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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Newsweek Joins the Gay Reich Movement. Declares War on the Bible

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  December 8th, 2008 at 09:30 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Geez, now I’m embarrassed to have ever been profiled in the magazine. If you thought they were maintaining a notion of fair, independent journalism when they turned into an opinion rag advocating global warming, get a load of their new issue. It tries to use the Bible as justification for gay marriage. And in doing so, Newsweek’s editor opens with this wonderfully humorous editorial note:

No matter what one thinks about gay rights—for, against or somewhere in between —this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism. Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt—it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition.

In other words, if you rely on the Bible to defend anything, you are intellectually bankrupt.

Guess I need a congressional bailout them.

This is, naturally, a pattern on the left. When words do not suit them, they change the words. When they are unable to change the words, they change the meaning of the words. When they are unable to change the meaning of words, they slander any who believe the words.

As the Gay Reich movement goes beyond hounding people out of jobs for disagreeing with them, they now must declare war on religion. It is, after all, a 5000 year old western religious tradition that throws up road blocks to what they want in the here and now.

Lucky for us they have shallow liars like Lisa Miller, Newsweek’s religion editor, working for them. Her vapid bastardization of the Bible is not in the least bit compelling when she writes things like this:

while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

This, of course, ignores Adam and Eve — the original marriage. It even ignores Mary and Joseph. It also ignores clear constructs on marriage in the Bible that only make sense if marriage is to be between one man and one woman. Likewise, even were we to say that was not true, the Bible does “explicitly define marriage” as between man and woman. There is no way around that one.

She then writes:

no sensible modern person wants marriage—theirs or anyone else’s —to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes.

I guess all of us lack sense around here. What Lisa Miller is really saying is that nobody in New York City wants to have a monogamous marital relationship where the couple works to glorify God through their marriage.

What I find particularly funny about all of this is going back to Genesis. Satan whispered in the woman’s ears and she passed along the message to her husband. And here Satan is using Lisa to get to the rest of us. The more things change, the more ironies abound.

I won’t waste my time going further on this one. If you want to read a serious smack down of this nonsense, read Al Mohler, who does greater justice than I could.

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COMMENTS

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  • Dafyd

    …has been old fashioned, closed minded, and out of touch for about 2,000 years now. Imagine, if you will, that you’re a good Roman citizen of wealth and taste. The name of the game here is moderation and self-discipline: not too much wine, not too much food, not too much oogedy boogedy (heh) religion, not too much sex, not too much love for your spouse. Divorce is completely normative. Prostitution was the “proper” avenue for extra-marital relations (cf. Cato the Younger).

    And here comes Christianity arguing that divorce is wrong, that sex outside of marriage is wrong, that man and woman are to be as one flesh (an explicit definition of marriage), and that marriage somehow points to the deeper spiritual truth of Christ’s relationship to His Bride, the Church? Harumph. What old fashioned rubes, these Christians. There’s a tradition that will never endure. Right?

  • Diogenes314

    In other words, if you rely on the Bible to defend anything, you are intellectually bankrupt.

    If you rely exculsively on particular out of context passages to support a predetermined POV, you are no better than your average SC justice. And by average, I mean anyone currently on the Court whose name isn’t Roberts, Scalia, Thomas or Alito. The fact is, demogogues can use scripture to ‘prove’ anything-as the hack in question tries to do here. As far as the substance of her ‘argument’…

    Correct. There are no explicit injunctions against ‘marrying’ a farm animal, a kitchen appliance or an invisible friend. Neither are there any against turning lead into gold or teaching your pigs to fly. The fact that marriage implies heterosexuality (although not nessecarily monogomy) could be taken from the fact that homosexuality is proscribed. As in an abomination.

    As far as Newsweek-thanks for the update. Better you than me. I haven’t looked at that rag since1994 when their (December?) issue was titled ‘The Gingrich that stole Christmas”. If they can’t even try to pretend, neither will I.

  • Aaron Gardner

    God promised to Abraham that Sarah would bear him a Son.

    Abraham, while wed to Sarah, grew impatient and took a concubine to bear him a son. Meanwhile Sarah also boar the Son God promised. Abraham’s lack of faith, displayed by him try to do what only God could, ended up causing problems in the family unit. Eventually this led to Hagar and Ishmael having to leave the Family of Abraham.

    This story shows the example that man is meant to have only one wife and one family. This isn’t a specific example showing homosexual marriage as wrong but rather this is more about polygamy. Still I believe this show the issues with going outside of God’s planned family structure.

    Thanks Erick!!

  • http://brockwayfamily.spaces.live.com/ Erick Brockway

    in Judeo-Christian tradition? Do they even allow a Christmas Tree in their office?

    I doubt it.

  • mikefisk

    Newsweek’s editor says anyone using the Bible for justification of their views is intellectually bankrupt.

    One of Newsweek’s own feature writers uses the Bible to justify their own policy preferences.

    Thanks for clearing up the confusion, Newsweek. We knew all along, just it’s nice of you to be honest about it, finally.

  • Harold_Vaughn

    3 The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

    4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

    5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

    6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

    7 They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

    8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

    9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

    10 His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.

    Also, not to be picky, but Sarah was the instigator of letting her handmaid Hannah go in unto Abraham to bear children. Your point is absolutely correct about the ramification of going against God’s moral will.

    Proverbs 14:12
    “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

  • Harold_Vaughn

    n/t

  • Diogenes314

    It’s about a lack of faith. There is no condemnation of polygamy per se in the scriptures, but it is shown to cause trouble on more than one occasion. According to 1 Timothy 3:10, a deacon could only have one wife. This would imply a higher standard for church leadership, but there is nothing saying that a Christian can’t have multiple wives, and the fact that it is mentioned implies that it is permissable, if frowned upon. Then again, Paul frowned upon marriage altogether, although he found it permissable as well.

  • Aaron Gardner

    The Bible may not explicitly say that marriage is defined as 1 and 1 but it is filled with story after story about those who went outside of that equation and the trouble it wrought.

    The Bible is as much a guide of what not to do and why as it is a guide of what to do and why. Each thought is purposeful and the detail provided in it is there for a reason.

  • Section9

    My brother is gay. And, unsurprisingly, he’s an advocate of gay marriage. Unlike other gays, he’s shown understanding of the Prop 8 position and where it came from, while disagreeing with it, and has disagreed with the post- Prop 8 witchhunting. I can understand disagreeing with the tactics used by the HRC and the gay community in the aftermath of their loss in California, but comparing the gay community to the Nazi Party doesn’t help the conservative movement.

    This debate can be respectful without veering off into Godwin’s Ravine.

  • Harold_Vaughn

    one being that man-made solutions create complex problems that have eternal consequences.

    I would add that Jesus had much to say about polygamy in both the passage I quoted above and the account of the Samaritan women at the well.

  • NightTwister

    Just the militant groups that are doing the witch hunting.

  • Diogenes314

    The Bible may not explicitly say that marriage is defined as 1 and 1 but it is filled with story after story about those who went outside of that equation and the trouble it wrought.

    Agreed. But just because it is a bad idea doesn’t mean it is scripturally or should be legally impermissable. And the account above says nothing about polygamy but explicitly condemns divorce. One of the reasons I didn’t vote one way or the other on the 2000 prop was that it did nothing to ACTUALLY ‘protect marriage’. On prop 8, I voted not for the measure but against the Kali SC.

    You want to protect marriage? Who cares if a few sexual deviants want to pretend to be ‘married’. Let them be as miserable as real married couples. You get a bill that 1) Abolishes no-fault divorce and 2) Criminalizes and stipulates the prosecution of adulters (there should be at least as much manpower and resorces for this as there is for going after prostitution) then maybe marriage will mean something. As it is, the state has turned a sacrament into a mere contract-one that is voidable on demand and non-binding to boot.

  • Diogenes314

    I’m going to stick with Army of DeFarges. It has the additional benifit of a large chunk of the left being too stupid to know what your talking about (look who they vote for). And if your brother isn’t one of the Jacobin scum howling for blood, none of this applies anyway.

  • AceInTX

    But let me point something out to these fools…

    Deu 4:39

    Therefore know this day, and consider [it] in your heart, that the LORD Himself [is] God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; [there is] no other.

    Deu 4:40

    You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong [your] days in the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”

    What these educated idiots don’t get is that there is a purpose for every one of GOD’s Commandments.

    There are scientific discoveries that are only now being made that shows a medical, dietary, and life prolonging benefit to the law as handed down from GOD by Moses.

    One of my favorite examples is the Civil War…Camp Fever, Dysentery, and other maladies were responsible for more casualties in the civil war than all the battles combined…because there were no sanitary regulations so men would use the bathroom outside their tents and all over the camps.

    The Bible lays out what the Israelites were supposed to do 4000 years before the Civil War to avoid these maladies. The Isrealites had a spade on the haft of their swords and they were commanded to dig a hole, do their business and cover it up. Had the soldiers in the Civil War been required to do this one simple thing…all those casualties could have been avoided.

    The Bible lays out dietary laws such as not eating pork, (hardening of the arteries) and other foods that have only recently been shown to cause health problems.

    When it comes to marriage…and monogamous relationships…God knew thousands of years before these fools professing themselves to be wise what STDs are and how they’re spread. He commanded marriage for that reason among others such as creating a healthy atmosphere to raise children. It’s also a proven fact that Homosexuals live a statistically shorter life than the population at large.

    As for whether there are prohibitions against Homosexual unions in the Bible, feast your eyes on this Lisa:

    Rom 1:22

    Professing to be wise, they became fools,

    Rom 1:23

    and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man–and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

    Rom 1:24

    Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,

    Rom 1:25

    who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

    Rom 1:26

    For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use (of their bodies) for what is against nature.

    Rom 1:27

    Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

    Rom 1:28

    And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;

    There are other scriptures in the old testament that deal with homosexuality but I won’t bother posting them

    So Lisa…you can say there are no prohibitions against gay marriage and gay relationships in the Bible…but that would make you a liar…These verses make it plain what God thinks of your pet cause…you can believe the Bible or not…accept it or reject it if you wish…but spare us the lie that it does not address this issue because it couldn’t be more clear!

  • Harold_Vaughn

    God’s definintion of marriage which is difined as 1 man & 1 women within the context stated.

  • Erick Erickson

    Glad you were able to get back in!

  • AceInTX

    the 1 man 1 woman standard has been encouraged by societies for millennia as the basic building block of a healthy and productive society…It has been recognized for all that time as the best environment to raise children and prevent rampant STDs.

    You don’t even have to believe the Bible or be a Christian to recognize the problem with the government not just allowing…but openly encouraging a destructive lifestyle.

  • Diogenes314

    And behavior that is destructive to the institution of marriage specificly. I just find it bizzare that people who think that meaningless ‘marriage’ ceremonies between sexual deviants are going to destroy marriage ignore government policies that basicly make marriage a joke. As long as divorce is looked on as nothing more significant than changing your job or moving into a new house and adultary is treated like a hobby, I find ‘gay marriage’ to be an irrelevant oxymoron. At least they could change the wedding vows in the future.

    Till death-or one of you calls a timeout-do you part.

    What the state has put together let no man put assunder-unless he has a nifty robe and gavel.

    And just because monogomy (as opposed to polygamy) is traditional among people of european descent is no valid reason to corrupt the Constitution in order to ban tha latter.

    BTW, any evidence of rampant STDs or neglected children in legally polygamous societies?

  • Aaron Gardner

    n/t

  • bs

    .

  • Diogenes314

    What difference would that make?

    Just curious.

  • Aaron Gardner

    Why else would I ask?

  • AceInTX

    She’s my sister…actually my baby sister since she’s 15 years younger than me…and I love her dearly…that will never change. I don’t consider her a NAZI at all and would punch anyone that called her one!

    That being said, I believe using “Reich” to describe a bunch of out of control gay radicals who are invading Catholic Churches dressed as transvestite nuns and mocking communion, invading evangelical churches and interrupting services shouting profanities in front of children in the congregation while some are having sex in the church bathrooms…knocking crosses out of elderly lady’s hands, grabbing Bibles out of old men’s hands and beating them with it, and invading churches throwing condoms on the congregant’s heads and the rest of their NAZI tactics aimed at silencing their critics is an apt description of the Third Reich….Krystal Nacht comes to mind only instead of Jewish Synagogues receiving the rath of the NAZI Party it is both Synagogues and the church that is up for persecution by these brown shirts!

  • AceInTX

    :>)

  • AceInTX

    :>)!

  • Diogenes314

    I’m sure you’ve heard of the book. When it came out in 1776 it was authored by Written by An Englishman-. It was so popular, and there was so much interest in the author that later editions were attributed to An admonition to cease worrying about the author?s identity and attend to what he had to say.-

    Personally, I don’t think context is nessecary. If my arguments are at all compelling, what difference does it make if I’m a loser like Tom Paine? And if they are idiotic, would my name being Noam Chomsky lend them authority?

    This is the internet. You are what you post.

    But for the record, I am neither married, divorced, homosexual, Mormon, or convinced that this sentence is at all relevant to my previously stated opinions.

  • Alberta

    And it aignt down with homosexuals. Homosexuals had to leave the camp. The word ‘unclean’ is specifically used. Actually, it lays down why homosexuality isnt acceptable in a largely terrestrial argument.

  • Aaron Gardner

    in fact it matters very much when speaking of the Bible. After all if I say something is wrong, well..Who cares??…whereas if God says something is wrong it does indeed carry more weight.

    Also I believe you have a misunderstanding of marriage, as displayed by this quip:

    Let them be as miserable as real married couples.

    Also I am surprise a classical liberal would be calling for equal misery…isn’t that the end result of the central planning of the socialist state?

  • Diogenes314

    For the record, it was intended to be humorous. Sorry it didn’t work out. As far as Biblical interpretation, marital status wouldn’t affect it at all, and since I’m also not a Catholic, I don’t recognize ecclesiatical authority over my interpretations or opinions. And all I am calling for is those who are claiming to wish to’protect marriage’ actually do so in a meaningful way.

    I was worried you might be going to the ‘if you aren’t married, you can’t have an opinion’ card. Glad I was wrong.

  • bs

    Neither Erick nor Limbaugh are lumping the entire group under that name. In this case, the term refers to those who are trying to punish Prop 8 proponents for their support. It’s one thing to disagree with someone. It’s quite another thing to attempt to demonize them and make their lives miserable because of how they voted and/or supported a cause.

  • Aaron Gardner

    I figured it was for comedic effect….maybe I should have put a smiley at the end of the equal misery line.

    As far as actually protecting the definition of marriage, well I think I would start with getting the gov’t out all together including the IRS.

    I wrote a comment in another diary about this. Instead of having a marriage exemption/deduction I would say go for a cohabitation exemption/deduction. All the other stuff that gay activists want could be provided by normal leagal contracts.

    Return marriage to the church and it won’t be an issue at all.

  • AceInTX

    I have a problem with Divorce being so free and easy as well…

    Where we have a problem however….is the evidence proving that people that live in monogamous and committed relationships are much less likely to live in poverty, have children grow up and live in poverty or worse…costing society by the necessity of incarceration.

    Children need both parents in the home to thrive and the proof in the pudding is the decay we have faced in this country since the 70s when marriage was minimized to nothing more than a civil contract that can be abrogated on a whim!

    As for problems in polygamist societies don’t think STDs are as much a problem since there is still a commitment to keep relations within an isolated group where there is a limited likelihood of encountering an STD since no one is going outside the group…I’m unaware of any studies to prove this theory ever being done but this is my common sense assessment.

    As to children being neglected, I’m am also unaware of any studies in this area…but it seems to me…since some men in Mormon and Polygamist societies have had anywhere from 50 to 150 children…you tell me how much attention you could pay to that many children?

    The studies I know of in these societies have to do with genetics…these societies have proven to have extremely high rates of inbreeding and face genetic anomalies in their populations than society at large…

    And again…we’re not dealing in restricting anyone’s rights…we’re discussing what behavior government is going to encourage…the evidence is overwhelming that a committed marriage between one man and one woman is the optimum family structure to rais children with all others being destructive to the civil order in a society…

    From my positions…I would say you would have a valid arguement id you came at it from the direction that Government should not be in the business of encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors and as such…marriage as a recognized institution which bestows government approval should be eliminated…As a SoCon with a strong libertarian bent…I could understand that argument and even sympathize with it…but from my perspective…arguing that by recognizing traditional marriage and setting up policies to encourage it as a matter of sound government policy is discriminating or denying “Rights” to another group is totally invalid!

  • AceInTX

    nt

  • Diogenes314

    One more thing to consider then. I’ve mentioned before, it wasn’t the Warren court that created the idiotic ‘wall of seperation between church and state’ as a legal doctrine. It was the 1878 decision Reynolds v. U.S. which ratified a federal statute specificaly targeted at the Mormon church. It never occurred that their prescedent would be used a generation later against Christianity, just as it occurs to too few people today that a legal attack on any religion is an attack on religion. Principles that don’t apply unless it is your beliefs under attack are just meaningless lip service.

  • PaladinLostHour

    The latest bright idea from these dim bubs….”Call in Gay to Work” Day

    http://www.daywithoutagay.org/

    Let’s all hope this is a massive success. It’ll neatly highlight both the 10% lie that the gays have been peddling for the past 60 years, and call attention to the disproportionate influence of this cohort within very narrow, very vocal social stratas like the entertainment media, publishing, etc.

  • AceInTX

    I think there is a good reason to restrict marriage to one man and one woman as I’ve said…were this issue kept at the state level it wouldn’t be such a quandary…I, like you, have a problem with the central government restricting in a negative way certain types of marriage on a national level…

    I don’t see anything wrong with encouraging through benefits traditional marriage which is an enormous benefit to society

  • bs

    See here

  • Diogenes314

    You might be correct if it was done at the state level and if wasn’t a intergral part of one’s religious beliefs. But letting one’s distate for the concept cause them to aquiese in a Constitutional decision based on religious intollerance and racism is not something I’m comfortable with. And the fact that said decision is the prescedent which created the asinine ‘wall of seperation’ is enough to oppose it on itself.

    But my main point is that as long as adultery is treated as a hobby and divorce reqiures nothing more than one party getting bored, than any talk of ‘protecting marriage’ is patently unserious.

    At least we can agree that the media, activists and Kali SC majority are all useless ignorant tools.