by Becky Burgwin

OpEdNews.Com

A few days ago Zach Wamp, a US Rep. from Tennessee stated that he thinks we need to write a new amendment to the Constitution banning any kind of union between people of the same sex and he's afraid that if we're not quick about it the US Supreme Court is going to legalize it. OK. This end run aside, I'm wondering why Mr. Wamp is so threatened by same sex couples that he feels the need to deny them basic rights such as hospital visitation privileges and rights of survivorship.

Perhaps Mr. Wamp is heroically and selflessly trying to protect America's sacred institution of marriage. Well, that's a good cause because marriage in this country is in deep trouble. The statistics on divorce rates are atrocious…50% for 1st marriages; 60% for remarriages. And the rate at which married couples are cheating on each other is staggering. Take this quote from the website www.parsonage.org. 

"Unfortunately, statistics tell us that by age 40, 50-65% of husbands and 45-55% of wives have had an affair. Christianity Today reported that 23% of one sampling of pastors admitted to sexual inappropriateness." 

I think this totally blows the theory that gay unions are going to be the ruination of our sacred institution of marriage, because, if our pastors can't even hold their marriages together, I'd say it's already too late. But, I digress.

I'm really here to talk about the biblical references that Wamp and his buddies use when telling the world that homosexuality is an abomination. I found this in Leviticus 20:13. 

"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." 

Now, it's pretty obvious to me that The Wamp Patrol (TWP) is only taking half of this verse literally or we'd be executing gays. I mean the verse clearly states, "They shall be put to death for their abominable deed." That got me wondering if there are any more verses in the Bible that we don't take as literally as we do the ones about homosexuality. Here's one from Deuteronomy 21:18-21.

"Suppose a man has a stubborn, rebellious son... In such cases, the father and mother must take the son before the leaders of the town. They must declare: 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and refuses to obey…' Then all the men of the town must stone him to death."

Or this:

"A  daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death."  Leviticus 21:9

Yikes. I'm thinking all the Wamp kids better start toeing the line. I'd think twice about crossing my dad if I knew he was a guy who takes his Bible literally.

I wonder if TWP has read this one from Exodus 21:20-21

"When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property."

Am I alone or does anyone else think that this says it's not only all right to HAVE slaves, but we can BEAT them, too, as long as they're not DOA.

How about this one from Moses in Exodus 35:1-2.

"This is what the LORD has commanded to be done. On six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be sacred to you as the Sabbath of complete rest to the LORD. Anyone who does work on that day shall be put to death."

Now, it's been a few thousand years and none of this stuff was even written down
for hundreds of years after the fact and then there were who knows how many translators
in there putting their own spin on it. So, since I believe that Moses was a benevolent and
enlightened guy, I'm in favor of giving him the benefit of the doubt and assume
he wasn't executing folks who engaged in something other than "complete rest," on the
Sabbath.

Come on guys. My point here is that so much of the Bible is full of violent, messy acts. The Lord "rips open women's wombs" in Hosea 13:16. Psalms 137:19 says, "You'll have hope if you dash your little ones against rocks."  Obviously we can't take every word in the Bible literally unless, of course, you're pushing some sort of agenda like the homosexuality is bad and those who engage in it deserve to be treated like dirt agenda.

Did you know that homosexuality has occurred in ALL human cultures since the dawn of time? (Look it up.) How about the fact that gay adolescents are 5 times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers. (Education Week, 4/19/2000) I guess being called faggot, and sissy boy in school, not to mention being bullied and beaten up on a regular basis, isn't enough to make them want to go back to being straight as so many people of Wamp's ilk think is possible for them. Do you want to know whose lives you and your homophobic henchmen could have ruined if you'd been around? Tchaikovsy, Alexander the Great, Herman Melville, Michaelango, Hans Christian Anderson, Cole Porter, James Dean, Aristotle, Socrates, Leonardo Da Vinci, Julius Caesar, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Noel Coward, Bessie Smith, Walt Whitman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Pope Julius III, Leonard Bernstein, and J. Edgar Hoover…just to name a few. Here's another little piece of info for you. Homosexuals are discriminated against by their own families. No other minority can claim that.

So what you're proposing is to change our Constitution…this profoundly important document that was written by some of the greatest thinkers of all time…the document that some scholars believe may have been divinely inspired…in order to DENY rights to 10% of our population. Have you even read the Constitution lately because it really has more to do with GIVING people rights than TAKING THEM AWAY.

I want you to know that all of the homosexuals I know are proud of themselves and their standing in the world. They are kind, talented and smart and just as religious, family-oriented, and patriotic as you are. But I ask you this, would you choose a lifestyle that subjected you to name calling, made your own family turn against you or made you susceptible to vicious beatings and, in some cases, murder?  I think not. Can I get a constitutional amendment banning that? Now that would make the world a better place.

Becky Burgwin is retired, living in Pittsburgh, PA rburgwin@aol.com   This article is copyright Becky Burgwin   and  originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.