Mississippi lawmaker, Andy Gipson, was recently
accused of condemning (at least indirectly) homosexuals to death by citing Leviticus
20:13:
If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both
of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their
blood will be on their own heads.
To be fair, I want to quote Gipson's response to the media
backlash against his comments:
Apparently the Huffington Post (a California-based liberal blog) ran an
article falsely stating or implying that my facebook post citing Leviticus
20:13 was to "suggest" that gay people should be put to death. I
reject and resent that accusation; I have NEVER condoned or requested the
killing of ANY PERSON. I believe all are created in the image of God, and one
of the 10 Commandments is "Thou shalt not murder." What I did intend
and did say is that the Bible clearly defines homosexual conduct as morally wrong
- a sin. I cited this and another scripture for the purpose of pointing out
that the conduct is sin, in defense of my stance against same-sex marriage.
What I find amazing is that the same people asserting the virtue of
"tolerance" will tolerate all views except the view of Scripture -
and, as evidenced today, will call and threaten me for referring to a Bible
passage! Of course, we are all sinners, all in need of God's grace. Only Jesus
Christ can provide the grace we all need, including the folks who left those
hateful messages on my answering machine. I pray for them that they would see
and understand the truth.
Believe it or not, I no longer believe that Gipson was necessarily
condemning homosexuals to death. Citing
Leviticus and other passages that are believed to address homosexuality is
actually quite common, and I refuse to believe that everyone who engages in
this practice wishes death upon homosexuals.
The context of his discussion, which was prompted by President Obama’s
decision to come out in support of same-sex marriage, suggests that he was focused
on proving via the Scriptures that homosexuality is a sin, not on whether it
should be a punishable crime.
However, while I don’t think Gipon is implicitly arguing that we ought to make homosexuality a capital crime, I
believe that he is guilty of contradicting his professed manner of interpreting the
Scriptures (assuming he’s Evangelical). If,
like most Evangelicals, you subscribe to verbal plenary
inspiration (VPI), believing that each and every word in the Scriptures is
"God-breathed", you'll have to explain why you're not totally
contradicting yourself by accepting the first statement of this verse while
rejecting the second. To me, this is a
perfect illustration of the dangers of VPI, which Orthodox Christians do not subscribe to (although Richard Dawkins
and his ilk prefer to lump us all together).
