All right, so this has done the rounds of the Internet, and recently appeared in a UK national newspaper, but it’s worth pounding the point home when Wee Georgie Shrub talks about what marriage “is”.
For Infidel’s readers who are not “netted” up, let the Bible itself show us the skewed logic of trying to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. When people do this, you will note, they usually base their “wisdom” on biblical tradition.
E-mails differ in the order in which they place these Constitutional/biblical diktats, but this is roughly how it usually goes, rewriting the Constitution as though for the USA:
Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women (Gen. 29: 17-28; II Sam. 3: 2-5).
Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines, in addition to his wife or wives (II Sam. 5: 13; I Kings 11: 3; II Chron. 11: 21).
A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If she is not a virgin, she shall be executed (Deut. 22: 13-21).
Marriage of a believer and a nonbeliever shall be forbidden (Gen. 24: 3; Num. 25: 109; Ezra 9: 12; Neh. 10: 30).
Since marriage is for life, neither this constitution nor the constitution of any State shall be construed to permit divorce (Deut. 22: 19; Mark 10: 9).
If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall either be slain or pay a fine of one shoe (Gen. 38: 6-10; Deut. 25: 5-10).
Granny Infidel was a great wielder of knitting needles and could click away for hours on end, producing sock after sock for her unbelieving grand-offspring, often with pictures of Donald Duck or Dennis the Menace woven in. Knit one, purl one, knit another one ... She’d work assiduously, chewing tobacco, cursing, spitting, never dropping a stitch.
Mind you, if she’d put the name of Jesus in there, she might have landed herself in trouble. If she’d been in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, that is. Which she wasn’t. Isn’t. But let’s just say, for sake of argument ...
In its infinite wisdom, you see, the Northwest Frontier Province government has banned woolly footwear with the (whisper it in reverent tones) Lord’s Name embroidered on them, even though they proclaim very pro-Jesusy things such as “Jesus is Lord”. Apparently, that is blasphemy. You are allowed to say Jesus is Lord only if you don’t then bring the Divine Moniker into close proximity with your sweaty plates of meat (a first prize of a prayer mat to non-Brits who work out what that means).
Christians were becoming very upset about it. Diddums!
An official said, “These socks will be immediately forfeited and action taken against the manufacturers.” That’s sockin’ it to ‘em.
(Puns on the lines of “putting one’s foot in it” have been excised from this story on the grounds that they offend lovers of humour. – Ed.)
Considering where they are to be found, the following words are an atheist’s dream come true: “The characters and events depicted in this photoplay are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” That, anyway, is the claim on the web page you can access at http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=79f0cbf4d7c9ee580107ad3c6b7270fa&threadid=78153.
Now that you have a severe dose of RSI after typing that lot into your browser, why should this interest devout atheists and agnostics? Well, it’s a posting to the Internet Infidels discussion forum and refers to the closing credits at the end of Mal Gibbon’s gory and sadistic depiction of the last hours of Jesus of Nazareth, The Passion of the Christ, which has got Christians queuing around the block to get their arses on a seat. There’s even a screen-grab photo posted there, though quite how the poster managed to get it remains open to speculation.
Does, then, the devout Mal – arch-homophobe, weird Catholic (yes, all right, tautology: seriously weird Catholic, then, if you prefer) anti-abortionist, proud sire of about 27 kids – doubt the historicity of his fave guy?