Alabama same sex marriage

People protest outside of the Probate Judge's Office in Bay Minette, Ala. on Monday, Feb. 9, 2015 after Alabama becomes the 37th state to allow same sex marriage. (Brian Kelly/bkelly@al.com)

Sara Sills, left, and her partner Kay Hedgepeth, both of Mobile, Ala., react after learning that Mobile will start issuing licenses at the Mobile County Probate Office on Thursday Feb. 12, 2015. Sills and Hedgepeth applied for their license and got married in Government Plaza. (Sharon Steinmann/ssteinmann@al.com)

So just two days before the United States Supreme Court hears arguments as to whether gay men and women have a constitutional right to marry, you stand firmly opposed to same-sex marriage.

So I ask this this question: Are you a bigot?

That is, does your opposition to same-sex marriage represent your utter intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that happens to differ from your personal point of view?



If you answered yes, if you are a homophobe or just plain intolerant of views different from your own, well then okay. Move on. You and I have nothing the other wants to hear.

But if you are like many I have heard from in recent months opposed to same-sex marriage, then you likely see your opposition to it not as bigotry but as a moral belief based in your religion and on the reading of the Bible where Leviticus 18 and 20 contain the following verses:

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Or, "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them."

But, here is where my problem comes with your personal, biblically based view, especially if you, like me, like football and bacon. That's right, football, America's top sport which we all know involves an oddly shaped ball historically covered in pigskin and played and loved by generations of Americans (a lot of them Christians and Jews) despite the Bible's prohibition against touching a pig's skin. And do I need to explain bacon? Didn't think so.

Leviticus 11:7-8 tells us "And the pig, though it has a divided hoof, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you."

If you are following the Bible's guidance regarding homosexually, why are you not doing so when it comes to its warnings about pigs.

And, what about this from the Bible:

"But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you. " Deuteronomy 22:21.

How many of you dads and moms have stoned your daughter for breaking that prohibition?

And this one:

"Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." Luke 16:18.

I probably don't need to say a lot here other than I think in a nation with historically high divorce rates, there is hit-and-miss adherence to what the Bible tells us.

Here's my point: We seem as a society to do a lot of collective picking and choosing or what biblical "truths" we choose to believe. And that's probably a good thing unless like in some places in the world you want to stone daughters for not being virgins at the time of marriage.

I think people have always looked to the Bible to find ways to condone behavior or views that are either biases or narrow-mindedness or yes, bigotry.

It's one of the major reasons our Founding Fathers believed in separation of church and state.

Here is a Bible verse I think we should all try to remember as the Supreme Court wrestles with gay marriage: "And Jesus said to them, 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' And they were amazed at Him." Mark 12:17.

In other words follow your Bible as you see fit, but the call on gay marriage has to be based not on the Bible, but on the Constitution.