In Newsweek's Dec. 15 issue, someone named Lisa Miller makes "the religious case for gay marriage." Except the magazine put a picture of the Bible on the cover. The "religious case for gay marriage" is not the same thing as "the Biblical case for gay marriage." Newsweek would have given itself more intellectual credibility had it at least gotten the cover right.
Anyway, on to the story behind the cover.
Wait a second. I don't want to go on to that. The "religious case for gay marriage" has been "made" a hundred times. What a boring cover story. The Bible is antiquated. Modern scholars have found new meaning in the passages or now doubt their veracity. God is love and all He wants is for us to just be happy, however we define happiness. King David was a polygamist. And on and on and on.
Ms. Miller even writes that "while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman." Well, she's got us there! There is no verse in the Bible that says "the definition of marriage is the union of one man and one woman." I don't know how we could have missed that.
Anyway, let's leave Ms. Miller's story before she starts writing things like "the Bible endorses slavery." (Oops, too late.)
Instead, let's go on to Newsweek editor Jon Meacham's editorial note on the cover story. Unlike Ms. Miller's story, Mr. Meacham's note is interesting, if in a train wreck sort of way.
Mr. Meacham writes that "conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism." The worst kind? Really? He can't think of a kind of fundamentalism worse than that?
And, is liberal resort to biblical authority OK, then? Apparently not, for "to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt—it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition." That's right—Mr. Meacham says that resort to Biblical authority is "unworthy" of the "Judeo-Christian tradition." Also, it is "intellectually bankrupt," which does not exactly explain why he just put a cover story in his magazine resorting to Biblical authority to argue for one side of an issue. Intellectually bankrupt for thee, but not for me?
But if we are to discard Biblical authority, to what authority should we resort? The closest Mr. Meacham comes to offering an alternative is when he says that "history and demographics are on the side of those who favor inclusion over exclusion." So history--by which Mr. Meacham means historical trends--and the opinions of younger generations (i.e., "demographics") are to be our guides, eh? Those guides are less than definitive and consistent.
Perhaps, then, Mr. Meacham himself is to be our authority, given as he is in "full possession of the relevant cultural and religious history and context" of the important issues.
Not doubting his good intentions but his omniscience, I pray that he will excuse me from submission to his authority, though it appears that he has already declined my request.
