In May 2009, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Athens Banner-Herald, Athens, Georgia. The published version was slightly different from what I submitted. Here is the published version.
KRT
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As a liberal Christian I look with dismay upon homophobia, such as reflected in Congressman Paul Broun’s proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman.
I do this for several reasons. First, federal, state, and local governments should expand, not contract, individual rights. Many of our Founding Fathers warned of the tyranny of the majority, or the majority denying rights to unpopular minorities.
Second, many of Broun’s arguments (Letters, “Broun defends amendment,” Thursday) eerily echo antebellum defenses of slavery, subsequent defenses of segregation, and pre-1967 defenses of anti-interracial marriage laws. People cited the Bible in all these efforts.
Third, I have become acquainted with homosexuals (mostly in church settings) over the years. These have been righteous people who deserve as much respect and as many legal rights as others.
Fourth, the greatest biblical commandment is to love.
Congressman Broun states his amendment is biblical because “the Bible is clear in its references to marriage and homosexuality.” The Bible, which I have read closely (in its Russian Orthodox expanded canon) states that homosexuals should face the death penalty (Leviticus 20:13). Like those who used Sacred Writ to defend the abominations of slavery and segregation, I could cherry-pick verses and passages such as Leviticus 20:13, but such an exercise misses the key points of the gospel of Jesus and perverts biblical interpretation.
As one who has read the Scriptures closely, I know of many of their internal inconsistencies, so I have become aware that the book is neither inerrant nor infallible.
Broun proceeds from an erroneous assumption, and arrives therefore at a false conclusion.
Kenneth Randolph Taylor
BLOGA THEOLOGICA 