On same-sex marriage, the Bible doesn't tell me so

There is no question that our country is going through a major change right now.

With same-sex marriage colorfully on the political spectrum, people are up in arms and ready to do battle.

Whether you agree or disagree with same-sex marriage isn’t my issue — though for the record, I’m for it all the way.

It’s the ignorant Bible-beating arguments that really kill me, and I don’t think I can read another re-post from an online Bible without pulling all of my hair out.

Why?

Because people depending on the Bible as their sole source of argument material is like expecting to win a national championship with two point guards under six feet tall.

Sorry guys, that loss to Syracuse hurt me just as much as the rest of us, but the point is that using the Bible as the only source in  such a complex argument just doesn’t make any sense.

Of course religion complicates arguments regarding issues like same-sex marriage, but the dusty book in your closet isn’t an end-all for arguments, especially one of this magnitude.

I understand people might have a religious reason for disagreeing — that’s this beautiful thing occasionally called free speech, and that’s fine.

In fact, I don’t care if you have a differing opinion.

My problem lies in the ignorance people blame on pages of a book they don’t understand.

“Gay people deserve equal rights.”

“No. The Bible.”

What?

If I had known ending arguments was that easy, I would have told my mom I couldn’t go to school anymore after fifth grade, because in Harry Potter he gets his letter to go to Hogwarts right around that time.

I would have picked any somewhat significant noun and ended arguments right there.

“Eat your vegetables”

“No. Grandma’s ashes.”

But it isn’t that simple. I know Harry Potter and the Bible are hardly the same thing. In fact, some people are probably horrified I even put them together in the same column.

Clearly grandma’s ashes aren’t a solution to my aversion to vegetables, but the Bible as an argument makes about the same amount of sense.

Being raised religiously to think same-sex marriage is wrong is a legitimate argument, but lackadaisically throwing quotes out from a book written 3,500 years ago and interspersing the words with personal hatreds and biases doesn’t count as a real argument.

Or at least it is not an intelligent one.

What really gets to me are the people who put their noses in the air and pretend to know God’s deepest secrets because they’ve read a holy book more than the person next to them.

Congratulations, you can use douse holy words with your own malice and make a beautiful text, and a beautiful religion, rear a very ugly head.

They use quoted passages they twist to satisfy their own discriminations so they can justify what they know somewhere deep down is wrong — or they wouldn’t have been looking for the passage to begin with.

There are good Christians, yes.

But there are also generally good people. Some of the “well-versed” Christians don’t seem to understand that.

It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve read a book or dressed up for church or attended Easter service.

It matters if you’re doing the right thing.

If your moral compass is so off you can’t even rely on yourself to make the right decision, so you consult the refracted passages of the Bible, then your argument doesn’t stand in my court.

If you want to take anything from the Bible, just “love thy neighbor.”

They may be gay, straight — hell, they may be the worst person in the world — but save the judgments for the big man.

In the meantime, develop an argument with substance.

­— jkaneshi@indiana.edu