When it comes to the confluence of homosexuality, love, marriage and what the Bible has to say, we all think we know better than God.
(By "we all," I don't mean my fellow liberals and me. I mean all of us. Like all the humans. All, like "everyone." Meaning people. Peoples everywhere.)
We all think we're so smart, we all think that God should just shut up already and let us talk about what love is, and what it isn't. We human beings are the experts, after all.
It's clear, by our behavior, that we all think God hasn't put enough mental energy into this whole love business. And let's not even get started on marriage. God's pretty clueless in that aspect too.
Exhibit One: Literalists who aren't literalists. A literalist's arguments against gay marriage go something like, "the Bible forbids it," "Leviticus is clear on this topic," "Even the New Testament says being gay is sinful," "God ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman."
Then that same person goes ahead and reads the exact opposite meaning into a neighboring verse. Or he dismisses it out of hand. Translation: I may pretend to believe every word in the Bible, but I reserve the right to change my mind on a whim. God didn't REALLY mean we should stone anyone. Silly God.
The main four arguments a fundamentalist Christian makes are easy to annihilate, one by one. The Bible forbids lots of things, like any sort of work from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, upon penalty of death. Leviticus is also clear that we should stone people for minor offenses, like jaywalking. The New Testament also calls debate, jesting and foolishness sins, which don't appear to count, ever. And God ordained marriage to be between one man and *at least* one woman, as evidenced by a cursory jaunt through the book of Genesis.
So God knows best, literalists say, except when it's inconvenient. Biblical arguments against same-sex marriage rely on an assertion, spoken or not, that I Know Better Than God.
Exhibit Two: Agnostics and atheists who dismiss the Bible out of hand. When they agree to meet believers on their terms, atheists will often say the Bible is ambiguous or inconsistent on the topic of homosexuality, which is only possible if you willfully ignore scriptures that condemn man-on-man love. (In their defense, Jesus didn't address homosexuality at all, so there's nothing there to ignore in the first place.) But their theological choices are basically one giant I Know Better Than God, If God Even Exists statement. Same difference, in the end.
Recap: Religious extremists have decided that God's not serious about curtailing, for example, divorce, but is simultaneously very serious about stomping out homosexuality. Silly God, they're saying. Agnostics and atheists, by definition, don't care much what God thinks or is purported to think. Silly God, they've concluded.
Where does that leave the rest of us -- those of us who care about what and who God is, but are not willing to read the Bible ungullibly? What about those of us who like to examine scripture (all scriptures) with an eye out for what the text, rather than what it says? Those of us who like to witness love, to respect love, to enjoy love in as many non-abusive forms as possible?
(Are there even that many of that kind of "us" out there?)
I believe it leaves us with only one option: removing the Bible from the discussion altogether, and practicing a deference to law. Deference to the law of man, that is, not the law of God. If a person can make a convincing constitutional case against SSM, without once invoking divine authority, then they should go ahead and decide to believe that way. If another person can succeed in re-defining marriage in legal terms as a covenant between two consenting adults, then they should try and implement their idea of marriage, through legal and political means.
But in the meantime, society would be better off if we stopped pretending we know better than God.
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