myshkin2, if you were in Canada now the Canadian Human Rights Commission would have you up for saying what you are saying about Michelle ...get the point?!

Posted by: greg | June 8, 2008 10:04 AM

For those of you who aren't familiar with Leviticus, the admonition against homosexual behavior is between the verses on bestiality and incest. The same chapter instructs people not to sacrifice their children to deities (post-birth abortion?), and some restrictions to polygamy. The penalty for all is the same. If Leviticus is out, well, I guess it is all out.

Posted by: Looney | June 8, 2008 11:21 AM

I read the linked article but I couldn't find any link to what the pastor said. Were his comments along the lines of the Westboro Baptist Church or just a run of the mill conservative Christian viewpoint?

In any event I find this troubling because I'm firmly in the freedom of speech camp. It is to be protected even if you disagree or dislike the speaker.

Posted by: MH | June 8, 2008 12:07 PM

How about reporting the whole story?

Boisson wrote a fiery letter to a newspaper in Red Deer, Alberta equating homosexuality with pedophilia. Among his statements were:

Boissoin wrote that "war has been declared" against the gay rights movement.

Boissoin went on to attack gay activists for "spreading their psychological disease," saying they were "just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

"Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds," he wrote.

"From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

"Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that kissing men is appropriate."

Does this fall within free speech? The proof is in the results. Two weeks later a group of "Christian" readers of the letter bashed in the face of a 17-year-old gay teenager with brass knuckles, since the Province of Alberta had failed to do this for them.

If Leviticus calls for bashing children in the face for daring speak of their orientation, I'm for burning the Bible. But Leviticus doesn't. Boisson wasn't writing about the Bible, he was writing about his personal brand of hate. And thank the Province of Alberta for ordering him to keep his hate to himself, even if it took six years of careful deliberation to do it.

Posted by: Ron | June 8, 2008 2:53 PM

When we finally come to our senses and recognize capital punishment as being outside human authority, is the concern that any presentation of Christ's crucifixion consequently moves off the table (no pun intended)?

As citizens of a democracy, we already can't relate to kings and kingdoms.

Will the atonement be next on the chopping block?

Posted by: Moonshadow | June 8, 2008 3:18 PM

Animal brothels legal in Denmark
By Olafur Kr. Olafsson on May 20, 2008 (http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2008/05/20/animal-brothels-legal-in-denmark/)

Darwin help anyone if the preach against paying for sex with an animal huh?

There is a Gay Agenda and its being relentlessly perpetrated on Christians. The Slippery Slope is a provable fact.

Posted by: Donny | June 8, 2008 5:08 PM

Heavens no, FzxGkJssFrk, heavens no.

I would never suggest that all Canadians are such knuckle-dragging suggestible buffoons that whenever they hear someone say something is immoral they have an irresistible urge to go beat the crap out of someone. I would say that all Reformed Christians are such such knuckle-dragging suggestible buffoons that whenever they hear someone say something is immoral they have an irresistible urge to go beat the crap out of someone. But being sissies, they just post their venom online.

Posted by: RoN | June 8, 2008 11:40 PM

Wow. All these Christians posting here and only the apparent liberal seems to think it was a terrible thing the gay kid got his face bashed in.

Suppose the tables were turned, and some preacher in Boston started teaching that Bible-believing born-again Christians were a blight on the earth and should be killed--and then some Bible-believing born-again Christian was. Does free speech still apply, or should people only be free to agree with Bible-believing Christians?

Posted by: Robert | June 9, 2008 12:02 AM

Because everyone knows that all Buddhist temples teach martial arts. That's totally not a racial/religious stereotype at all.

Whatever happened to the Biblical idea of "Judge not, lest ye be judged"? Does that just get thrown out the window when gays are involved?

Posted by: LJG | June 9, 2008 1:53 AM

"So, I take it Leviticus is out then?"

Only if you mistranslate it as most do. The hebrew word Tow`ebah has 4 meanings only 1 implies wrong doing. The 2 typical translations of Tow`ebah are detestible and abomination which in english do not imply wrong doing.

When translating the bible you must have a good reason for why a word uses the 4th definition in one book and the 2nd in all the others. Lev 18:22 uses the 4th definition which implies abomination ethicallity while Kings and Chronicles use the 1st and 2nd which imply ritual abomination.

So I would expect that a learned person in hebrew can explain why they are different. I can't see a difference in context.

I think its far more likely that Lev 18:22 should be a ritual abomination because thats in harmony with the rest of the old testiment.

For those that want to flame and use 2000 years of tradition. Please get it right. Its not 2000 years. There is little evidience that this view point existed in the church as official doctrine before the Council of Lyons in 1274. So you have ~730 years of tradition.

To the flamers: Please tell me why the context of Leviticus is different than Kings and Chronicles. Why the 4th definition should be used and not the other 3.

Posted by: neo | June 9, 2008 8:57 AM

There is little evidience that this view point existed in the church as official doctrine before the Council of Lyons in 1274.

That certainly doesn't mean that people didn't believe it before the 14th ecumenical council. Official doctrines, believe it or not, don't generally come out of the blue.

Please tell me why the context of Leviticus is different than Kings and Chronicles.

The difference is in the agenda of the human author: there's a Temple (or there was one). I'd say ritual was layered on top of ethical without replacing it.

The penalty for eating a pork burrito isn't the same.

A pork burrito? Bleck!

Posted by: Moonshadow | June 9, 2008 10:19 AM

I'm confused. Is this the Reformed Christian forum or the Orthodox Jewish forum?

But it certainly seems that certain characteristics of Reformed Christianity are constant across cultures and across generations. During the Hitlerzeit, Reformed Christians in Hungary eagerly turned in Jews. Reformed Christians in Switzerland made sure their borders were sealed against refugees who did not carry 10,000 francs. And Reformed Christians in Holland organized to make sure the demented, the diabetic, and the homosexual were properly processed and removed from their new, Nazi society.

That's why in all these countries you can hear the epithet, "Kalvinist," meaning, to give it a fair translation, "a*." So let's suppose the pastor in Alberta had found a different supporter who happened to hate Calvinists rather than gays.

Suppose he wrote a letter posted for all of Red Deer to see citing the Calvinist = a* history and continued,

"But many of you would argue that the body of Christ surely has an anus, and Reformed Christians are that orifice. But if you could stand to look at them more closely, you would see that they are not the anus, they are the excrement. Leviticus tells us that defecation does not make us unclean, but Deuteronomy tells us that excrement must be carried outside the camp. Removing Reformed Christians from Earth by any and every means is no more sinful than flushing excrement down the sewer. And if you can bash a few gay teenagers along the way, all the better."

So, Reformed Chick Blabbing, this would be his rightful free speech, especially if it were a lot more colorful, then? But I do understand why you're promoting free speech. Only last week I heard a pious member of a Calvinist church say in reference to a Presidential candidate, "The only good N----- is a dead N-----," so one would think that Reformed Christians might seek the protection of the First Amendement to protect them from the consequences of their hateful, hurtful, and evil attitudes. Isn't that what you yourself are really about, Reformed Chick Blabbing? Don't you encourage just as much negativity, doubt, hate, judgment, and disbelief as you feel you can get away with, too?

Update from Michele: No swearing on this blog or I'll edit it and I could care less that you will find this ironic given the topic. This blog is owned by me and I set the rules. Free speech except for profanity.

Posted by: Rob | June 9, 2008 10:42 AM

rofl. I don't think anyone here is going to be able to answer my question without using tradition -- plurely on scripture.

Moonshadow,

Because of the destruction and hiding of documents that occured before the Council of Lyons its hard to find out anything of what the church believed that wasn't official.

Also the action portion of Lev 18:22 and Lev 20:13 could imply a location of a temple. Its not as strong -- plus I was more looking at the punishment not the action.

So then I ask again why use the least common definition of a word? w/o evidience that it is correct.

Posted by: neo | June 9, 2008 11:03 AM

looney,

"that was what I was trying to point you to, but you don't seem to get the clear, common sense meaning"

My point is it wasn't clear if you read the hebrew. I'm not saying the bible supports SSM. I'm saying that the OT passages are not clear and probably refer to ritual.

I'm also wondering why we are allowed to treat a whole group badly, even with the traditional interpretation.

Posted by: neo | June 9, 2008 11:18 AM

the destruction and hiding of documents

This argument from silence is insufficient to cast doubt upon any council's formalization of the sensus fidelium.

Posted by: Moonshadow | June 9, 2008 11:44 AM

Looney,

I got it from my own interpretation. I'm learning hebrew now. It is not from an LGBT source. So far the best answer I'm getting is we don't know why its interpereted that way.

Posted by: neo | June 9, 2008 12:08 PM

Moonshadow,

"This argument from silence is insufficient to cast doubt upon any council's formalization of the sensus fidelium."

We will have to agree to disagree. I doubt my seminary would be talking about the sensus fidelium since if we really thought it was acheived we would be roman catholic.

Posted by: neo | June 9, 2008 12:18 PM

Looney,

I'm really disappointed. I think if the traditional interpretation were 100% correct it would hold up to my scrutiny.

Posted by: neo | June 9, 2008 12:34 PM

Moonshadow, maybe your name should be Daylight. That was a helpful comment, one of the few in this discussion. Thank you!

Having been literally bashed for being gay myself, I've reached the point I can forgive those who hurt me, but I still get worked up about those who hurt others. It's where I am. I suppose ignoring the hateful is indeed possible, thankfully, but showing them the love of God, without preachy sanctimony, is even better. God give grace.

Posted by: Rob | June 9, 2008 1:00 PM

"I suspect that somewhere among those mitzphahs is one forbidding a woman from teaching, commenting (perhaps even studying) Leviticus."

I've seen nothing in the OT that prohibits a woman from sharing the word of the Lord with anyone. What about Deborah? She obviously quoted from the law when she judged the Israel according to it? There is nothing in the text that the author found anything wrong with her role (according to my OT professor, Dr. Tremper Longman III -- I'm following in his tradition of name dropping :-)

Posted by: Michele McGinty | June 9, 2008 1:24 PM

"oes this fall within free speech? The proof is in the results. Two weeks later a group of "Christian" readers of the letter bashed in the face of a 17-year-old gay teenager with brass knuckles, since the Province of Alberta had failed to do this for them."

And yet the commission said that no one was "damaged" by Boissoin.

BTW, I didn't notice that Boissoin advocated hitting homosexuals, did you? Everyone who understands the Bible knows that we are to love the sinner but hate the sin. Too many times Christians hate the sin and sinner, it's hard for them to separate the two. We are so quick to judge but a proper understanding of Reformed theology helps tremendously because we realize that we are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God and even our righteous acts are filthy rags.

Posted by: Michele McGinty | June 9, 2008 1:33 PM

"There is part of the story I inadvertently omitted. Pastor Boisson received his funding from a US-funded organization devoted to changing Canadian law. Prior to becoming a pastor, Boisson had a jail-house conversion to Christ, when he was serving time for fraud and multiple convictions for assault.

But if you say Boisson is your idea of a persecuted ambassador for Christ, I'll certainly take you at your word. "

Evidently, you don't really understand what Christianity it about, do you? It really doesn't matter what the person is before they came to Christ, that's why it's called being born again. All those sins are forgiven and we are a new creation in Christ.

And obviously you really don't understand what free speech is. Let me help you. Here is the perfect test for how free a society is, can someone say something that others do not like? If they can, then that nation is truly free and the citizens have the freedom to say what they want, that is truly free speech.

Posted by: Michele McGinty | June 9, 2008 1:40 PM

Update: I found an article on the Red Deer Advocate that deals with the assault of the gay teenager. Here's the link:

albertalocalnews.com/reddeeradvocate/news/local/threat_of_vic

This article reviews the case, but makes no mention of brass knuckles. The attackers were never found or identified, so its impossible to say that they were Christian or not. It also says that Boissoin's letter claimed that gays were as bad as pedophiles, drug dealers, and pimps, and that some thought that the letter lead to the attack. So, linkage to the letter causing the attack is missing.

Isn't the paper as culpable for violating their human rights policy as Boissoin?

Posted by: reddopto | June 9, 2008 1:45 PM

"Although Egale said it opposes Pastor Stephen Boissoin’s opinions, even they favour that the complaint filed by University of Calgary assistant professor Darren Lund be dropped out of respect for the right to free speech. “Egale supports Professor Lund in working to make schools safe for all children but respectfully opposes his human rights complaint,” said Gilles Marchildon, Executive Director of Egale, based in Ottawa."

Interesting that people Pastor Boisson compares to drug dealers and pedophiles would actually come to his defense on this issue, Michele. I think the folks at Egale, like most liberals, understand what so many conservatives do not: civil rights are for ALL people, not just those they agree with."

See, Ron? This gay group understands more about free speech than you do. They may not like it but they realize they don't have to like it, just fight to protect it so they're rights are protected as well.

Posted by: Michele McGinty | June 9, 2008 1:53 PM

On second thought, I do think, RJohnson, that there are plenty of conservatives who also understand about free speech. And there are liberals who have gone too far in their desire to prosecute hate speech.

The thing to do with hate speech is to oppose it.

Posted by: Alicia | June 9, 2008 2:08 PM

neo, I'm confused. The word for sex, yišKab is used here. It means to lie down or to lay something down and it is one of the words used for sex throughout the OT:

ESV Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

ESV Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

And it is used for sex throughout Leviticus:
ESV Leviticus 19:20 "If a man lies sexually with a woman who is a slave, assigned to another man and not yet ransomed or given her freedom, a distinction shall be made. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free;

ESV Leviticus 20:11 If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

ESV Leviticus 20:12 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them.

The word Tô`ëbâ (translated abomination)means "something abominable, detestable"

It is used for things that are detestable throughout the OT:

ESV Proverbs 21:27 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination; how much more when he brings it with evil intent.

ESV Proverbs 28:9 If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.

ESV Isaiah 1:13 Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

ESV Isaiah 41:24 Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.

ESV Ezekiel 18:12 oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination,

ESV Ezekiel 22:11 One commits abomination with his neighbor's wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you violates his sister, his father's daughter.

ESV Ezekiel 33:26 You rely on the sword, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor's wife; shall you then possess the land?

As well as Leviticus:
ESV Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

ESV Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Clearly these things the Lord finds an abomination. I'm not sure what problem you are having here, there really isn't any translation issues (btw, these words aren't just the same lemma but the form as well).

God finds a man lying with a man an abomination. All the translations I consulted use abomination including the LXE which uses a word in Greek that means abomination, detestable.

Posted by: Michele McGinty | June 9, 2008 2:49 PM

Rob, you barely read my post. You certainly didn't get it, so I'm going to repeat it more slowly. First, nowhere in Boisson's rant did he explicitly call for physical violence. Anyway, Boisson has also made clear that he does not support violence against gays on his web site. And further, if you were to print that disgusting, nonsensical rant about Reformed Christians, I might persistently contest your characterization in a variety of media, but I wouldn't be dragging you to court. If someone read your post and then beat me up, I would be pressing charges against the violent offender. Not you. If someone beats me up, I don't much care why they beat me up. I just want them to make restitution.

Your gratuitous snipe about "sissy" Reformed Christians is self-refuting. The proof that Reformed Christians are violent is that we're not being actually violent! Brilliant. People who cannot distinguish between vehement disagreement and the perpetration of physical violence are the reason we have free speech laws, at least in the U.S.

I'm not sure I even understood Steve's comment, so I won't bother replying.

I agree with Christopher Taylor.

Posted by: FzxGkJssFrk | June 9, 2008 6:42 PM

I can forgive those who hurt me, but I still get worked up about those who hurt others. It's where I am.

I wouldn't expect those protective tendencies to ever diminish, as most of us seem to have learned them.

Posted by: Moonshadow | June 9, 2008 8:00 PM

Michele,

If you are a Christian and you want to prove that the Bible condemns homosexuality, shouldn't you be quoting from the NEW Testament rather than the OLD? After all, Leviticus also contains prohibitions against eating pork and shellfish, wearing mixed fabrics, and working on the Sabbath.

If you really want to avoid committing an "abomination" as defined by Leviticus, you'd better take off that lobster bib...

Would you be backing this pastor up if he had written an article on the sinfulness of eating pork chops?

Posted by: Phoenix Orion | June 10, 2008 2:27 AM

"Seriously, I am trying to drive you beyond being satisfied with what theology you think you know. I'm not going to stop simply because it hurts ... either of us."

Maybe you might want to take your own advice.

Posted by: Michele McGinty | June 10, 2008 9:30 AM

"Homosexuality, however, is usually between two consenting adults of the same gender. While it may well still be "immoral", to place it on the same level as bestiality is absolutely ludicrous. I certainly know many gays and lesbians who love their pets and who would be furious if ANYBODY tried to have sex with their animals....
And how do you know that the Levitical prohibition was talking about two men having sex in a consensual, loving, committed relationship? How do you know it wasn't talking about the standard practice in Biblical times for men to rape other men they had defeated in battle as a means of humiliating them?"

OK, how about the prohibition against sleeping with your father's wife? That's two consulting adults and yet that's prohibited.

And note the way the verse is phrased:

ESV Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

"as with a woman" implies normal relations not something violent. As I noted above this is the standard word used for intercourse This is the same word used for rape -- they don't seem to make a distinction but they do add a word that can be translated as humiliated or humbled. So, if what you said is true, I would suspect that they would have added that word.

Posted by: Michele McGinty | June 10, 2008 10:01 AM