Camille is a twentysomething working in the LGBT nonprofit industry. She runs an LGBT news blog at gaywrites.org.
Opponents of marriage equality frequently use so-called evidence from the Bible to argue that same-sex marriage is “unnatural,” “immoral,” or any number of harmful (and incorrect) adjectives. But a group of Biblical scholars have come forward to say that, despite what some misguided conservatives think, the religious text doesn’t prove anything about the definition of marriage. In an op-ed for the Altoona Herald, Robert R. Cargill, Hector Avalos, and Kenneth Atkinson, — all biblical scholars — list all the ways in which the Bible describes marriage as something other than an exclusively heterosexual, monogamous institution: … we wish to clarify that the biblical texts do not support the frequent claim that marriage between one man and one woman is the only type of marriage deemed acceptable by the Bible’s authors. The fact that marriage is not defined as only that between one man and one woman is reflected in the entry on “marriage” in the authoritative Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000): “Marriage is one expression of kinship family patterns in which typically a man and at least one woman cohabitate publicly and permanently as a basic social unit” (p. 861). This dictionary definition forms the basis of their claim. They say that the use of the phrase “at least one woman” is the clearest sanction of polygamy, which comes as no surprise to those who have read the Bible. In many cases, men with multiple wives were actually “highly blessed,” as evidenced by some of the deeply disturbing Biblical passages you may already be familiar with: [Click headline for more…] Read more
The author of a book about life as a gay Catholic priest has officially come out about his true identity. Father Gary Meier (pictured above), a priest for the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, wrote a book in 2011 called Hidden Voices: Reflections of a Gay, Catholic Priest, but published it anonymously. Earlier this month, he released a statement announcing the book would be released a second time under his own name and explaining the decision: [Click headline for more…] Read more
The highest-ranking Catholic in the nation says churchgoers should pull out all the stops to block marriage equality in the United States, even if it means sacrificing…something. They’re not really sure what. Under the direction of the notoriously anti-gay Cardinal Timothy Dolan (pictured above), the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops delivered this bulletin to parishioners around the country in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s decision on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, the two marriage equality cases the Court heard earlier this year: [Click headline for more…] Read more
God wants everyone to have one mommy and one daddy… according to a new children’s book that masks anti-gay preaching as wholesome literature. God Made Dad & Mom, written by Amber Dee Parker and illustrated by Hannah Sequra, is the story of a little boy named Michael who learns through prayer what real families are all about. Real families, apparently, can only consist of two different-sex parents, because that’s what God wants. [Click headline for more…] Read more
