I went over to WaPo to read the Episcopal Bishop’s response to the Scaife-funded Christianist loons (sorry for the triple redundancy, there) who are splitting the Episcopal church over teh gay (and female bishops (and female priests (and, for you cognoscenti, the 1928 Prayerbook))), and read a lot of Christianist yammering about how homosexuality was against the Bible, the ultimate authority (definitely not true for Episcopalians, but that’s another post).
A representative comment:

Church is not a welcoming mat for everyone to trample on its core beliefs. God gave us the bible no person should change the beliefs. Everyone is welcome in church but no one is welcome to change it core beliefs.

But only way downthread came, you know, chapter and verse. Turns out Leviticus 20:13 is the key verse for these bigots. So I thought I’d cite a whole boatload of Leviticus, so you can see for yourself what a selective, twisted interpretation these guys are operating on—and what the consequences of really believing that the Bible is the inerrant word of The God of Your Choice, If Any, must be.

Here goes. Hold your nose, because ritual purity in Palestine, c. 2000 BCE, is strong stuff:

Leviticus 20:8 Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the LORD, who makes you holy.
Leviticus 20:9 If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.
Leviticus 20:10 If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
Leviticus 20:11 If a man sleeps with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Leviticus 20:12 If a man sleeps with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.
Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Leviticus 20:14 If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.
Leviticus 20:15 If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal.
Leviticus 20:16 If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Leviticus 20:17 If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They must be cut off before the eyes of their people. He has dishonored his sister and will be held responsible.
Leviticus 20:18 If a man lies with a woman during her monthly period and has sexual relations with her, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has also uncovered it. Both of them must be cut off from their people.
Leviticus 20:19 Do not have sexual relations with the sister of either your mother or your father, for that would dishonor a close relative; both of you would be held responsible.
Leviticus 20:20 If a man sleeps with his aunt, he has dishonored his uncle. They will be held responsible; they will die childless.
Leviticus 20:21 If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless.
Leviticus 20:22 Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out.
Leviticus 20:23 You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.
Leviticus 20:24 But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations.
Leviticus 20:25 You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground—those which I have set apart as unclean for you.
Leviticus 20:26 You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
Leviticus 20:27 A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.

So, this is the world the Christianists have in store for us, if we take them at their word, as they vociferously and constantly, won’t they ever stop yammering, insist that we do.

1. If you cursed one of your parents, you must be put the death (Leviticus 20:9)

2. Denny “The Hutt” Hastert and Bob Livingstone must be put to death; they both committed adultery (Leviticus 20:10)

3. Ken Mehlman and Mark Foley must be put to death, along with half the staffers on Capitol Hill; they’ve had homosexual sex (Leviticus 20:13)

3. Forced pregnacy loon Neal Hors[!!]ley must be put to death (Leviticus 20:15).

4. If you had sex with a woman when she has surfing the crimson tide, you are both “cut off from your community” (what, no more Purpose Driven Life seminars? (Leviticus 20:18)

And so on, and so on, and so on.

What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If the Christianists really believe what they claim to believe, and really believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then they shouldn’t be pussies about it: God isn’t calling for trivialities like church schisms—God is calling for adulterers, gays, and other offenders against ritual purity to be killed.

So, Christianist “Episocoplians,” which is it?

Admit you’re reading the Bible selectively out of hatred of teh gay?

Or kill Newt Gingrich, Robert Livingston, Denny Hastert, Ken Mehlman, Mark Foley, and Neal Horsely, because the Bible is the word of The God Of Your Choice, If Any?

Take all the time you need; I understand you’re in the midst of outsourcing your Bishops to Nigeria, so it must be a busy time We’ll wait.