A preface to lunch Bible-beating Conservatives

Author: James O'Brien

I was listening to WRMC 91.1 - my favorite on-campus radio station - when one show ended and on came a show called Neo-Con Air. I didn't actually listen to the show, but it did jog my memory about the fun Neo-Con posters that I used to walk by on the way to Ross Dining Hall. I remember one of the posters depicted a constipated-looking John McCain with a caption that read "He Ain't Conservative." The indication here is that if he were conservative he would know exactly where to find a good laxative. Now, I have serious gripes with conservative viewpoints, but we can all agree it is important to have a president with a healthy colon.

My main ideological problem with conservatives is pretty simple - there are really few things more frustrating than the whole crusade against gay marriage. This is how Republicans were getting people elected? To quickly summarize, gay marriage is an issue that is, and should be, important to most homosexuals. Heterosexuals on the other hand really have nothing to lose or gain from the existence of gay marriage. If one group of people care passionately about an issue and another is unaffected, why shouldn't the passionate have their way? Unfortunately, the idea of a homosexual union is terribly bothersome to the religious right. They have this notion that marriage is "between a man and a woman." I have to tell these people that just because their Christian, contraceptive-free marriage produced 12 children whose names are all variations of "Cletus" - their God-fearing father's name - doesn't mean that they have cornered the market on the word "marriage."

Conservative Christians, a base which appears to somehow control the values of the Republican party, claim that gay marriage is bad because the Bible tells them so. That seems like an excellent reason, unless you have actually read the Bible. Not only is there no mention of "gay marriage" in the Bible, but there are so many ridiculous passages that its hard to take the scripture seriously. Most of the Bible is patently ridiculous. Romans 1:31-32 goes so far as to say that homosexuals are "worthy of death." This language doesn't quite capture the sentiment - since we are all mortal, God apparently considers all of us as being "worthy of death" - but you get the point. So just saying, "It's in the Bible," doesn't really justify anything. The Book of Leviticus - Leviticus is my favorite name in the Bible because it sounds both austere and ridiculous at the same time - states that gay males should "surely be put to death." Even conservatives who are not constipated would agree this is a bit harsh. So I would propose a quick and simple solution to this problem. The religious conservatives allow gay people to get married, but in their minds they can believe that it is a secular marriage and not a religious one. They can also believe that God is watching them to make sure they're not gay. This way everyone wins. The conservative Christians continue to think that they are holier than everyone else, and the rest of us don't have to put up with their emphasis on semantics.

In an effort to do justice to Leviticus, I dug up two more pearls of wisdom.

1. "While your wife is living, never marry her sister as a rival wife and have sexual intercourse with her." Can you imagine trying to explain to your wife that you just married her sister as a rival and then had "sexual intercourse" with her? She would definitely laugh at you for saying "sexual intercourse." Then she might get angry.

2. "And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you." This sounds like the plot of an award-winning pornographic film.

I went to a Catholic high school so I've been hearing justifications for the "bad" parts of the Bible for years. The truth, however, remains that if a book that promoted intolerance, slavery, violence and misogyny came out tomorrow, the book would not be widely accepted as holy. It would, however, sell millions of copies due to a media stir and the author's controversial appearance on "Live with Regis and Kelly."

If the Bible is the Word of God, then God must really be pissed at us and our sort-of-tolerant ways. This scenario seems unlikely, but on the off-chance that I am wrong and the conservative Christians are right, I'll take my place in Hell knowing that I never really had a chance.

James O'Brien '10 is an English from Medfield, Mass.