Untruths and Consequences

Sigh...

Yeah, it's "uplifting," but I doubt that it's real.

No, no... I get it, really I do, but can we please stop with the manufactured "tolerant-but-nameless-Pastor-with-a-message-of-love" garbage. Because there are plenty of churchmen (and women, for that matter) who have actually taken some very real (if somewhat small, in the grand scheme of things) risks to get out what they understand their deity's message is, and these sorts of fictionalized accounts, while they may make people feel good, don't give credit where credit really should be due.

I'm calling this particular monolog out as fictional because of the following:

Pastor: The bible doesn't say anything about the consequences of a homosexual lifestyle.

It doesn't?

And when a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail. Their own blood is upon them.
Leviticus 20:13 - Whatever translation of the Bible it is that my mother gave me.

I dunno... being executed sounds like a consequence to me. But I suppose that you could make the point that men having sex with men is different from "a homosexual lifestyle." After all, men in prison have sex with other men (given that there are no women around) and we don't consider them to be homosexual in orientation or lifestyle. But honestly, it seems like a stretch.

And as for the consequence for divorce having rocks thrown at the initiator - I couldn't find a passage that said as much. Granted, I'm not an expert on the Bible, or anything, but I suspect that even my Google-fu is strong enough that such a thing wouldn't stay hidden - there are a lot of people who would be invested in making sure that it saw the light of day. You can make the point that re-marriage after divorce is adultery, and adultery is punishable by stoning - but that's different than saying that divorce itself is punishable by stoning. Now this could be an actual transcript. But in that case, perhaps someone needs a new pastor. Of course, I could be wrong, and the passage is right under my nose... (Given a literal - or liberal - enough reading of the Old Testament, a good chunk of the population of the United States is due to be put to death any minute now. But even given that, the death penalty for divorceés seems like it would stand out.)

In any event, I don't think that Christian voices that teach tolerance on this issue are so few and far between that people need to make up new ones - especially not if it's too much work to do the research. Why not find the words of someone like the Reverend Oliver White on this subject? As someone who lost his church to foreclosure after his congregation abandoned him for speaking out in favor of marriage equality, wouldn't he have something to say that's just as compelling? And, more importantly, authentic?

P.S.: Oh, and by the way... that "couple of older males" thing? Yeah... that was laying it on just a smidgeon too thick. Next time, dial it back to "11," okay?