Personally, I don’t eat at Chick-fil-A because I can taste the bigotry. Yes, only in this country of plenty, one where most homes average two to four flat-screen TVs, would Americans take up figurative arms, er, wings, over a fried-chicken chain in this latest salvo of the unending culture (read: religion) wars.
Never mind that in Maine, gay marriage was duly legislated by our state Legislature, signed into law by our governor, and then overturned by mob rule, via an anathematic referendum — something the Founding Fathers decidedly aimed to prevent by creating a representative democracy in the first place.
No, I’m looking to Leviticus 18:22, which declares, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Interestingly, shortly thereafter in Leviticus 26:29, regarding disobedient Israelites, God offers this delicious children nugget, “And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.”
Funny how today’s social conservatives cherry pick their holy book to suit their own insular needs, yet now view the Bible’s macabre text as metaphor. As Twain pointed out, times and people change; the blood-drenched text does not.
Recently in Mali, Africa, pious locals forcibly placed adulterers in holes and then stoned them to death, as proscribed by Muhammad’s hadith, Ibn Ishaq (970).
I’m just thankful my parents never read Deuteronomy 21:18-21, where God mandates the stoning of an insubordinate son. (Phew!)
Kris Kucera, Lisbon
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