The Good Book and Gay Marriage

Duke: I'm sure some considered the article a "breath of air," but they have not been well served. It is not a theologically literate argument. It didn't even deal with many of the key Bible passages. Reading Ms. Miller's article, one could get the impression that the New Testament is silent about the subject of homosexuality, which of course it certainly is not. Furthermore, my objections to same-sex marriage are not based solely on the Bible's teachings. The Bible informs my opinion about this issue, but the question I think we are trying to answer is, what does God have to say about this? It is clear that the Bible condemns homosexual behavior. Since I believe that the Bible is God's word, and I have good reason for this belief, then it must mean that God condemns homosexual marriage, so the Bible cannot be used to help create an argument for same-sex marriage. Whether one wants to create a nonreligious, i.e., civil, marriage or not, it doesn't change what is the clear biblical teaching about homosexual behavior.

Wylie-Kellerman: I want to go forward here speaking out of the conversation which I hear going on in Scripture, one pertinent to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people. The direct sanctions in the Levitical code against male homosexual acts arise during the period of the

exile. They are part of the purity code that set boundaries against assimilation into Babylon. Much of those laws concern dietary restrictions. Think Daniel and Meshach and friends and their refusal to consume the imperial diet. The boundaries of the community are being proscribed and protected by the code. As I understand it, the body itself becomes the image of community. So all of the body's entry and exit points, all orifices are regulated: what goes in as resistance to the empire—like kosher table—has served Judaism's cultural identity throughout the Diaspora. By the time of Jesus, however, these boundaries had been turned on their sides. The purity code was turned against women, the sick and disabled, and poor people. They were the unclean.

At great personal cost, Jesus set about in his life and ministry to welcome the unclean into his community and to his table. He violated the purity code with his body, even finally on the cross. In the Book of Acts (chapter 10), the Holy Spirit urges Peter in a vision to eat unclean foods, and he says that would be an "abomination." Precisely so. But the Spirit persists, and he accedes, which really means he is able to welcome and eat with a gentile, Cornelius, otherwise unclean, then on his way to visit. St. Paul spends a lot of his correspondence thinking this through in writing about the law (more than the purity code, but really set in motion by its stricture). For him the issue is whether the "wall of hostility" (Ephesians) would run down the middle of the common table, even the communion table, dividing Jews and gentiles in the Christian community. In the church, the movement is toward fuller and deeper inclusion. It is that which culminates in Paul saying there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female for we are all one in Christ. In the context of the American freedom struggle, this was understood by the church (sometimes poorly and certainly belatedly) to imply, there is neither black nor white. Today I hear the summons to say, in Christ, there is neither gay nor straight.

Duke: Much of what you argue rests on the dating of the biblical texts. The Leviticus text you reference presents itself as a much older text than that, from the time of Moses, as you know. If this is true, then the social location argument you are making is untenable. There is no tradition that claims that these Leviticus texts are exilic in origin. There is no reason not to assume that they are as old as they purport to be. On the other hand, to adopt your view, we would have to believe that an exilic author deliberately made up material about the Mosaic period, and made it look older than it is in order to give it authority for his contemporary audience. This would certainly not be the act of a virtuous person. Essentially he would be deceiving his contemporary readers in order to gain a desired outcome. I think it is more believable to simply say the text is Mosaic in its origin.

I agree that the legalists of Jesus's day made a real mess of things, and that Jesus had to straighten them out. I'm glad he did. Nevertheless, though Jesus helps us understand that we should be more accepting of others, he never said to disregard the teaching of Scripture in order to do that. He did give us a new understanding of what God meant by some of what he said, and we should do all we can to apply that understanding to current situations. But he never told us to accept homosexual behavior. And the further teaching of the New Testament tells us that Jesus didn't expect us to apply this attitude to homosexuality. Nowhere does the New Testament condone homosexual behavior, but it does often condemn it. When one puts the teachings of Paul on the same authoritative ground as the teachings of Jesus, one must conclude that God does not condone homosexual behavior. The Bible does not suggest that there are two levels of spiritual authority in the Bible—the more authoritative teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Paul and the other New Testament writers. They are all equally authoritative. Consequently, I cannot see any biblical justification for condoning homosexual behavior.