Most people have heard of Margaret Court; but Robyn Whitaker? If she is the one named by the Leftist ‘Conversation’ as a “top thinker” - the one connected to the equally Leftist Uniting Church, I will stick with Margaret Court, who has definitely been persecuted for her beliefs, even though the Whitaker woman says she hasn't. No matter what some people think of Margaret Court and her Christian beliefs, she has been treated abominably by the Left, the media, the homosexual-promoting Qantas (whose business it is definitely not) and the weak non-conformist religious bureaucrats who pander to poofters in a desperate attempt to seem relevant.

The Bible never resolves these issues anyway. You end up moving from ethical arguments to debates about interpretation of the Bible.

You can't have any room for leeway, if you are a believer in a literal interpretation of the Bible or other holy book, such a the Koran. Both of these books are definitely anti-homosexual and would not support same-sex marriage on any reasonable reading.

Many Christians (like the author referred to in the article) no longer believe in literal interpretations of the Bible. Scientific discoveries in the fields of astronomy and biological evolution have discredited the Bible as a source of scientific knowledge. If this is extended to issues of ethics (something less common), then there is a licence to draw as long a bow as you like, so that virtually anything goes.

As an agnostic, I don't place any moral weight on what the Bible allegedly says about homosexuality. I think that these issues need to be judged by their broader effects on society, including social costs and benefits, and individual freedoms.

I could not possibly add to your round of truthfulness ttbn.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I side with Whitaker on this. However, I think that posing the argument in terms of literal readings of the bible is unhelpful. While there are many analogies, metaphors, etc in scripture that are not meant to be taken literally, the issue of interpretation is deeper than this distinction. The critical issue is reading the text theologically ie. in the light of systematic thinking that stands back from individual verses to gain a workable vision of the gospel. We find the most famous use of this method in the arguments of St Paul, a Jew and persecutor of the Church turned believer and theologian. He is able, in the Spirit of Christ, to abandon OT law in favour of grace in a way that makes fundamentalist readings untenable. It is not useful to cherry pick the bits of the bible that support your argument. A thorough fundamentalism would lead to very strange conclusions that none of us would be happy with. We cannot turn back the clock to OT or early NT times because there exists in the eternal Trinity the concept of the Spirit that is constantly moving and producing new insights.

My Bible doesn't have a hole in !

oops, should be in it !