French left hits back at Church over same-sex marriage
Source: Reuters
France's governing Socialist Party hit back hard at the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday for campaigning against its plan to legalize same-sex marriage, heralding a bruising debate over the issue.
Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois spoke against the proposed law on Saturday and encouraged Catholics to write to their elected officials and take to the streets in protest against the reform due to be voted on by mid-2013.
Opinion polls show that backing for the plan, a campaign promise by President Francois Hollande, has slipped several points since leaders of France's main religions began speaking out against it and now stands at just under 60 percent.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/04/us-france-gaymarriage-idUSBRE8A10YP20121104
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as the claim of a Biblical basis for condoning slavery.
See the explanation of Professor Lee from the blog of Episcopal Bishop Spong:
Third, the Biblical arguments against same-sex marriage are not proffered from texts that deal with marriage, but from texts that purportedly deal with same-sex orientation. Same-sex marriage is rejected as un-Christian and immoral on the basis of a myopic reading of a very few Biblical texts. And the texts in question are scant indeed. The most referenced texts are Genesis 19; the holiness codes of Leviticus 17-26, and in the New Testament, Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 6
and his Letter to the Romans 1:26-27. Not only does one have to “hunt” for references to same-sex practices, but there are no gospel texts that treat the matter. There is nothing attributed to Jesus of Nazareth that has anything to do with same-sex orientation. According to the gospels, Jesus never commented on same-sex practices; that fact certainly bears repeating to anyone criticizing the gay community on Christian grounds. Largely, same-sex practice is a topic of little interest to the Biblical authors.
The Biblical texts that are most often cited in the same-sex debate deserve some explanation in order to reduce their citation for hurtful purposes. For example, the text of Genesis 19 centers upon the story of Lot’s visitation in the city of Sodom by two angels. The men of Sodom tell Lot to hand over the male visitors so that they may “know” them, i.e. sexually know them (giving rise to the term “sodomy”). Lot bargains with the visitors, quite horribly to a contemporary reader’s eyes, by offering the men his virgin daughters instead. However, any reader of ancient literature (of which the Hebrew Bible is a component) would realize the familiar motif concerning hospitality. For example, the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes would frequently disguise themselves as humans in order to ferret who among their supplicants were truly hospitable. The story is not one denigrating same-sex practice; instead it upholds the incredible (and ludicrous) hospitality of Lot as a virtue.
Similarly, the holiness codes of Leviticus thread down from an all-encompassing mandate to behave distinctly from their foreign (and depraved) neighbors. Leviticus 20:13 that proscribes the death penalty for same-sex relations is quite related to codes that condemn bestiality, invoke dietary restrictions, and order the wearing of certain fibers. The codes make the Israelites unique from their neighbors, and they reflect a particular time and place in Israelite history. Any contemporary critique must note this reality before invoking the codes as ammunition against same-sex practice.
Fourth, any reference to same-sex practice by a Biblical writer or a Greco-Roman writer has no knowledge or understanding of the concept of “same-sex orientation.” There is no Hebrew or Greek cognate word in the Biblical text to reflect the modern term “same-sex orientation” or “homosexuality.” Moreover, there were no discussions or arguments concerning sexual orientation in the ancient and late ancient world, conversations that would only arrive in the modern era of psychology. Instead, ancient writers believed any wanton sexual behavior of any variety is a mismanagement of one’s appetites. The apostle Paul, in the New Testament, follows this pattern.
http://johnshelbyspong.com/news/what-does-the-bible-actually-say-about-gay-marriage/
I have read that Paul did not know the living Jesus. According to the book I read on this, Paul, although Jewish was very Roman in his outlook before his epiphany on the road to Damascus. It is my understanding that he wrote and organized from a Roman view. He was not, as I understand it, really a part of the church in Jerusalem. If someone knows more than I do about Paul's relationship to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem after Jesus death, please explain this. I understand that James, alleged to have been the brother of Jesus was the leader of the Jewish Christians who remained in Jerusalem after the crucifixion. Does anyone know more than I do about this?
Bishop Spong also wrote a book, The Sins of Scripture, in which he discusses the specific Biblical texts that are claimed to condemn homosexuality.
