Christians Eat Lions in 2004

[Connie Fournier]

<center>Christians Eat Lions in 2004</center>


<a href=http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15857>Frontpagemagazine</a>
11-8-04
Don Feder

For decades, leftists have waged a relentless crusade against the faith. On November 2, they paid the price.

Here’s one for Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not: The Democrats have spent decades making life miserable for Christians. On Election Day, Christians returned the favor.

Since at least the mid-1970s, the Democratic Party and its allies have devoted themselves to alternately sneering at and savaging Christians.

They’ve depicted the followers of Jesus – evangelical Protestants and traditional Catholics in particular – as superstitious degenerates, bigots, trailer-park misogynists, both sexually repressed and hypocritically lecherous, and a gang of Torquemada wannabes who constitute a clear and present danger to democracy and the 21st century.

The only problem the left seems to have is in deciding whether Christians are more Elmer Gantry or Elmer Fudd.

They’ve derided their values, indoctrinated their children, given their teenaged sons condoms (and told their teenaged daughters how to get an abortion without their parents knowledge or consent), used their tax dollars to fund "art" like a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine, eliminated the mildest public expressions of faith, and tried to overturn 3,300 years of Judeo-Christian tradition by mandating gay marriage from the bench.

After all of this, the Democrats are shocked to discover that they aren’t wildly popular in the Bible Belt. Where, oh where did we go wrong, they moan, as George W. rallies Christian support to become the first president since 1936 to win reelection and increase his party’s representation in both houses of Congress.

The media believe Bush’s opposition to gay marriage swept the president to victory. While the issue – and the presence of 11 traditional marriage ballot questions (all of which carried, with an average vote of over 70%) – clearly played a role in Bush’s reelection, the war between the Democratic party and religious America extends far beyond the marriage debate.

To the amazement of The New York Times, 22% of voters told exit pollsters that they were motivated by "values" or moral questions – more than those who based their votes on the economy or the war on terrorism. Bush was endorsed by over 80% of values-driven voters.

White evangelicals pulled the Republican lever by 78% to 21%.

The phenomenon cut across denominational lines. Running against the first Catholic presidential candidate (at least in name) since 1960, Bush won the votes of 51% of Catholics. In Florida, Catholics voted for Bush over the alleged altar boy, 55% to 45%. In Ohio, Catholics who attend services weekly chose Bush 62% to 38%. Who says Republicans don’t have mass appeal?

As a general rule, in the 2004 election – the more a voter went to church, the redder he got.

Those who never attend religious services voted for Kerry over Bush, 62% to 36%. The Massachusetts Senator – who vowed he would never make a policy decision based on an article of faith – also carried those who went to church a few times a year (54% to 45%).

Bush got the support of voters who visit a house of worship a few times a month (50% to 49%), once a week (58%) and more than once a week (64%). For the Democratic Party, churchgoing America is enemy territory.

It wasn’t always so. Formerly, Catholics loyal to Rome were a bedrock of the Democratic Party. Once upon a time, it was easier to find a Protestant in Dublin than a Republican at a Knight of Columbus meeting or a gathering of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

Likewise evangelicals. In that bygone era, the Bible Belt was cinched around the waist of the party that nominated William Jennings Bryan three times. Born-again Christians helped to keep the South solidly Democratic.

The great political awakening started in the 1970s, when the Carter administration attacked the tax-status of Christian schools. A milestone was reached in 1980, when Ronald Reagan told a gathering of evangelical pastors in Dallas: "You can’t endorse me, but I’m going to endorse you."

For observant Catholics, a sure sign that they were persona non grata in the Democratic Party came at its 1992 nominating convention. By then, the party had become so dogmatically pro-abortion that then Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey was denied an opportunity to address the convention because of his pro-life position.

Ron Brown, the convention’s organizer, told the popular governor of one of the 10 largest states, "Your views are out of line with those of most Americans." If "most Americans" is here defined as the subscription list of Ms. Magazine, Brown was correct.

In the latest evolution of liberal anti-Catholicism, Senate Democrats have established what amounts to a religious test for public office. Kennedy and his cohorts have announced that, no matter how qualified, a pro-life judicial nominee will be automatically rejected. They might as well hang a sign on the door of every federal courthouse in the land – "Catholics Need Not Apply."

The foregoing caused Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Denver, to suggest that a Catholic who voted for Kerry should go to confession before he received communion.

The left seems to devote considerable energy to devising new and ingenuous way to outrage, horrify, aggravate and otherwise annoy anyone who takes the Bible seriously.

Exhibit A is a 51-page study ("Beyond the Pledge of Allegiance: Hostility to Religious Expression in the Public Square") compiled by the Liberty Legal Institute of Plano, Texas and presented to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights In October.

According to the subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas): "The campaign to purge expressions of faith from the public square is pervasive, national and well organized. The report not only contains page after page and example after example of hostility to religious expression, it also notes how this effort to cleanse the public square of all religious expressions is carefully orchestrated and organized by some of the nation’s leading liberal special interests." All of which are aligned with the Democratic Party.

Here are a few of the outrages documented in the pages of the report.

· In St. Louis, Missouri, a 12-year-old student was reprimanded for praying over his lunch.

· A public-school teacher in Houston punished two sisters for bringing bibles to class, confiscated the bibles and threw them in the trash and threatened to report their parents to the state’s Child Protective Services. At the same school, another student was forbidden to read a bible in his free time and forced to remove a Ten Commandments dustcover from a textbook.

· Public high school students in Lynn, Massachusetts were suspended for distributing candy canes with Bible verses attached.

· At a New Jersey veterans’ cemetery, a member of an honor guard, and a Vietnam vet, was fired for saying "God bless you and this family" to the family of a deceased veteran.

· In Logan County, Kentucky, a public library worker was fired for refusing to remove a cross-pendant necklace. She was later reinstated, by court order.

Among the chief culprits in this religious-cleansing campaign, the report names the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way (PAW) and Americans United for the (so-called) Separation of Church and State.

Now, let’s see: which of the two major parties is more closely identified with the anti-God jihad? Who’s more likely to keynote the ACLU’s annual dinner, Rush Limbaugh or Bill Maher? This is an open-book exam, but the score will count toward your final grade.

The following is a sampling of postings on the PAW website : "Bush’s Judicial Threats," "The Bush Administration vs. The Constitution," "Bush’s Statement on Judges Demonstrates ‘Orwellian’ Doublespeak," "Bush’s Tax and Budget Plans: Radical and Irresponsible," and a fawning review of David Corn’s "The Lies of George Bush." Despite the liberal assessment of their intelligence, Christians can connect the dots between assaults on the president and attacks on them.

Hollywood rarely misses a chance to ridicule Christians or denigrate their faith. The pathetic comedy "Saved," just released on video and DVD – which is set in a Christian academy and makes religious kids look like Nazi nincompoops – is the most recent example of Hollywood’s contempt for Christians and their values.

But when devout Catholic Mel Gibson made a movie celebrating his faith ("The Passion"), both the producer and his work were subjected to withering attacks – including charges of anti-Semitism -- by critics and commentators.

The news media’s disdain for orthodox Christians was illustrated by a throw-away line in a front-page story in The Washington Post a decade ago. Reporter Michael Weisskopf contemptuously characterized conservative Christians as, "poor, uneducated and easy to command." This is an ugly stereotype, akin to saying that poor, ignorant darkies like to tap-dance while eating fried chicken.

Said condescension was manifested again in the 2000 presidential election, when the president named Jesus as his favorite philosopher. You could hear the media guffaws – from the newsroom of The New York Times to the editorial department of The L.A. Times.

Senate Democrats have launched unprecedented filibusters to block Bush’s judicial nominations. Federal judges are overwhelmingly liberal (activist and elitist) and Democrats are determined to keep them that way.

The judiciary has led the frontal assault on faith.

Since 1963, it’s banished prayer from the public schools, rejected a moment of silent meditation (lest someone be encouraged to meditate on God), outlawed non-denominational prayers at graduation ceremonies and student-initiated prayers at football games, prohibited posting The Ten Commandments on school bulletin boards, ordered removal of Ten Commandments monuments, and come close to taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance (required by the 9th. Circuit Appeals Court, reversed by the Supreme Court, on technical grounds).

At the same time, the Supreme Court or lower federal courts have struck down anti-sodomy laws and the most modest restraints on abortion, including parental-notification (again, in some jurisdictions) and attempts to ban partial-birth abortion. In Kerry country, the judiciary mandated homosexual marriage.

The courts are telling Christians: While we will not permit even symbolic affirmations of your faith, we have every right to force our faith on you.

In Academia, Christians are besieged. At least a dozen colleges and universities have withdrawn recognition of Christian clubs, for violating the school’s non-discrimination code, by refusing to admit homosexuals and non-Christians as members – notwithstanding that to do so would violate the basic tenets of their faith.

From start to finish, the war on Christianity is a blue-country operation. It is relentlessly waged by the Democrats’ core constituencies: the entertainment industry, journalists, the public education establishment (every four years, the endorsement of the Democratic nominee by the National Education Association is a pro forma matter), college administrators and the courts.

Christians would have to be masochistic not to revolt against this constant abuse, and totally lacking in discernment not to see it all leading to a nation where faith is marginalized, humanistic values are enshrined in government and the culture, and hate-crimes laws are used to punish dissent.

Evangelical Christians have been in the arena a long time. For once, they ate the lions.

[gloriapoole]

<center>Christians Eat Lions in 2004</center>


<a href=http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15857>Frontpagemagazine</a>
11-8-04
Don Feder

For decades, leftists have waged a relentless crusade against the faith. On November 2, they paid the price.

Here’s one for Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not: The Democrats have spent decades making life miserable for Christians. On Election Day, Christians returned the favor.

Since at least the mid-1970s, the Democratic Party and its allies have devoted themselves to alternately sneering at and savaging Christians.

They’ve depicted the followers of Jesus – evangelical Protestants and traditional Catholics in particular – as superstitious degenerates, bigots, trailer-park misogynists, both sexually repressed and hypocritically lecherous, and a gang of Torquemada wannabes who constitute a clear and present danger to democracy and the 21st century.

The only problem the left seems to have is in deciding whether Christians are more Elmer Gantry or Elmer Fudd.

They’ve derided their values, indoctrinated their children, given their teenaged sons condoms (and told their teenaged daughters how to get an abortion without their parents knowledge or consent), used their tax dollars to fund "art" like a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine, eliminated the mildest public expressions of faith, and tried to overturn 3,300 years of Judeo-Christian tradition by mandating gay marriage from the bench.

After all of this, the Democrats are shocked to discover that they aren’t wildly popular in the Bible Belt. Where, oh where did we go wrong, they moan, as George W. rallies Christian support to become the first president since 1936 to win reelection and increase his party’s representation in both houses of Congress.

The media believe Bush’s opposition to gay marriage swept the president to victory. While the issue – and the presence of 11 traditional marriage ballot questions (all of which carried, with an average vote of over 70%) – clearly played a role in Bush’s reelection, the war between the Democratic party and religious America extends far beyond the marriage debate.

To the amazement of The New York Times, 22% of voters told exit pollsters that they were motivated by "values" or moral questions – more than those who based their votes on the economy or the war on terrorism. Bush was endorsed by over 80% of values-driven voters.

White evangelicals pulled the Republican lever by 78% to 21%.

The phenomenon cut across denominational lines. Running against the first Catholic presidential candidate (at least in name) since 1960, Bush won the votes of 51% of Catholics. In Florida, Catholics voted for Bush over the alleged altar boy, 55% to 45%. In Ohio, Catholics who attend services weekly chose Bush 62% to 38%. Who says Republicans don’t have mass appeal?

As a general rule, in the 2004 election – the more a voter went to church, the redder he got.

Those who never attend religious services voted for Kerry over Bush, 62% to 36%. The Massachusetts Senator – who vowed he would never make a policy decision based on an article of faith – also carried those who went to church a few times a year (54% to 45%).

Bush got the support of voters who visit a house of worship a few times a month (50% to 49%), once a week (58%) and more than once a week (64%). For the Democratic Party, churchgoing America is enemy territory.

It wasn’t always so. Formerly, Catholics loyal to Rome were a bedrock of the Democratic Party. Once upon a time, it was easier to find a Protestant in Dublin than a Republican at a Knight of Columbus meeting or a gathering of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

Likewise evangelicals. In that bygone era, the Bible Belt was cinched around the waist of the party that nominated William Jennings Bryan three times. Born-again Christians helped to keep the South solidly Democratic.

The great political awakening started in the 1970s, when the Carter administration attacked the tax-status of Christian schools. A milestone was reached in 1980, when Ronald Reagan told a gathering of evangelical pastors in Dallas: "You can’t endorse me, but I’m going to endorse you."

For observant Catholics, a sure sign that they were persona non grata in the Democratic Party came at its 1992 nominating convention. By then, the party had become so dogmatically pro-abortion that then Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey was denied an opportunity to address the convention because of his pro-life position.

Ron Brown, the convention’s organizer, told the popular governor of one of the 10 largest states, "Your views are out of line with those of most Americans." If "most Americans" is here defined as the subscription list of Ms. Magazine, Brown was correct.

In the latest evolution of liberal anti-Catholicism, Senate Democrats have established what amounts to a religious test for public office. Kennedy and his cohorts have announced that, no matter how qualified, a pro-life judicial nominee will be automatically rejected. They might as well hang a sign on the door of every federal courthouse in the land – "Catholics Need Not Apply."

The foregoing caused Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Denver, to suggest that a Catholic who voted for Kerry should go to confession before he received communion.

The left seems to devote considerable energy to devising new and ingenuous way to outrage, horrify, aggravate and otherwise annoy anyone who takes the Bible seriously.

Exhibit A is a 51-page study ("Beyond the Pledge of Allegiance: Hostility to Religious Expression in the Public Square") compiled by the Liberty Legal Institute of Plano, Texas and presented to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights In October.


According to the subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas): "The campaign to purge expressions of faith from the public square is pervasive, national and well organized. The report not only contains page after page and example after example of hostility to religious expression, it also notes how this effort to cleanse the public square of all religious expressions is carefully orchestrated and organized by some of the nation’s leading liberal special interests." All of which are aligned with the Democratic Party.

Here are a few of the outrages documented in the pages of the report.

· In St. Louis, Missouri, a 12-year-old student was reprimanded for praying over his lunch.

· A public-school teacher in Houston punished two sisters for bringing bibles to class, confiscated the bibles and threw them in the trash and threatened to report their parents to the state’s Child Protective Services. At the same school, another student was forbidden to read a bible in his free time and forced to remove a Ten Commandments dustcover from a textbook.

· Public high school students in Lynn, Massachusetts were suspended for distributing candy canes with Bible verses attached.

· At a New Jersey veterans’ cemetery, a member of an honor guard, and a Vietnam vet, was fired for saying "God bless you and this family" to the family of a deceased veteran.

· In Logan County, Kentucky, a public library worker was fired for refusing to remove a cross-pendant necklace. She was later reinstated, by court order.

Among the chief culprits in this religious-cleansing campaign, the report names the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way (PAW) and Americans United for the (so-called) Separation of Church and State.

Now, let’s see: which of the two major parties is more closely identified with the anti-God jihad? Who’s more likely to keynote the ACLU’s annual dinner, Rush Limbaugh or Bill Maher? This is an open-book exam, but the score will count toward your final grade.

The following is a sampling of postings on the PAW website : "Bush’s Judicial Threats," "The Bush Administration vs. The Constitution," "Bush’s Statement on Judges Demonstrates ‘Orwellian’ Doublespeak," "Bush’s Tax and Budget Plans: Radical and Irresponsible," and a fawning review of David Corn’s "The Lies of George Bush." Despite the liberal assessment of their intelligence, Christians can connect the dots between assaults on the president and attacks on them.

Hollywood rarely misses a chance to ridicule Christians or denigrate their faith. The pathetic comedy "Saved," just released on video and DVD – which is set in a Christian academy and makes religious kids look like Nazi nincompoops – is the most recent example of Hollywood’s contempt for Christians and their values.

But when devout Catholic Mel Gibson made a movie celebrating his faith ("The Passion"), both the producer and his work were subjected to withering attacks – including charges of anti-Semitism -- by critics and commentators.

The news media’s disdain for orthodox Christians was illustrated by a throw-away line in a front-page story in The Washington Post a decade ago. Reporter Michael Weisskopf contemptuously characterized conservative Christians as, "poor, uneducated and easy to command." This is an ugly stereotype, akin to saying that poor, ignorant darkies like to tap-dance while eating fried chicken.

Said condescension was manifested again in the 2000 presidential election, when the president named Jesus as his favorite philosopher. You could hear the media guffaws – from the newsroom of The New York Times to the editorial department of The L.A. Times.

Senate Democrats have launched unprecedented filibusters to block Bush’s judicial nominations. Federal judges are overwhelmingly liberal (activist and elitist) and Democrats are determined to keep them that way.

The judiciary has led the frontal assault on faith.

Since 1963, it’s banished prayer from the public schools, rejected a moment of silent meditation (lest someone be encouraged to meditate on God), outlawed non-denominational prayers at graduation ceremonies and student-initiated prayers at football games, prohibited posting The Ten Commandments on school bulletin boards, ordered removal of Ten Commandments monuments, and come close to taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance (required by the 9th. Circuit Appeals Court, reversed by the Supreme Court, on technical grounds).

At the same time, the Supreme Court or lower federal courts have struck down anti-sodomy laws and the most modest restraints on abortion, including parental-notification (again, in some jurisdictions) and attempts to ban partial-birth abortion. In Kerry country, the judiciary mandated homosexual marriage.

The courts are telling Christians: While we will not permit even symbolic affirmations of your faith, we have every right to force our faith on you.

In Academia, Christians are besieged. At least a dozen colleges and universities have withdrawn recognition of Christian clubs, for violating the school’s non-discrimination code, by refusing to admit homosexuals and non-Christians as members – notwithstanding that to do so would violate the basic tenets of their faith.

From start to finish, the war on Christianity is a blue-country operation. It is relentlessly waged by the Democrats’ core constituencies: the entertainment industry, journalists, the public education establishment (every four years, the endorsement of the Democratic nominee by the National Education Association is a pro forma matter), college administrators and the courts.

Christians would have to be masochistic not to revolt against this constant abuse, and totally lacking in discernment not to see it all leading to a nation where faith is marginalized, humanistic values are enshrined in government and the culture, and hate-crimes laws are used to punish dissent.

Evangelical Christians have been in the arena a long time. For once, they ate the lions.

THIS ARTICLE is wonderful! You have precisely told the story of what is going on in the US, and at the end you offered the solution: to eat the lions! The Christians have decided to "eat the lions"! And restore Constitutional government including the First Amendment Rights of worship of God as we see fit. We are rejecting the platform of the Communist Manifesto which is the only "bible' the Socialist-Democrats revere. It has been a difficult transistion to that for me personally who was taught "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything". Finally, I realized it was the "niceness" of the Christians that made the Socialists, Communists, and other totalitarian promoters think of us as easily controllable.We have a rock solid foundation and it is not persuaded to evil. I pray that the Christians rise up en masse, and reassert their authority in the US and everywhere. Take the world back for Jesus. Of course I think that is what happened in the recent US election! gloria poole pappas

[styky]

This article is soooo good. It's going straight to the printer

[kowalski]

Don't overgloat. What's next? Christian Pride Parades?

[styky]

Don't overgloat. What's next? Christian Pride Parades?

We already have a christian parade/walk here in Winnipeg and have had for years. It is filled with throngs of young people.

[LondonLady]

We have one here in London too, GG, the basic difference between ours and the much larger gay pride parade in Toronto is most of us keep our clothes on

[styky]

We have one here in London too, GG, the basic difference between ours and the much larger gay pride parade in Toronto is most of us keep our clothes on

You know I believe we also keep our clothes on. We don't imitate fornication on floats either.

[kowalski]

We have one here in London too, GG, the basic difference between ours and the much larger gay pride parade in Toronto is most of us keep our clothes on

You know I believe we also keep our clothes on. We don't imitate fornication on floats either.

It's the Pride Parade concept that bothers me. LOOK AT ME! I'm in your face and you will learn to respect and OBEY.

[gloriapoole]

We have one here in London too, GG, the basic difference between ours and the much larger gay pride parade in Toronto is most of us keep our clothes on

You know I believe we also keep our clothes on. We don't imitate fornication on floats either.

It's the Pride Parade concept that bothers me. LOOK AT ME! I'm in your face and you will learn to respect and OBEY.

The "gay" pride is a shame and disgrace to every nation.Those people don't have anything to be happy about. Their lifestyles are deadly and that is documented by the Center for Disease Control in the US and by medical records.The truth of Romans ch 1 that they are "worthy of death" should make all born-again Christians pray for them, witness to them of the true good news, i.e. the salvation possible to them via Jesus. The ungodliness of their deeds,that God calls abomination in Leviticus 18:22 * will send their souls to hell. It seems to me that if the governments really wanted to help them instead of legalizing sin, they would be making the tolerance of it,at zero. Then the more people would not sin! I cannot understand what the government thinks when a lifestyle is known to be deadly, [homosexuals in the US account for 60% of syphilis, something people die of if not treated and it is slow agonizing insane deaths; and also HIV is the other huge risk of death.] and they go out of their way to legalize it or make it socially acceptable. It does seem kinder in a way, IF they are intent on killing them off, to do it quickly with a syringe full of lethal drugs which is what a whole lot of people are pushing for, than subject them to a life of misery and wretchedness and then a shameful death. Of course as I write that even it is tongue-in-cheek sort of. I am 100% prolife and do not promote euthansia in any form. But I can't help but wonder now IF that is the intent of the government --that "give them enough rope and they will hang themselves" and we won't have too, theory? Taking the social lids off and allowing rampant and ungodly lifestyles is sure to bring the destruction of God on the nation and the example is Sodom and Gomorrha in the Bible. If the Socialists are really trying to take over Canada big time, then the easiest way to do is to create sick lawless people and then promise them a lot of benefits. It is the oldest trick in the book! Even the serpent did it in the conversation with Eve in the Garden of Eden. "You won't die", he hissed to Eve "if you disobey God" but she died a thouaand times because she set in motion the events that caused her son to die in her place. According to Romans 6:23,"for the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

* Leviticus 18:22, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.'"
__websites that will help you understand sin, at
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~salvation.is.free/
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/salvation_is_free/
Also, the Commandments are on http://gloriapoole.com/
Also, if you are interested in the reports of the CDC some of them are on one of the blog entries on my site, http://www.gloriapoolepappas.blogspot.com/ with the heading about RN teaching against AIDS or something similar. Check the archives if not showing on the list.
gloria

[B_Nichol]

Leviticus, eh. Isn't that special.
Would you care to elaborate on what Leviticus proposes for those who curse their parents or eat shrimp and lobster?

[ccurrie]

Don't overgloat. What's next? Christian Pride Parades?

Somehow I doubt Christians would name a parade after one of the seven deadly sins.

[LondonLady]

Leviticus, eh. Isn't that special.
Would you care to elaborate on what Leviticus proposes for those who curse their parents or eat shrimp and lobster?

Yes, very special in that, although the commands against eating shrimp are happily NOT reiterated in the New Testament the command against homosexuality is.



If you really are interested in the reason that arguments against homosexuality from Leviticus are still valid today, here's something you may find of use.

I got this from Toward Tradition, Rabbi Daniel Lapin's organization, by email, so no link.

These attempts at “argument by ridicule” are completely baseless for at least four fundamental reasons:



Translation: The words in the original biblical Hebrew, although loosely translated by some as “abomination,” are completely different and linguistically unrelated: toeivah for homosexual behavior (Leviticus 18:22) and sheketz for shrimp/shellfish and kosher food (Leviticus 11:10). Since these words are completely different in derivation, there is no linguistic basis for direct comparison, much less religious equivalence.


Abomination to whom? With shrimp (Leviticus 11:10), the full phrase is “they shall be a detestable thing to you.” The description of homosexual behavior as an “abomination” excludes any reference “to you.” For shrimp, this might be interpreted as “detestable to the Jewish people,” but for homosexual activity, there is an implied “abomination to God,” not “to you” - a major difference.


Another interpretation of the lack of “to you” for homosexual activity points to the universality of this prohibition, compared to the laws of kosher food, which are applicable only to “you,” the Jewish people. Judaism considers homosexual behavior a universal prohibition for all mankind as one of The Seven Noahide Laws.



No, God does not “hate” shrimp, but He does instruct the Jewish people that they should not eat it as one part of their particular spiritual regimen to be a “holy people” and a “light unto the nations.”



Punishments: The “punishments” for homosexual activity include death and kares (spiritual excision), but death and kares are not punishments for violation of kosher dietary laws. Punishments assigned to negative commandments within the Torah were not necessarily intended for human enactment, but serve as a deterrent and a guide to the relative importance of the commandments. Obviously, homosexual behavior is a much more serious sin than eating shrimp. Sexual immorality, including homosexual behavior, is also one of Judaism’s three cardinal sins.


Public Sanction: After listing the various prohibited sexual unions, including homosexual acts between two men, God immediately adds an unusual warning not to follow in the immoral ways of some of their neighbors: Keep my charge “so that none of the abominable statutes that were practiced before you will be done…” (Leviticus 18:30).


Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains this verse as follows: “Sexual excesses among the Canaanite population had not only ceased to be considered as abominations but had, in fact, become sanctioned by custom or religious cult. They had become ‘statutes,’ or ‘institutions.’ As stated in Isaiah 24:5: They have changed the law into the opposite; i.e., they have elevated immorality to become law.” If Rabbi Hirsch had not written this 130 years ago, one could easily assume he was writing in 2004 to warn us not to elevate immorality into law through the public sanction via “statute” of same-sex marriage.



There is no warning against “statutes” and public sanction for shrimp or other non-kosher food.



The comparison of shrimp and homosexuality is not even as valid as comparing apples and oranges. It is completely false and irrelevant. But that hasn’t stopped intellectually dishonest secular fundamentalists from spreading disinformation in an effort to ridicule religion and demonize religious people. Shame on them!



Samuel Silver is Chairman of Toward Tradition (www.towardtradition.org), a national movement of Jewish and Christian cooperation, fighting anti-religious bigotry and secular fundamentalism. He is author of “Some of My Best Friends are Gay - A Guide to Same-Sex Marriage From the Manufacturer’s Instruction Manual,” available online at http://www.towardtradition.org/article_ ... ends_1.htm and may be contacted at ss@towardtradition.org

[B_Nichol]

TNX, LL.
Interesting article. You mention that the shellfish passage did not make it into the New Testament. Was it deliberately expurgated?

[JadeScorpion]

TNX, LL.
Interesting article. You mention that the shellfish passage did not make it into the New Testament. Was it deliberately expurgated?

Nothing was expurgated that was not meant to be.

"Every Scripture passage is inspired by God. All of them are useful for teaching, pointing out errors, correcting people and training them for a life that has God's approval."
2 Timothy 3:16.

It was God's decision to expurgate it and NOT man.

[B_Nichol]

Nothing was expurgated that was not meant to be.

Yes, that's called selective editing, otherwise known as fitting the message to match the audience.