Biblical Scholar Shoots Down "Bible Based" Anti-Gay Bigotry

This blogs spends a lot of time focusing on the anti-gay hatred that Christianists and professional Christians direct at LGBT citizens - hatred that constantly spills over into the political realm and which to date keeps LGBT Americans in a second or third class citizenship status. The foes of LGBT equality under the CIVIL laws constantly pick and choose which Bible passages they want to follow (generally ignoring the larger Gospel message in the process) and do all kinds of contortions to ignore historical evidence that undercuts the Bible's alleged inerrant nature - not to mention Bible passages that condemn their Pharisee like behavior towards gays. A piece at CNN by a Biblical scholar, Jennifer Wright Knust , in effect points out that the Bible as a whole does NOT support the anti-gay condemnation of the Christianists Needless to say, the Christo-fascists at AFA, FRC, FOTF, NOM and similar merchants of hatred will not be pleased with Wright Kunst's analysis (which I suspect is supported by much more true scholarship that that of two bit Bible beating pastors). Here are some highlights:
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We often hears that Christians have no choice but to regard homosexuality as a sin - that Scripture simply demands it. As a Bible scholar and pastor myself, I say that Scripture does no such thing. . . . Truth is, Scripture can be interpreted in any number of ways. And biblical writers held a much more complicated view of human sexuality than contemporary debates have acknowledged.
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Despite common misperceptions, biblical writers could also imagine same-sex intimacy as a source of blessing. For example, the seemingly intimate relationship between the Old Testament's David and Jonathan, in which Jonathan loved David more than he loved women, may have been intended to justify David’s rise as king.
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Jonathan, not David, was a king’s son. David was only a shepherd. Yet by becoming David’s “woman,” Jonathan voluntarily gave up his place for his beloved friend. Thus, Jonathan “took great delight in David,” foiling King Saul’s attempts to arrange for David’s death (1 Samuel 19:1). Choosing David over his father, Jonathan makes a formal covenant with his friend, asking David to remain faithful to him and his descendants.
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Confident claims about the forms of sex rejected by God are also called into question by early Christian interpretations of the story of Sodom. From the perspective of the New Testament, it was the near rape of angels - not sex between men - that led to the demise of the city.
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Only a little more than a century ago, many of the very same passages now being invoked to argue that the scriptures label homosexuality a sin or that God cannot countenance gay marriage were used to justify not “biblical marriage” but slavery.
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Yes, the apostle Paul selected same-sex pairings as one among many possible examples of human sin, but he also assumed that slavery was acceptable and then did nothing to protect slaves from sexual use by their masters, a common practice at the time. Letters attributed to him go so far as to command slaves to obey their masters and women to obey their husbands as if they were obeying Christ.
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These passages served as fundamental proof texts to those who were arguing that slavery was God’s will and accusing abolitionists of failing to obey biblical mandates.
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It is therefore disturbing to hear some Christian leaders today claim that they have no choice but to regard homosexuality as a sin. They do have a choice and should be held accountable for the ones they are making.