enlightenment

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Mar 09, 2006

Kevin Miller at HMS brings this gem to our attention:

"I feel like I could have a more knowledgeable discussion about the book of Leviticus and Sodom and Gomorrah now," said Nicolet Berkman, a freshman in the College of Business Administration.

Uh oh. Without reading further, if you have an ear for academic jargon, you can guess someone's been tampering with Nicolet's unacknowledged homophobia. And you'd be right. To free naive students from confusions surrounding the moral tradition, Marquette University's Gay/Straight Alliance focuses a contemporary Jesuit perspective on thorny problems of pentateuchal exegesis. How? Through the expertise of the university's adjunct assistant professor of performing arts:

In his presentation, [Rev. Grant Garinger, S.J.] refuted three Old Testament excerpts that are commonly used to condemn homosexuality.

Garinger cited Leviticus 18:22, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination," and Leviticus 20:13, "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives," as misunderstood when taken out of context.

Garinger said these passages were really part of a larger advisory against idolatrous orgies at pagan temples.

Obviously, "performing arts" is to be understood in the biblical sense.