesus never said a word about homosexuality, but the gospels are as clear about divorce as they are about anything. If it's so all-fired important to legislate Biblical teachings on marriage, then this would be a better place to start.

(The short answer, that divorce & remarriage benefit heterosexuals, is ruled out in advance as too cynical.)

Andy:

I am not so sure your criticism hits its mark.

First, I think the New Testament is a little more nuanced on divorce than you allow. Even Jesus, perhaps, allowed for divorce and remarriage where adultery is concerned. See Matthew 19:9 ("And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.") (emphasis added). Some Christians have also read I Corinthians 7:10-15 as allowing abandonment as grounds for divorce and, perhaps, remarriage.

Second, many social conservatives would be delighted to substantially curtail divorce (e.g., Maggie Gallagher). Indeed, religious conservatives have generated considerable ire on this score:

The predominant support for toughening divorce laws comes from religious and right-wing groups. Decrying the shrinking number of traditional nuclear families, "the Christian Right's agenda is to force people to stay married," says Laura Boyd, PhD, a Democratic state legislator in Oklahoma, an MFT and a trained divorce mediator. . . .

In short, although conservative Christians would be happy to return to a biblical understanding of marriage or something rather close to it, there is little doubt that the general public would not follow where these conservatives would lead on this issue were they to propose a Constitutional Amendment. Your argument seems to rest on the notion that having lost the battle concerning the definition and nature heterosexual marriage, religious conservatives ought not to even put up a fight concerning the homosexual variety. I do not think that the conclusion follows from the premise.

Again, I offer no opinion on the merits. But I don't find these arguments premised on cherry-plucked provisions of the Bible very convincing.

Ruidh,

You've taken an admonition against hypocrisy and turned it into a justification for public accomodation of sin. That's so utterly wrong, it's hard to know where to start...

Thanks for the reply!

(1) Sure, depending on which gospel you go to, you can find the exception for adultery or not, but that doesn't represent divorce law in 49 or so of the states (I believe my native Mississippi is the last to lack unilateral no-fault divorce).

(2) As for 1 Cor., I carefully didn't say "divorce," I said "remarriage after divorce." And while "some" may be able to derive an endorsement of remarriage from that text, that seems to me about as plausible as reading "homosexuality" in Paul to mean "pedophilia," which some scholars have certainly done.

(3) But "cherry-picking"? Au contraire. Those who decide that gay marriage merits a constitutional amendment, whereas remarriage after divorce merits mere grousing, are the cherry-pickers, IMHO. And to argue "let's win the battle where popular hate and prejudice are in our favor, while staying out of the battle where the majority would oppose us" ... well, I guess that's good politics, if not necessarily good Christianity.