When I got this blog I never thought I would have to have sequels to my own posts, but apparently I do, especially when I make somewhat erroneous statements that should be corrected, and then within themselves analyzed and explained.

Now, quoting myself:

Actually, that last one has always confused me. WAS there a new bible that specifically forbade two people from expressing their love for each other by getting married? I am not a Christian, true, but I have problems believing that an all-mighty God that is forgiving and loves everyone suddenly hates people that openly admit attraction for the same sex. Did Jesus all of a sudden hate little Billy because he found out he liked looking at Tommy instead of Jill? I just… I do not get it. As far as I know, there is nothing specifically in any part of the Bible that says a marriage is only in between a man and a woman. Marriages had been going on for years before the New Testament was written; it’s only natural the Bible includes at least one marriage ceremony.

After some humbling I got from certain people whom I hold in high esteem, I decided to take some of my own advice and investigate for myself into the parts where marriage in between two people of the same sex is talked about in the Bible, in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. I read Genesis and Exodus completely, and used Wikipedia as a guide to skip to the parts where the rest of this topic were brought up. This is my results.

What is odd is that people today kind of gloss over the fact that same-sex marriage is not brought up in the Bible whatsoever. I am serious on that. Nowhere does it say, “Two men can not get married” or “Two women can not get married”. Actually, when reading over all the parts that people quote for evidence against same-sex marriage, only one part of the Bible actually mentions same-sex intercourse in between women (and I will come to that later). Most of it has to do with male homosexuality and sexual relations specifically.

As you can probably guess, the word “sodomy” is directly derived from the city of Sodom. The passage that directly relates to same-sex relationships in general is Genesis 19:4-9. I will quote from the New Jerusalem Bible, because it was easiest to find online:

4 They had not gone to bed when the house was surrounded by the townspeople, the men of Sodom both young and old, all the people without exception.

5 Calling out to Lot they said, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so that we can have intercourse with them.’

6 Lot came out to them at the door and, having shut the door behind him,

7 said, ‘Please, brothers, do not be wicked.

8 Look, I have two daughters who are virgins. I am ready to send them out to you, for you to treat as you please, but do nothing to these men since they are now under the protection of my roof.’

9 But they retorted, ‘Stand back! This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge. Now we shall treat you worse than them.’ Then they forced Lot back and moved forward to break down the door.

Now, to put it in plain speak, basically these two angels came down posing as people to see if the people of Sodom were bad. They met Lot, who was a good man and gave them shelter and food. That night, a bunch of townsfolk found out about what the two people were doing there and basically preemptive strike them by having sex with them. The rabble, being mostly men, were about to rape the two traveling men. Lot offered his virgin daughters, but the crowd wanted retribution on the two travelers and wouldn’t settle for anything else.

What’s odd about this section is that the New Jeruslaem Bible specifically states “have intercourse with”, but other bibles actually say “meet” (for example, the New American Standard Bible says this). See, one of the things I brought up in the first part was how the original Bibles were written in Aramaic and Hebrew, and direct translations are sometimes not possible. Indeed, even looking at the English language, “intercourse” does not specifically have a sexual meaning. Dictionary.com refers to intercourse as “dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc.” while still retaining the sexual connotation of the word in a later definition. In Hebrew, it is even more confusing. The word “yada” is used in this passage, which directly translates to “relations” in a non-sexual manner, though it is used as innuendo to sex in other parts of the Bible. It is the key to the very sexual connotation of this entire passage of the Bible, and there’s a question as to its accuracy. What was that gang trying to do to those two? Were they going to gang-rape the travelers, or were they going to simply beat them? A trick of language is really all that stands in between us and the intent of the original writing – note I do not say author.

I realize that the Old Testament is more used by the Jewish religion than Christianity, but all of Christianity is based upon the teachings of the Old Testament. What really boggles me is the next part of the examination of the books, which comes from the Book of Leviticus. Leviticus basically is the closest thing you can ever have in the Bible to a book of direct rules. It is where Moses gets the laws he must pass down to the Isrealites, mostly about procedures for worship and stuff like that. 18:22 is what we’re interested in, though, and is the most commonly cited evidence against same-sex coupling in the Bible, and for good reason. It reads:

You will not have intercourse with a man as you would with a woman. This is a hateful thing.

Again, translation issues with the last little bit there, as well as the intercourse bit. I checked a few different versions of the Bible, and this one is pretty clear-cut as a sexual connotation, though, especially considering Leviticus 18 is going over what is classed as incest before this little gem pops up. So according to the Old Testament, sex in between two men is wrong.

All right then, so we have our clear-cut proof, but why am I still hanging on this point? Because of Leviticus 20:13, that is why.

The man who has intercourse with a man in the same way as with a woman: they have done a hateful thing together; they will be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Yes, this is a quote that I am going to use against people whom are arguing with Leviticus 18:22. Why? Well, there are a few reasons. First off, if someone is using the Old Testament as a rule reference in Christianity, it stands to say that entire book becomes fair game, right? Second, it very clearly states that the punishment for sex in between two men is death for both parties; if someone believes so strongly in Leviticus 18:22, why are they not doing the duties directed to them by God Himself and putting every gay man to death that they can find as directed by Leviticus 20:13? Third, why is Isreal not following this law? Isreal was set up as a Jewish state with religion making the backbone of the Isreali way of life. The Hebrew Bible – the Old Testament – is the books they follow. Yet, Isreal’s LGBT rights rival that of anywhere in the world, according to Wikipedia. Gay couples can not get married on Isreali soil – this is really the only spread of religion that affects gay couple’s rights – but out of country marriages are recognized.

I am skipping over Ruth 1:14, the Books of Kings “male prostitute” references, and the Books of Samuel story about David and Jonathan, because they are really weak references. Ruth 1:14 is way open to interpretation, as is the David and Jonathan story, and the Books of Kings “male prostitutes” were part of rituals of other religions that were expelled because they were not needed for rituals for God – a morally ambiguous thing since the female prostitutes were kept. Also, I am skipping these so I can get to the New Testament.

I will admit, I was used to the script and voice of the Old Testament when I switched gears over to the New Testament, and I found myself confused when I started to read over the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans. The language was different, definitely. The Apostle Paul was a good writer, and the book is written much like an open letter to the people of Rome. Not a bad way of putting things, I think.

Romans 1:26-27 has apparently the most condemning view of homosexuality, and I can see why:

²⁶ That is why God abandoned them to degrading passions:

²⁷ why their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural practices; and the men, in a similar fashion, too, giving up normal relations with women, are consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameful things with men and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion.

Yes, this is the mention of female homosexuality that I was mentioning earlier. However, I learned long ago that context is everything, so I read back a bit in this chapter and I discovered that this was apparently punishment for idolatry, the First Commandment. Oh yes, I just pulled out the Ten Commandments on you. The entire structure of Chapter 1 of Romans is starting off with introducing Paul as the servant of Jesus and referred to as an apostle, and he is telling the Romans about how proud he is that the Romans believe that Jesus is the Son of God and their savior. He apologizes for not coming earlier to the Romans to talk with them because he was held up with responsibilities to the Greeks and barbarians, and then expresses his joy at preaching to the Romans. He believes that God is great and for everyone that believes, and that people who do not honour God and acknowledge Him will be abandoned to “unacceptable thoughts and behaviors”.

In context, the standard Christian behavior of today now seems a little clearer, and makes me understand those that are gay in the Christian communities and what they must go through. According to this, people whom have sinned are being punished by giving them homosexual desires. Specifically in this passage is mentioned idolatry, which is putting something else above God whom is supposed to be the highest on the totem pole (now there is a mixed metaphor if I could ever think of one). So a Christian man or woman who is an upstanding member of the community and is the first person to further the word of God and Jesus, feels the desire for someone of the same sex… and this is punishment for breaking the First Commandment? Is it just me, or does this sound like entrapment?

It seems that Paul was the only one that brought up homosexuality in the New Testament, referring to it in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 as well:

⁹ Do you not realise that people who do evil will never inherit the kingdom of God? Make no mistake — the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, the self-indulgent, sodomites,

¹⁰ thieves, misers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians again is set up like an open letter; probably better to say that this is the recorded text of a verbal sermon given in the church at Corinth. This particular passage, though, suffers from translation problems as well; “sodomites” in the New Jerusalem Bible is actually derived from the greek word arsenokoitēs in the original untranslated version. This is a word whose origin can only be guessed at – and is many times within the different translations of the Bible – and only appears here and in 1 Timothy 1:9-10. It actually can translate out to “abusers of themselves with mankind” as it does in the King James Version of the Bible, or “those who practice pederasty” as it does in other versions.

It is odd that Paul does not say that fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God; Jesus himself said that fornication defiles a man (Matthew 15:19-20 and Mark 7:20-23) and it would be logical to assume that fornicators do not inherit the kingdom of God as Paul said would happen to the sodomites as well. To be honest, it sounded like Paul was homophobic. Why would Paul be the only one to bring up homosexual practices when it was not even brought up by Jesus himself? And why did no one else bring it up? I seriously doubt that only one of the twelve apostles would come across homosexual behavior; after all, pederasty was kind of big in both Greece and Rome.

With how much emphasis has been put on the words pointed out here, I wish there was more on this. I wish the meaning was clearer in what they were trying to say, because there needs to be a way of grokking this better than what we have today. While the Bible is direct in some places, where it is direct has me asking questions, and then other parts combined with that confuse me and make me want to know why. I am not a theology scholar, nor do I pretend to be. I am just a guy seeking answers to questions in my own mind.

Paul also had one other good point that I would like to point out while I am here. It is something I caught from Romans 1:21-22:

²¹ …they knew God and yet they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but their arguments became futile and their uncomprehending minds were darkened.

²² While they claimed to be wise, in fact they were growing so stupid…

If you talk to some people, they will tell you that I have, in the past, been a victim of this. In fact, we all can be at times when we do not see the other side or try to understand why someone is arguing so passionately for or against. This applies to people who believe and people that do not believe as well, which is where I disagree with Paul the Apostle on this subject. Whether it is faith, politics, economics, or any topic in the world, we are all victims of this, and the better we are at recognizing it, the better off the world will be.

I would like to eventually get married.

Is this a surprise that I declare this? Probably not, but maybe it is for those that may be uninformed about me. I’m not exactly the most sociable person around, true, but I think that there’s a Mrs. Gremlin out there for me. Some people spend all their lives searching for that special someone, and they may find them. I prefer to look at the positive side that I can find my Mrs. Gremlin, and I still have many years ahead of me, more than what I leave behind. At least, I hope I do. Have I found her already? Yeah.

You know, marriage is a true oddity. It is about the commitment of two people to each other, how they will love each other for all time, etc. Marriage and weddings is a religious ceremony repeated across many faiths; even for the non-religious and the atheists it can be a big production, though. It is one thing that most people across the globe can say that they have in common, that weddings are prevalent in societies. The ceremonies may look different, but the process is almost the same if you look at all of them. The general gist is people joining their lives together. Most of the time, I would assume this is because of another force: love.

I can’t go through a post on marriage without talking about love, and explain a few of my views on this particular subject. Whether you believe love is a wonderful thing that links people together, or a biological reactionary to the human need to procreate, it is essentially present in our lives. It is a passion for something that cannot be easily denied or forgotten, and leaves an incredible impression on our psyche, one that I would dare say would be something that shapes us the most in our lives. We associate most of our relationships through our passion we have for others and ourselves, and the direction we go in life can be heavily influenced by the aforementioned passion we can show for things. To borrow a quote from a Hugh Grant movie:

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… love actually is all around.

(TANGENT: Love Actually was an impressive movie that openly discussed love in an entertaining fashion. I would recommend it… but if you are a male, grab a woman before renting it. Definite chick flick, but it’s not as obnoxious as others. Also, rent it in the month before Christmas for maximum effect, preferably within a week or two. You’ll see why.)

Note my use of “passion” instead of “love”? Passion, rather than just being a purely physical thing trashy romance novels try to portray, is actually a general term that should be behind love… and hate, really. Nick Scipio said it best: “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.” The same passion you use for love can easily translate to hate, but the lack of passion, the lack of any intense feelings, or indifference, is at the polar opposite of the emotional spectrum. This explains propaganda so well, as the entire point of it is to erase all indifference and set the subject in a passion that is controlled in a way that is favorable to the presenter. Case in point: any political smear ad campaign ever done.

Now that I have gone off and talked about love, the point I was trying to make was that love is part and parcel for a marriage to work. An expression of two people (leaving out polygamists, sorry) to the commitment of lifelong love and partnership is getting married, and who am I to stand in the way of two people expressing that? I ask myself that in this subject, and I cannot really say that I am justified in any way to stand in the way of this, unless I believe that the couple, on a case-by-case basis, does not love each other. Yes, I take that part of wedding ceremonies seriously; you do not?

A few years back, there was a similar debate to this in the United States of America about certain people marrying other certain people. It was against God’s nature, perverse, unholy… you name it, there was an argument against it. What am I referring to? A man of dark skin marrying a woman of white skin… or was it white man, black woman? I know one was frowned upon, even illegal for a long time, within the States. Some places it is still frowned upon and discriminated against, but that is because the people that do are brought up that way and do not know any better. (They are still wrong, though, in my opinion.) Is it illegal anymore? No.

So if the same arguments are being used today for same-sex marriages, did the Bible change?

Did someone find a new scripture?

Did Pope Benedict (whom I always associate with eggs) suddenly come up with a new Bible that specifically says that weddings between people of different skin color is OK, as long as they’re not the same sex?

Actually, that last one has always confused me. WAS there a new bible that specifically forbade two people from expressing their love for each other by getting married? I am not a Christian, true, but I have problems believing that an all-mighty God that is forgiving and loves everyone suddenly hates people that openly admit attraction for the same sex. Did Jesus all of a sudden hate little Billy because he found out he liked looking at Tommy instead of Jill? I just… I do not get it. As far as I know, there is nothing specifically in any part of the Bible that says a marriage is only in between a man and a woman. Marriages had been going on for years before the New Testament was written; it’s only natural the Bible includes at least one marriage ceremony.

(Also, I would like to point out that the Bible as read today has been edited at least once a century. Oh, right, and it’s been translated from Latin. Languages change over 2000 years. Perhaps not Latin, but English does, definitely. Just saying that people reading and translating could have made errors; the Bible may be the word of God, according to Christians, but the Bible was not written in your language first, it was written in Latin or Aramaic. Some impact may be lost in translation, and other via just humans over the years that admittedly sin and seek forgiveness for their sins; nobody is perfect, after all. Whoa, heavy tangent… but I have a strong idea that you may want to question things before trusting them fully.)

The passion I see in fighting marriages in between same-sex partners, I acknowledge. Obviously, there is some passion in this subject, though I do not understand it – how is marriage cheapened by two people whom do not believe in the same thing as you but love each other getting married? – and I do not personally agree.

So everyone out there, can we agree on dropping any modifiers from the word “marriage”? According to common law, marriage has no modifier anywhere else, why should those of the same sex that are marrying be called something different so that “your” term is not cheapened? Ownership of a concept and a word that has been around for thousands of years and predates the Old and New Testaments, practiced around the world just seems to be stupid to me. If a church does not want to perform the marriage, fine. Making others not perform it? Seems like a case of “I’m imposing my morals on others, believe in what I believe in or DIE!” to me. I thought that sentiment was waning, but apparently I was wrong.

Live and let live. You will live longer.