Palmer Events Center
The Bible Doesn't Tell Them So
RECEIVED Mon., Nov. 7, 2005
Dear Editor,
Supporters of the Texas marriage amendment [Proposition 2] seem to assume they have the Bible and American tradition on their side. They should look at the facts and think again.
Jewish Old Testament laws outlawed several homosexual and heterosexual sex acts and relationships. Yet Jesus himself never forbade homosexuality, and the type of homosexuality St. Paul criticized was mainly a system of boy prostitution, now long extinct. Even if you look at the main biblical traditions about the destruction of the sinful city Sodom, you will find that Sodom’s sin was lack of charity (e.g., Ezekiel 16:49 – the tradition to which Jesus alludes in Luke 17).
Another common misconception is that the founding fathers modeled our laws on Christianity. This is manifestly false. They drew much more heavily from pre-Christian, Greco-Roman political thought, and from early modern European thinkers. In fact, most founding fathers rejected traditional Christianity; figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson saw themselves as part of the European Enlightenment, a movement which was largely critical of Christianity.
If we were to model our marriage laws on the clearest testimony of Jesus (as in Matthew 5), we would outlaw divorce and remarriage, not gay unions. As a married heterosexual Christian, I’m glad that our founding fathers chose not to make this country a theocracy. They would not want us to do so either.
Supporters of the Texas marriage amendment [Proposition 2] seem to assume they have the Bible and American tradition on their side. They should look at the facts and think again.
Jewish Old Testament laws outlawed several homosexual and heterosexual sex acts and relationships. Yet Jesus himself never forbade homosexuality, and the type of homosexuality St. Paul criticized was mainly a system of boy prostitution, now long extinct. Even if you look at the main biblical traditions about the destruction of the sinful city Sodom, you will find that Sodom’s sin was lack of charity (e.g., Ezekiel 16:49 – the tradition to which Jesus alludes in Luke 17).
Another common misconception is that the founding fathers modeled our laws on Christianity. This is manifestly false. They drew much more heavily from pre-Christian, Greco-Roman political thought, and from early modern European thinkers. In fact, most founding fathers rejected traditional Christianity; figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson saw themselves as part of the European Enlightenment, a movement which was largely critical of Christianity.
If we were to model our marriage laws on the clearest testimony of Jesus (as in Matthew 5), we would outlaw divorce and remarriage, not gay unions. As a married heterosexual Christian, I’m glad that our founding fathers chose not to make this country a theocracy. They would not want us to do so either.
Christopher Fuhrmann
Denton
Denton
