It’s Day #14 of our September Blog Challenge and today the topic is:
What has happened lately in the media that makes you want to rant?
Goodness, there are just so many things.
I guess marriage equality is a biggie for me personally—for several reasons, but mostly because I don’t like that some people are treated unfairly for no logical reason. Actually, a lot of the people who are doing the unfair treating think they have a very logical reason: because the Bible says so. Here’s the thing:
Having been raised in a church that claims it takes the Bible very literally—rest on the Sabbath, which is the seventh day of the week, as specified in Genesis; avoid unclean foods specified in Leviticus 11; when people die they are dead, not in Heaven or Hell; ornamental jewelry draws attention to a person rather than God; one’s body is a temple, which has been interpreted as anti-alcohol, anti-drugs, anti-caffeine, etc.—I find this trail mix analogy to be perfect. In fact, I remember sitting in church around the age of nine, bored out of my mind during the sermon, and looking up the scriptures listed with each of the 28 fundamental Adventist beliefs. (What else could I do to make the time pass? I’d already circled all the words in the bulletin that had been said, and I giggled through the hymnal as I put “in the bathroom” after each title. Excuse me, but “He Lives” and “Who is He in Yonder Stall?” still give me the chuckles.) In my impromptu solo Bible study, I was surprised to find that there were some “rules” the church followed explicitly, but others they completely overlooked. Even at that age, I saw the inconsistencies between what the Bible told us to do and what we actually did. See, trail mix! Here are just a few examples.
In Leviticus chapter 12, it says that women are unclean for a week after they give birth to a boy and two weeks if it’s a girl—I guess girls are dirtier? Oh, and boys must be circumcised at eight days old. There would be far fewer arguments on cafemom.com if people just did what the Lord commanded.
Leviticus, chapter 19 has things to say about haircuts and tattoos.
27 Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.
28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
In chapter 20 there’s a whole bunch of stuff about being put to death for cursing your parents (no one would ever make it past 17 years of age, for sure). And in chapter 21 we find out that God doesn’t like people with handicaps???
16 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
17 Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
18 For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous,
19 Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,
20 Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;
21 No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.
Hoo, boy.
I especially love this one: in 1 Timothy, the very book in which Paul condemns homosexuals (kinda; 1:10), he also says “bodily exercise profiteth little” (4:8) and “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities” (5:23). Sounds to me like Paul was a fat, drunk homophobe… so it totally makes sense that we follow every word he wrote.
If you’re using the Bible as the reason you don’t believe in marriage equality, then I call shenanigans. You gotta come up with something better.
As I said, it’s the discrimination part of being against marriage equality that bothers me most.
It’s weird, but I don’t think of my marriage as being interracial—Victor’s as white as white can be on the inside—but indeed, it is. There was a time when marrying outside of one’s own race was illegal too.
I look at these images and am awfully glad I wasn’t old enough to have an opinion at that time. I’m also glad I hadn’t met Victor and fallen in love but was forbidden to marry him. That would absolutely break my heart, for other people to tell me that I can’t marry the person I love. I would wonder why it’s even any of their business… how a white girl marrying an Asian boy could make anyone else’s marriage less special… how they can stand behind the Bible as the basis for these discriminatory beliefs, a book which also forbids divorce and adultery, a book that tells us to love one another.
Whether you question the Bible’s origins and interpretations or not, it’s hard to deny that Jesus Christ once walked the earth and that he was a pretty decent guy. In fact, Christians are named so because his followers are supposed to be Christ-like. Here’s what Jesus said about love:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. John 13:34
And that, my friends, is my rant for the day. I promise that tomorrow will be way less soapbox-y.
If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog) every day in September.
You can rant about equality any day, in my book!
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