One of the many arguments over Prop 8 comes down to theology. Many who oppose same-sex marriage, or even just homosexuality in general, argue that it’s not only against nature, but against God. By now, anyone with a television has seen Fred Phelps and company marching with their “God Hates Fags” signs, or has heard from other, less hysterical, quarters that homosexuality and Christianity are inherently at odds. While I’ll throw in (yet another) disclaimer, this time that I’m not a theologian, I’d have to say that this is one scriptural analysis with which I’d have to disagree.
Let’s start from the assumption–a relatively uncontentious one, I’d hope–that if one is a Christian, the New Testament has a primacy of sorts over the Old Testament. With that as our starting point, then, there are four passages in the New Testament that are widely taken as evidence that homosexuality is anti-Christian. I’ve quoted those passages at length after the jump.
It should be noted that the passages below are all from epistolatory writings. The Pauline epistolatory material, it should be noted, was just that: a pile of letters. A wide spectrum of Biblical scholars (that is to say, we’re not just talking about the Jesus Seminar here) would readily concede that these weren’t written, or intended to be taken, as scripture. Each of them was written to address specific issues faced by some of the many churches the apostle Paul set up during his wanderings in Asia Minor and North Africa; one suspects that if he were writing scripture, or knew that his writings would later be construed as such, they would have had a much different tone. Additionally, some of the later epistolatory material—like Timothy, which is quoted below, and 2 Corinthians, which isn’t—is now widely regarded to have been forged.*
On the other hand, you’ve got the Gospels, and Acts, which I lump in with the Gospels, since they were probably penned by the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke. The Gospels, which purport to tell what is known of Jesus’ life and ministry, do not mention homosexuality. At all. (more…)