Here is the argument presented by Prop 8: The Musical. Christians who profess to follow the Bible must, of necessity, pick and choose which verses are authoritative whenever those verses declare something to be an abomination. This is because that while sodomy is declared to be an abomination (Lev. 20:13), so is shrimp cocktail (Lev. 11:12). Moreover, certain things that are assumed by our video production theologians to be swell and okay in Scripture — like selling your daughter into slavery (Ex 21:7-8) or stoning your wife (Dt. 22:21) — are things that moderns (both groups on stage in the musical) would universally recoil from as an abomination right now in our day. Apparently there is still such a thing as an abomination, which is something I suppose, because I was starting to wonder.
But the argument resumes — since, therefore, the Bible is clearly an antique book which can only be followed if we pick and choose, the Christians are invited to pick and choose according to the standard proposed by this new Jesus, a standard of “love,” not “hate.” This picking and choosing is subsumed under the authority of the reigning idol of American secularism, the “separation of church and state.” I have to admit that it was quite a trip to watch Jesus singing about His submission to Jeffersonian ideals, but there it was, on key and everything.
But who is this new Jesus exactly, and why should we listen to him? And if everybody picks and chooses, then why on earth do we have to opt for “love” as defined by tatted hippies? Why can’t we opt for “justice” as defined by tatted longshoremen instead, who like nothing better on a weekend than to get drunk the more better to be able to bash gays? If the Bible is nothing but a grab bag for pickers and choosers, then so are the world’s ethical systems a bigger grab bag for picking and choosing. You see, once you have convinced me that biblical hermeutics is just arbitrarily picking and choosing, you will at some point have to argue for a standard that will get me to stop picking and choosing. And secularism doesn’t have any such thing, however much they wish they did.
Which is why it is so funny, therefore, to see all the moral indignation over the passage of Proposition 8. Once we have gotten to this point, the homo lobby has nothing whatever to say to the voters of California who went into their voting booths . . . in order to pick and chose. Ethics are just picking and choosing, according to personal preference? Yes? Okay . . . no, no, not that, you dogmatic pig!
By the way, I am not going to spend my time here refuting their sophomoric decontextualization of Ex. 21:7-8 and Dt. 22:21, because an ability to follow the refutation would depend upon them having read a book or two, and there is no evidence that anything like that has occurred. Another time perhaps.