On MSNBC's The Ed Show last night (Wednesday, May 16), two African-American pundits - MSNBC analyst and Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson and Sophia Nelson of The Griot.com and author of Black Women Redefined, debated the issue of same-sex marriage and views about it within the African-American community.
Dyson, who supports same-sex marriage, took the position that there is homophobia in the black community which is driving the opposition to marriage equality. Nelson, who opposes same-sex marriage, insisted that at least on her part, that's simply not true.
The issue for me - and I'd like to address this if I could to my fellow Americans who are gay, lesbian and transgender - I want to say to them specifically that those of us who oppose same-sex marriage do so as a matter of faith, those of us who oppose it on faith reasons, that is, and it's not because we think you're different, or you're less than, or you're not right, or you're other or something that's insidious like that. I know that offends me personally. I think it offends people of conscience. And someone like myself ... if you look at my record on this ... I support hate crimes legislation for people that would abuse or hurt gays and lesbians, I support civil unions, I support adoption, I support them being able to visit their loved ones in the hospital - so there are people like me of faith who don't agree with same-sex marriage for the faith reason, the biblical reason, the definition of a man and a woman being married, but I also support a lot about the agenda. [Emphasis added.]
Sorry, Ms. Nelson, I'm not buying it. And neither, by the way, is Michael Dyson, who has been an ordained Baptist minister for 33 years. Why I think Sophia doth protest too much below the fold.
Sophia Nelson's protestations - that she really likes members of the LGBT community, and really, really supports their agenda, and she really, really, really wants them to have all those nifty civil rights, except, of course, they really shouldn't be able to get married, and don't get her wrong, she's not a bigot for believing that, she's just a person of faith - those protestations ring hollow to me. Nothing personal, you see, she's just got this Bible thing that compels her - no matter how much she supports the rest of the LGBT agenda and no matter how swell and not different from her she believes you are - to advocate denying you this one teensy little civil right.
Dyson immediately pounced and pointed out the problem with her argument:
My point is that we can't interpret the Bible literally - the real culprit here is the biblical interpretation that is literal. So that when Sophia refers to marriage as between a man and a woman; we know marriage was a complicated affair, it's evolved over ... the last several centuries in a complicated fashion; it's not just one man and one woman, it's been polygamy, it's been homosexual marriage that had to be banned at a certain point - so my point is, we don't take the Bible literally. The Bible says in Leviticus that if someone is gay, they oughtta be killed. I don't think Sophia Nelson is promoting the biblical interpretation that says that gay and lesbian people should be killed, and if she is, then she hasn't put that forth, and if she doesn't, then she doesn't take the Bible literally.
Nelson responded that she
does take the Bible literally, but added:
...I'm not a theologian, and I'm not a pastor, so I'm not gonna to argue that with you.
And at that point, she had already lost the argument. She said Obama had been on her side until last week (she said "a couple of weeks ago," but of course, it happened last week). She brought up the Koran and the Torah, saying they also defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. She spouted Bible verses which she said showed the Bible consistently supports her concept of marriage. But her efforts were futile.
For as Dyson had said, she had failed the test of consistency in her attempt to take the Bible literally. It's something that happens to all those who hide behind their faith, and their selective "literal" interpretation of the Bible, in an effort to mask and to justify their own personal bigotry and prejudices.
The Bible and faith have been used throughout the centuries to justify the persecution of "the other." It has been used to justify the slaughter of Muslims in the Crusades and Jews in the Inquisition. It has been used to justify slavery, it was used into the 1960s to justify Jim Crow, it was used into the 1970s to prohibit interracial marriage.
In every case, those who used the Bible and their faith to justify the persecution of others, or the denial of their basic civil rights, ultimately found themselves on the wrong side of history.
Hey, Sophia Nelson protests, I'm no bigot. I'm down with y'all, really. But I've got this Bible and it compels me to deny you your rights. Nothing personal, man. Except the Bible, as Michael Dyson says, cannot be taken literally because it is not consistent. Sophia Nelson can find and quote verses citing marriage as being between a man and a woman all day. But it doesn't negate the fact that there are biblical characters who have multiple wives. There are passages in the Bible which approvingly describe marriage as a simple contract in which the woman is nothing more than chattel.
There is simply no way one can literally believe and practice everything in the Bible, because there is no consistency in the Bible.
Sophia Nelson may not see it within herself - she protests that she really likes the LGBT community and supports (most of) there cause. She can deny that she is prejudiced and bigoted. But by opposing marriage equality "as a matter of faith," she is proving herself, deep down, to be a bigot. For faith is one of the masks bigots always hide behind to justify their bigotry.
In the end, there may be only one passage in the Bible that really matters - one passage that sums up all the morality to be found throughout that book - and Sophia Nelson would be wise to take it to heart: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Note: I tried to embed the video of this segment using the method for embedding MSNBC video described by SuperbowlXX - put simply, his method for retrieving the filename of an MSNBC video didn't work on my browser (Safari 5.1.5 running on an iMac using OS 10.6.8). Nor could I link to the clip, for the same reason - no filename for the clip could be found. If anyone more experienced in video embedding than I am can embed the segment in the comments, have at it, and I will thank you!