What’s Your Abomination? A Michigan man is seeking $70 million from two Christian publishers for emotional pain and suffering resulting from what he claims were mistranslations of certain biblical passages designed to exaggerate their anti-gay message. Bradley Fowler claims that for twenty years he’s been reading translations from Zondervan Publishing and Thomas Nelson Publishing that declare “homosexuality” to be a sin. In fact, the “h” word never appears in the Bible, and the passages that talk about “men lying with men” or the like are notoriously ambiguous. Fowler points to a Zondervan translation from Corinthians that calls for “anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder.” The King James Version translates makakoi as “effeminate men,” and the passage only states that these folks, among countless others, “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” A U.S. district judge has agreed to rule on the case. Fowler’s odds may be long, but consider the implications if he wins. If anyone who’s ever been insulted by something the Bible said—or by what a malicious translator inserted—can sue the publisher, the possibilities for litigation would seem endless, to wit: “All these years I thought I was an abomination for wearing clothes woven from two kinds of thread!”
Gay and Dix Will Compete “Search and replace” can be a dangerous tool, as many editors learned a few years ago when they decided to auto-replace all uses of “black” with “African American,” producing gaffs like “The company will soon be in the African American.” Okay, so they were just trying to do the right thing. Then there’s the American Family Association, which is apparently waging war on the word “gay” in favor of the more snarky-sounding “homosexual.” The result was an article about Olympic track star Tyson Gay that showed up on their website as follows: “Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has. … Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he’s certainly someone to watch in Beijing. ‘It means a lot to me,’ the 25-year-old Homosexual said. … After the race, Homosexual and [Walter] Dix looked at each other and slapped palms, then hugged.” Okay, “Gay and Dix” hugging was bound to get a chuckle either way.
Stimulate This History may judge that the Law of Unexpected Consequences has not been kind to George W. Bush, whose accomplishments include, among so many others, greatly strengthening Iran by invading Iraq and letting in Al Qaeda for the first time. Chalk up another example, albeit on a sillier scale: it turns out the biggest beneficiary of the President’s “economic stimulus” plan may well be the porn industry. That $600 rebate check that most Americans received last spring was intended to be spent—and so it was, much of it on pornography of the on-line kind. A survey conducted by the Adult Internet Market Research Co. found that porn sites experienced a twenty to thirty percent surge in membership right after the rebate. One site reported that 32 percent of its new members named the rebate as a reason they joined. Not what Bush—or Congress—had in mind; but think about it: if you’re an average American male, 600 bucks isn’t gonna make a dent in your mortgage, but it’s too much cash to walk around with and blow on stupid stuff like lottery tickets. Chances are it was deposited electronically and just showed up on your bank statement, so no one will ever miss it. So you decide to spend it on-line, which can only mean one thing….
Fun with Constitutional Amendments Republicans have a sense of humor, after all! They’re still talking about amending the U.S. Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage, but this year it has less chance of passage than privatized Social Security. So they decided to have a little fun with the annual ritual: the two co-sponsors of S.J. RES 43 are none other than Sen. Larry Craig and Sen. David Vitter. Larry “wide stance” Craig of Idaho needs no introduction; Vitter is the Republican from Louisiana who was identified as a client in the prostitution ring run by the “D.C. Madam.” Did we mention that the informal name of the resolution is the Marriage Protection Act? How Craig and Vitter came to be listed as the co-sponsors, humor aside, is anybody’s guess. Could it be that these guys are still hoping to get back into the good graces of the “family values” crowd? Or is the resolution itself so tainted at this point that no other Republican senator wants to be associated with it?
Troy’s Homecoming King The pattern is so familiar at this point—virulently homophobic politician or preacher gets caught with his pants down (literally) with another man; downfall ensues—that it has to be a pretty good story to make this column. The level of bigotry or the brazenness of the deed must be truly impressive. Of course, it also helps if the guy occupies a high office, such as that of, say, Attorney General of Alabama. That would be Troy King, Esq., whose many anti-gay rants include the following choice bits: “The existence of the Gay-Lesbian Alliance on this campus is an affront to the state of Alabama”; and “AIDS is the most behavior-oriented disease known to mankind. If this nation’s current purveyors of perversion would refrain from committing sodomy, they would unquestioningly be spared the ravages of the disease.” What’s more, Troy King wasn’t arrested in a men’s room seeking or even engaging in you-know-what; that’s been done before. No, Troy was caught red-handed by his wife Paige, in bed and in flagrante, with a male aide. The details are fascinating: the aide was a former “homecoming king” from Troy’s undergraduate days at Troy (coincidence?) University, so apparently these guys have been acquainted for some time. The aide’s name was not reported, but fans of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are all hoping that it’s “Skipper.”
Update on the News It was reported last time that the Greek island of Lesbos was suing a GLBT group in Athens for its use of the word “lesbian” to mean—well, lesbian. They were the true Lesbians, the three plaintiffs claimed, along with other residents of the island. In a July 18 decision, a Greek court threw out the lawsuit, declaring that “lesbian” could have more than one definition. Along with gay women, also breathing a sigh of relief after the ruling were olympians, spartans, stoics, and trojans.
