There’s been a series of questions going around the online Christian world following the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision. Some are from the anti-gay crowd while others are from LGBT–affirming Christians.

But you have to check out the answer theologian Douglas Wilson gives to one question from the LGBT-affirming set:

16. Do you think supporting same-sex marriage is a more serious problem than supporting slavery? Yes, far more serious.

… the hell?!

What world does this guy live in that slavery is mentioned in the same sentence as two loving adults having the ability to get married?

Even worse? He’s still defending the answer. His argument boils down to this: God’s okay with kind slavemasters in the Bible, but he killed off all those people in Sodom and Gomorrah. Checkmate, atheists!

… when Christians find themselves owning slaves, for example, the Bible’s instruction is explicit. Paul says that masters should treat their slaves with appropriate kindness, knowing that they have a Master in Heaven themselves (Eph. 6:9). In the first century, a man could be excommunicated for being a harsh master, but not for simply being a master. … But a people who celebrate vice, and who hold parades in its honor, and who even have designed a flag to celebrate it, are paving the way for a massive return of all the political and civic forms of slavery they pretend to despise.

As if benevolent slaveowners could ever exist…

Look: the only negative consequence of marriage equality is that some people will have to buy more wedding gifts nows. (It’s money Douglas Wilson will never have to spend, I promise you.)

Being an apologist for racism is nothing new for Wilson. He’s shat out this sort of nonsense before, writing in his book Black and Tan that “The tragedy of pagan Africa was more significant than the tragedy of southern slavery” and that Northerners and Southerners were “misled by the obvious inferiority of black culture at that time…”

He’s just a blog post away from assuring us he has black friends.

But this is the sort of bullshit you get from someone who thinks the Bible is the be-all and end-all of morality. If you believe God is perfect, then you have to justify His bad behavior and idiotic moves, no matter how ridiculous you sound. It’s no surprise that a growing percentage of people want nothing to do with Christianity.

When you’re more disturbed by the expansion of civil rights than the concept of human ownership, the problem rests entirely with you and your holy book, not the rest of us who have wisely left all that rubbish behind.

***Update***: The Humanists of the Palouse, a local group near where Wilson lives and works, condemned his remarks:

… We are appalled at the assertion that systematic ownership of human beings would be considered more moral than legalizing marriage between two consenting adults. The humanist philosophy looks to empathy and reason for morality, and the Humanists of the Palouse affirms its conviction that all people are entitled to respect and equality. Members of the Humanists of the Palouse, along with many residents of Moscow, Idaho, celebrate the United States Supreme Court’s ruling regarding marriage equality and will continue to fight for the rights of the LGBTQ community and of all individuals.

(Thanks to Gerede for the link)



