Michele Bachman Again Proves She's An Idiot

Michele Bachmann has previously demonstrated that she's a idiot when it comes to history and geography. Now she's demonstrated that she's an idiot when it comes to knowing the Bible and its various sub-plots. As Mother Jones is reporting, Bachmann is now holding herself out as the modern day equivalent of Jonathan - son of King Saul and likely lover of King David. As usual, the laugh is on Bachmann for her own stupidity. Nothing is more dangerous than someone who refuses to recognize their own intellectual limitations. Bachmann seems hell bent to prove to the world that she's an utter cretin - not that such reality will deter many of her equally mentally challenged followers. Here are some highlights from Mother Jones:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has a habit of breaking out Old Testament references when she speaks to religious audiences. . . . . now, with her presidential campaign on the ropes, the Minnesota congresswoman seems to have picked a new Biblical alter ego; we're not sure she really thought this one through. Via MinnPost, this is what she told the conservative activists at RightOnline . . . .:

"I want to call to mind in remembrance a hero of mine. And he's from ancient Israel. And from history we know, in the recorded annals of time, that this was someone considered more inconsequential, but to me he had an inspiring, powerful story. His name was Jonathan. . . . .

Then, as the story goes, Jonathan and a comrade scaled the cliff and defeated the entire Philistine army by themselves. If the story ended there, that would be a fantastic metaphor for what Bachmann would like to accomplish as a candidate. The story of Jonathan does not end there, however.

But there's another twist: Jonathan's mostly famous because of his very close personal relationship with David, with some scholars going so far as to suggest that they might have been lovers. Jonathan and David have been cited by gay rights activists as proof that gay rights are biblically enshrined, as well as by Oscar Wilde—at his trial for homosexuality. The Book of Samuel describes the relationship thusly: "The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." Their friendship led to a falling out between Saul and his son, after Jonathan pleads with the king to stop trying to kill David.

Dartmouth religion professor Susan Ackerman wrote a book about it. Here's how she synthesizes the "Jonathan and David were gay" (or at least bisexual) argument, seizing on the pair's falling out with Jonathan's father: [A]s Schroer and Staubli particularly argue, the language Saul uses in his diatribe is extremely sexually charged, so much so that we may be meant to interpret it also in sexual terms; that is, to understand this charged language is used in Saul's insults because Saul perceives his son's misdeeds to be sexual as well as political. According, then, to Schroer and Staubli, Jonathan has not only engaged in "the political scandal of a royal son betraying father and kingdom for the sake of a stranger, but also the effrontery of homosexual love."

One can only wonder what Bachmann's husband and "ex-gay" quack, "Marcia" Bachmann thinks of his wife's homosexual hero. :)

A Dishonest Definition of Marriage

Rick Warren and other gay-hating professional Christians constantly run their mouths about marriage being defined as a union of one man and one woman throughout the last 5,000 years of human history. This, of course is a lie, but the main stream media NEVER calls these windbags on the issue (or any of the other often told lies that is the Christianists' stock in trade). As a fellow commenter on Pam's House Blend points out, the one man -one woman form of marriage is of relatively recent origin and in fact is not the norm in large parts of the world even today. Here is a summary of some of the real structure of marriage from the Bible and from history:

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It seems that there are so many people in the gay community who are aware of the dishonesty of this claim of universal, historical, monogamous, different gender marriage in all places and times. We all know it's simply not true. Why doesn't the wider community know this? It's time we attacked that lie head on. We need to come up with a short list of examples to expose this lie. Something that can be a soundbite, and carry the message wherever we hear the lie. I would suggest the following inclusions:

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Jesus was single.

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Mary and Joseph didn't have the traditional marriage either, since Mary was a virgin mother and Joseph wasn't Jesus father.

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Abraham had many wives.

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Joseph Smith had dozens of wives.

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David had six hundred wives and three hundred concubines.

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St. Paul said it's better to be celibate than married.

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Cultures that accepted gay marriages included the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Japanese, Native American, etc.

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As usual, the Christianists have lied. The truth is the opposite of their claim. In almost all places and times, until very recently, gay marriages were accepted. It wasn't until Christianity took hold of governments and cultures, that their own particular brand of homophobia became the norm.

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A recent case out of Saudia Arabia where multiple wives is often the norm - and where women are treated as chattel - underscores the truth of these statements and that "marriage" is often not as the Christianists define it. As CNN reports, a Saudi judge recently refused to annul a marriage between an 8-year-old girl and a 47-year-old man. Here are more highlights on this sick situation about which the Christianists say nothing:

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According to the lawyer, the girl's father arranged the marriage in order to settle his debts with the man, who is "a close friend" of his. The judge did ask for a pledge from the husband, who was in court, not to consummate the marriage until the girl reaches puberty, according to al-Jutaili.

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The judge ruled that when the girl reaches puberty, she will have the right to request a divorce by filing a petition with the court, the lawyer said. Christoph Wilcke, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said his organization has heard many other cases of child marriages. "We've been hearing about these types of cases once every four or five months because the Saudi public is now able to express this kind of anger, especially so when girls are traded off to older men," Wilcke said.

Song of Songs: The Bible's Gay Love Poem

Michael J. Bayly, the author of The Wild Reed (http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/), has an interesting post for Wednesday, April 02, 2008, that ought to have the fundie wingnuts foaming at the mouth. The post looks at the fact that the highly charged love poem that we now call the Song of Songs was originally addressed by Asher, one of Solomon’s sons, to Caleh, a shepherd-soldier. OMG, a man expressing his romantic love to another man!

Obviously, the fundies would have their eyes glaze over at the reality that (a) same sex love is extolled and (b) their "inerrant" Bible in fact does NOT support homophobia as they calim and that the current versions favored by the fundies are NOT consistent with earlier versions that had not been altered to please the sensibilities of later writers/translators. Thus, for fundamentalists, the Bible becomes inerrant except when it needs to be re-written to fit their agenda. For gays, this book provides evidence that our love for our same sex lovers and partners is not something condemned by the Bible. The book is apparently out of print but copies exist and would obviously make interesting reading. Here are some highlights from Michael Bayly's post:

I’d like to share the following review by Jim Kepner of Dr. Paul R. Johnson’s (regrettably out-of-print) book, The Song of Songs, A Gay Love Poem (Fidelity Press, 1995).According to Johnson, the highly charged love poem that we now call the Song of Songs was originally addressed by Asher, one of Solomon’s sons, to Caleh, a shepherd-soldier.

The Song of Songs, a Gay Love Poem, gives an amazing new turn to the highly erotic Old Testament love poem in the Bible, inaccurately called “The Song of Solomon,” which has been a mystery and often a scandal to Jews and Christians alike. Homophobic religious writers have, among other things, wiggled about trying to explain a supposed woman with male parts and male roles.

Dr. Paul R. Johnson, an evangelical minister who has written extensively about fundamentalists and gays, and who has long been involved in the Southern California gay movement, has labored for twenty years with the original Hebrew, finally producing a translation aided by fragmentary pre-Masoretic texts which clear up the mystery. His 144 page book discusses how the text, originally written about 920 B.C.E., evolved from a frankly homophilic love poem sung in homes and taverns at a time when the Hebrews were not yet publicly homophobic (such poems were found in many ancient Near Eastern cultures), to the editing millenia later by Masorete scribes, who produced the presently confused text.

A more accurate version appeared in several earlier scraps of the song found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumram cave #4. The cover-up began in the first line, when the name Asher, one of Solomon’s many sons, apparently black, was read as a preposition instead of a proper name. In the second verse, the Revised Standard Version of the Bible notes that the pronouns for the beloved, given as neuter in the text, are really masculine. Most Hebrew scholars admit parenthetically, that the speaker-lover in 85% of the poem is clearly male, as is the beloved. Yet all modern versions except that by Rev. Dr. Johnson make it appear as a heterosexual love drama. Direct quotes show otherwise: 4:10,11:

How delightful you are Caleh,

My lover-man, my other half.
Your pleasing masculine love is better than wine.
The smell of your body is better than perfume.
Your moustache is waxed with honeycomb.Honey and milk are under your tongue.
The scent of your clothing is like the smell of Lebanon.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,
for your love-making is sweeter than wine.
In his delightful shade I sit,
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
My love is mine and I am his.

[The thesis of the book] gets to the heart of the question of whether the Hebrews and early Christians were fundamentally homophobic, or whether, as John Boswell has maintained, homophobia was a later addition. Johnson has consulted with many Hebrew scholars, who reluctantly concede the validity of his revolutionary word-for-word translation.

As this writer, as well as Dr. Johnson and others have noted, there are many wife-purchase stories in the Bible, but the only true love stories are same-gender.The Song of Songs now stands as the most explicit homoerotic love poem in the Bible, with clear naming of this thing going into that thing. Johnson’s small book is a must for all Jewish or Christian gays, though many might be too timid to abandon conventional hetero mistranslations. This book is also very useful for gays who wish to answer religious homophobes.