Leading Expert on Bible and Homosexuality Rebuts Newsweek Article Claiming Bible Supports ‘Gay Marriage’

Prof. Gagnon’s 23-page report debunks every shibboleth and inacurracy by “reporter” Lisa Miller

Prof. Robert Gagnon rebuts Newsweek religion “reporter” Lisa Miller’s astonishingly biased and shallow polemic claiming that the Bible actually supports homosexual “marriage.” Click here to read Gagnon’s 23-page report: “More than ‘Mutual Joy’: Lisa Miller of Newsweek against Scripture and Jesus.”

Folks, needless to say, when Newsweek religion “reporter” Lisa Miller penned her ultra-biased, sophomoric cover story — or should I say “cover screed” — claiming that the Bible supports homosexual “marriage, she did not contact Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Professor Robert Gagnon — probably the world’s foremost scholarly authority on the Bible and homosexuality. Doing so would have threatened Miller’s subversive, and very “queer,” thesis: that “Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be … married — and a number of excellent reasons why they should.”

Prof. Gagnon has written a very thorough refutation of Newsweek’s and Miller’s arrogant assault on God’s Word. Click here for Gagnon’s full, 23-page report: “More than ‘Mutual Joy’: Lisa Miller of Newsweek against Scripture and Jesus.” In the report, Gagnon sets the record straight (no pun intended) on Miller’s many inaccuracies and pro-“gay” assertions, including:

• Did Jesus Christ really have nothing to say against homosexuality (and hence “same-sex marriage”)?
• Does the Bible proscribe lesbian sex and relationships?
• Are Old Testament condemnations of homosexual acts (e.g., Leviticus 18:22, aptly describing sex between men as “detestable”) mere “throwaway lines in a peculiar text” — about as relevant as Old Testament rules for “hair cuts” and “cleanliness rituals for menstruating women,” as Miller writes?
• Since marriage has evolved since Bible times, why NOT let it evolve to include homosexual couples?
• Does the Bible’s call to reach out with compassion to social outcasts mandate condoning homosexual relationships?
• Miller’s assertion in favor of church-blessed homosexual “marriages”: “If we are all God’s children, made in his likeness and image, then to deny access to any sacrament based on sexuality is exactly the same thing as denying it based on skin color”?

Here’s a link with contact info for Newsweek if you care to write or call them regarding their politically correct propaganda masquerading as journalism. Meanwhile, let’s use the Secular Left’s lies about homosexuality and counterfeit marriage to hone our own arguments, Biblical and otherwise, in favor of a healthy God-ordained, natural sexual ethic: fidelity between a man and a woman, in marriage, ’till death do they part.” — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org _________________________________

Here is Gagnon’s press release announcing his paper:

More than “Mutual Joy”: Lisa Miller of Newsweek against Scripture and Jesus

Robert A. J. Gagnon

Dec. 10, 2008

As its cover story for the Dec. 15, 2008 issue, the editors of Newsweek offer readers a one-sided propaganda piece about Scripture and “gay marriage” entitled “Our Mutual Joy,” written by Religion Editor Lisa Miller. According to Miller, “scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be … married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.”

Click here for Gagnon’s full, 23-page report: “More than ‘Mutual Joy’: Lisa Miller of Newsweek against Scripture and Jesus.”

Miller restricts her research to biblical scholars supportive of homosexual unions and exaggerates discontinuity between Scripture’s marriage values and our own. She elevates distant analogies like slavery and haircuts over close analogies, with far more points of correspondence, like adult-committed incest. She also extrapolates, from certain “universal truths” in Scripture, illogical conclusions that would have appalled the scriptural authors, like assuming that generic love is a sufficient prerequisite for sexual relationships. Moreover, she systematically ignores virtually every significant counterargument to her claims.

For example, she claims that Jesus never “explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.” She overlooks the fact that Jesus not only affirmed a male-female prerequisite for marriage but also predicated his argument about the ‘twoness’ of a sexual bond (monogamy) on the twoness or duality of the sexes in Genesis 1:27; 2:24. Miller contends that Jesus’ singleness and remarks about marriage as a secondary good indicate Jesus’ openness to non-traditional forms of sexual bonds. They actually signify the exact opposite: a further limiting of options for sexual relations to one person of the other sex for life.

Miller suggests that Paul indicted only exploitative (violent) forms of homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27. Yet she ignores crucial arguments that indicate otherwise: Paul’s clear echo to the creation standard of “male and female” in Genesis 1:27, his nature argument that male-female complementarity is evident in material creation, his reference to mutual homoerotic attraction, widespread knowledge of loving homosexual relationships in the ancient world (even by moralists who indicted all homosexual practice), and Paul’s indictment of nonexploitative lesbianism. Miller even erroneously claims that the Bible nowhere refers to sex between women, ignoring Romans 1:26.

For the full Gagnon report, go to http://robgagnon.net/ArticlesOnline.htm

Robert A. J. Gagnon is Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon Press; 500 pgs.). E-mail: gagnon@pts.edu. Phone: 412-441-3304 ext. 2205.

Lisa Miller, Newsweek propagandist who gives new meaning to media bias.