Where's Richard Dawkins when you need him?

Discipulus Legis took me on an impromptu date tonight to see For the Bible Tells Me So, a new documentary about fundamentalist Christians and the gays. It was good, but it was missing depth and the sense of angst that the interviewees were supposedly feeling about homosexuality and religion. There were abundant tears, but no sense of why people were crying (In contrast, Trembling Before G-d makes you understand why the film subjects were so upset.) The only truly effective and moving parts of the movie involve the story of Mary Lou Wallner and her daughter. She alone makes it worth seeing.

Of course, given my feelings about religion, I had strong feelings about the movie for other reasons. The opening credits of the movie show the usual "GOD HATES FAGS" imagery but it's intercut with commentary from learned religious academics. In response to these "simplistic" readings of the Bible, one academic says something like "you can have a 5th grade understanding of the Bible... when you're in 5th grade." A clever comment, but the Bible itself advocates a 5th grade understanding of life as a whole. You get a gold star for doing good, you get a time out for doing bad (albeit it a long and hot time out), when times get tough there's a fairy tale to make you feel better. My problem with what the Bible says about homosexuality has nothing to do with Leviticus 18:22; the problem starts at Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Um, what? The Bible contradicts or ignores what science has proven to be true (or has pretty good evidence to prove what is true). Who cares what it says about being gay? If it can't get the origin of the universe at least on the right track, it has bigger problems.

And yes, it was interesting to learn that in the original text of the Bible "abomination" meant "not customary," but would most people who believe in the Bible and seriously look to it for guidance understand this semantic hairsplitting? No! Dumb people read the Bible! Gays should embrace the fact that they've been excluded from religion. Embrace atheism and forge a new path not obstructed by all of this nonsense.