http://theconversation.

com/to-christians-arguing-no-on-marriage-equality-

the-bible-is-not-decisive-82498

To Christians arguing ‘no’ on marriage equality: The Bible is not decisive

BONIFACE PENANDJO

This article is about sexuality and people accepting the issue of same sex marriage which

is solely based on Australians. The Australian scholars lead the field of research when it partakes

the issue of sexuality and the bible. This article uses biblical text and related ancient history to

justify their stand point on the issue of sexuality and same sex marriage that the world and

Christianity is facing right now, given that “there are at most six passages of the bible that are

relevant”.

The first story in the bible that this passage describes is Genesis 19, the well-known story of

Sodom and Gomorrah. This story has a lot of sexuality and complex issues that is being faced by

our society nowadays. The story itself has nothing to do with homosexuality or anybody

expressing a feeling for the same gender per say. In Leviticus (18:22 and 20:13) God deems an

abomination as a man lying with another man instead of his wife, including other abominations

such as eating pork, taking your wife’s sister as a second wife, having sex with your wife when

she is menstruating, sacrificing a child etc.

These abominations nowadays have been nitpicked and we of “modern” era have decided to

choose which to follow and which of them not to follow as laws. This itself goes against the

meaning of the text and some are understandable enough not to follow like sacrificing your child,

but how about eating pork or having sex with your wife when she is menstruating. Some of these

potent issues have been normalized and this poses the question of why do follow laws in the Old

Testament and some we completely ignore?

 Moving forward, in the New Testament which Paul addresses in 1 Corinthian’s 6-9:10 and

1 Timothy 1:10. These verses condemns a wide variety of “sins” saying that people who do such

things “will not inherit the kingdom of God”. These verses are just a depiction of some of the

thousands of verses in the bible and the bible did not really focuses much on the issue of

“homosexuality” because back then it was not a major concern. The bible very well makes a lot

of arguments concerning the issues such as arrange marriages which were all ok but nowadays,

we have chosen not to follow but bible also never condemns same-sex marriage. My question is

where should we draw the line between the abominations that the bible speaks of and the issues

that we are facing today? Are we facing this issues because we are trying overwrite the past and

create a new future while still strongly believing in our past experience?