Twitter user @RussInChesire — who describes himself as an “INTJ, feminist, centre-left/green” designer, data analyst, and portrait painter — tweeted the perfect retort for anyone who leans on the Bible to support their homophobia.
Homosexuality is forbidden by the bible. So are poly/cotton socks.
Leviticus 19:19: "You shall not… wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together."
When they start protesting socks as much as they protest gays, I'll accept it's for religious reasons.
— Russ (@RussInCheshire) June 22, 2018
Russ tweeted the clapback in June 2018, but the post recently found new life online.
Related: Dear Religious Right: Stop using The Bible as a weapon of homophobia
Christian opponents to homosexuality often cite Leviticus 18:22, which reads, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”
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But David Lose, Senior Pastor at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, observed in a 2011 HuffPost article that there’s “considerable debate” about that verse and similar passages — e.g. whether they refer to “consensual homosexual practice” and whether they were born out of, say, the importance of procreation to the nomadic Israelites.
Related: Gay teen eviscerates every religious argument against homosexuality
FYI, the Bible also forbids eating pork or shrimp, getting tattoos, gossiping, and — checks notes — getting rounded haircuts.
throwslikeagirl
What’s a “rounded haircut”?
DuMaurier
I’m thinking that Buster Brown ‘do you see in old Our Gang flicks, but I don’t know how the Bible writers knew about it.
Tombear
In the olden days they would put a large bowl on the haircut victim’s head and cut up to the bowl with trimmers.We did that in the Marine Corps all the time.
Imjustsaying
Shellfish is forbidden too, but I don’t see any good Christians picketing down at the the Red Lobster.
matt a
again, unless you understand why some laws in the OT are accepted and some are not, it is best to remain silent. You will win no one over with trite one liners. Even in the OT, not every regulation was regarded as universally binding. So if you want to score point with people who already agree with you – keep up the one liners. If you actually want to make a difference, drop them.
Chrisk
matt a
The mixed fabric one is an easy one that they like to debate. Better to embarrass them with Leviticus quotes calling for the death of kids for cursing your parents, or the bibles endorsement of abortion and slavery. It’s all there.
Cam
@matt a
Some laws are accepted and some aren’t because some are convenient to them, some allow bigotry, and the inconvenient ones are ignored.
Pointing out stupidity and bigotry gets a better result than trying to use logic to people who aren’t quoting the Bible in good faith, but rather to back up the hate and bigotry they already have.
Darth GTB
At least the Bible also forbids eating a very nasty bird called bat.
GeorgeMTL
Actually… Leviticus is specifically aimed at the priesthood and not general rules for everyone.
The rules that everyone claims prohibits homosexuality is actually specific to ritual temple prostitution (and as the first commandment is “thou shalt have no other gods before me”— this makes sense.
Please do not read King James and jump to conclusions… there are some great gay-positive scholars who make compelling arguments that there is no prohibition of homosexuality.
And finally, this IS for the priesthood, and they couldn’t eat shellfish, they couldn’t wear mixed-fabrics, they couldn’t be around women during their periods.
We are not in the Aaronic/Levitical priesthood and we are not even in this small tribe thousands of years ago. And if you claim to be Christian and still deny all of this, don’t forget that Jesus’ rules override the Old Testament… and you don’t see a lot of the preachy so-called Christians following the following commandments of Jesus :
— Judge not, lest ye be judged
— Take the log out of your eye before taking the speck out of your brother’s eye
— Love thy neighbour
— Be not like the Pharisees, claiming holiness, being hypocrites…
— Riches are not in keeping with following Jesus (moneylenders, eye of the camel, etc — so those preaching the Wealth Gospel are particularly heinous)
— forgive
Now… I’m not complaining about all Christians… just the extra-nasty pretend Christians in the US evangelical movement. The people supporting Trump (who is the least Christian person I can imagine) in order to gain political power — directly at odds with everything they claim to believe.
I would love to see people living a more loving life and having a personal relationship with God—and not trying to ram their hateful interpretations into law in order to put other people down… interpretations that come from a very specific rulebook that applied only to the priesthood at the time AND interpretations which are picked and chosen based on personal feeling.
Separate Church and State and remove their power to control us all according to their professed beliefs—beliefs which so many of them have been exposed as not following anyway.
All this judgement is political only and has nothing to do with God.
MacAdvisor
Whenever people through Leviticus 18:22 (“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman…”) at me, I tell them if they are lying with a make as they do a female, they are doing it all wrong.
Paco
Just stop even giving their religion any kind of legitimacy. They have proven that it will always be bent and twisted to match their own hatred and prejudices no matter what. They prove everyday what a lie religions really are. Time to start treating all of them as such.
GeorgeMTL
Religions are personal. That’s it. They have no place in legislation apart from “you’re entitled to your private beliefs without being punished for it”… but yeah.. believe what you want, just don’t let it affect the rest of society!
The utter nerve of some of them to claim that they are victims now and Trump and his BS Religious Freedom Bill… as if they couldn’t get to Church because a gay pride parade kept blocking traffic!
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Sock passage is nothing compared to these:
* If your teenager talks back to you YOU MUST KILL HIM
* If your wife is found not to be a virgin on your wedding night YOU MUST KILL HER
* And the saddest of all if dear old Mom “adorns herself with gold and baubles” YOU MUST KILL HER
these abhorrent noxious puddles of puke cherry-pick obscure passages in that book of fairy tales written by mortals to justify their hatred and bigotry. If they actually followed the dictates of that book the world would be such a better place cuz most of them would be dead….
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FU moderate system!
Michael007
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Excellent response! People need to keep in mind that the men who wrote these books are of the same mold as today’s Middle Eastern people. Just think about all the strange “rules’ in today’s Islam. I don’t have to enumerate them. We all know how absurd they are. These writers were just like today’s old dried up Imams. Sitting around inventing “rules” so they could be in control of the people. Selfish old men who are against anything fun or sexual. Disgusting!
Kieran
You rarely hear this Bible verse preached about these days. For obvious reasons:
“For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, women are to remain silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they wish to inquire about something, they are to ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church.”
1 Corinthians 14: 33-35
Heywood Jablowme
lol – That means Trump’s official “spiritual adviser” Paula White will need to STFU about “satanic wombs”!
Terrycloth
I don’t read science fiction
Diplomat-G
President Josiah Bartlet : Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.
Dr. Jenna Jacobs : I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does.
President Josiah Bartlet : Yes, it does. Leviticus.
Dr. Jenna Jacobs : 18:22.
President Josiah Bartlet : Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?
While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here’s one that’s really important ’cause we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?
Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side?
Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?
One last thing: While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.
Billysees
Here’s a NT way of considering homosexuality and all that it comprises —
All things are allowable for me and all things are lawful for me and all things are permissible for me but all things are not always beneficial …… 1 Corinthians 6:12 …… 1 Corinthians 10:23 …
Nixter
Billysees : So you see your homosexuality as not beneficial ?! How is that good?!
Joshooeerr
Debating the finer meanings of a Bronze Age text is a pointless waste of time. Let’s just accept that religion generally is a con job – a means of subjugating and controlling people for the benefit of those in charge. Reject it all.
ryuichi
Fundamentalists and red necks eat pork and shellfish, they drive on the sabbath, they wear mixed materials, and do all the other things forbidden in the bible…except for that one sentence. It is hypocrisy to selectively pick out that portion of the bible that one doesn’t do…forbid them…and do all the rest.
But, why am I not surprised.
batesmotel
There is so much that is listed as forbidden in the Bible, but those go eerily ignored. And the ones that keep using the Bible to slam gays are the worst sinners of them all. They’re also not too bright. Because I’ve noticed the smarter Christians love gays and gay marriage and have no issue with it. It’s those backasswards Christians.
CityguyUSA
My goodness, what does lying with a woman even insinuate? That fornication is always done the same in every society? Hardly. Some societies use a woman as a receptacle and others respect women and their sexual desires. Some suggest that you shouldn’t even be with a woman unless you’re trying to conceive while others do it for the pure pleasure which I’m sure God would definitely not see as appropriate. Some races would rather screw a woman in the rear than the vagina and on and on it goes so exactly what does it mean to say, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination?”
Aires the Ram
I’ve always believed that the text “Thou shall not “lie with”….., meant, in the day and the society in which it was written, that man shall treat other men equally, but man shall NOT treat females equally. It was considered an abomination to give a female the same status and importance in society as men. You still see this everyday in many parts of this world, particularly Islamic cultures/countries.