I love this article – but I do have to point out a misspelling in section J – I believe it should be “Planting” not “Planing”… not a big deal but was thinking once aware you could go in an edit. Thanks!

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Dear blathering moron.

I’m sure you meant for your letter to be an inspiring diatribe hosting your brilliantly comedic intellect and showing all those who believe that homosexuality is an abomination are merely mean-spirited, pretentious snobs. One would have to point out, however, that it highlights your own ignorance and limited synaptic adhesion.

1. This entire chapter is the groundwork for the legal system of the Nation of Israel. If you bothered to examine the context of this chapter, you would understand that Leviticus 25:44 does not institute slavery, nor does it command Jews to own slaves from any land that happens to neighbor theirs.

If you were to say, then, that the Leviticus 18:22 passage should then be ignored outside the land of Israel, then I would ask you to kindly read Genesis 19:5-7 – “And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, ‘Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.’ And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, and said, ‘I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.’

It was clear, even before the time of Moses, that homosexuality was considered, according to the word of God, a sin.

2. This passage does not condone the selling of one’s daughter into slavery. A “maidservant” is not a slave. In fact, if you had bothered to read the context (again), you would clearly see the following passage: “If she please not her master, who hath BETROTHED her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.” (Exodus 21:8). This passage, with the assistance of the word in BOLD print, illustrates further that a “maidservant” is not, in fact, a slave, but rather a wife-to-be. Even if this were not the case, a maidservant is a SERVANT, not a SLAVE.

3. Once again, you fail to read the context. It is not simply the touching that is a matter of concern, but that of ’sexual contact’. Reading beyond, even further, you discover the whole chapter is about maintaining a distance from bodily fluids. As we all know, excretions from the body may contain numerous hazardous contagions. This was not common knowledge numerous centuries ago, hence this chapter.

4. If you are burning the entire bull, then you are doing it wrong, according to the scripture you quoted. Also, if you are doing it without Jewish priests, or without the appropriately ordained tabernacle (which does not exist in your yard), then you are doing it wrong. Your neighbors have a right to complain and you should not kill them.

5. Your neighbor works on the Sabbath. Is he a Jew? Is he an Israelite? Does he live in Israel? Then, no, you should not kill him. If the answer to the aforementioned questions is, “yes”, then consult a proper Jewish priest on exactly who should do the killing and when God might think it would be appropriate to do so. After all, the Jews didn’t kill Jesus or his disciples when they gathered grapes on the Sabbath.

6. Lesser degrees of abomination? Are you serious? Try reading a dictionary sometime.

7. Lev. 21:20 refers to the seeds of Aaron. If you actually utilized the self-professed skill of reading, then you should have used it on verse 17.

8. Unless your friends are rounding the corners of their heads, or marring the corners of their beards, God doesn’t have a problem. And where does it read they should die? That doesn’t appear in any of the 22 translations of the scriptures that I have access to.

9. Lev. 11:6-8 does not say anything about the skin of a dead pig, but of the carcass. Even so, footballs are not made out of pigs at all. If you knew much of anything about the game, you would know they use plastic, rubber and leather or cowhide. Just before you think about it too much, cowhide and leather are tanned and processed skins; a far cry from being a carcass.

10. First of all, the term is, “mingled seed”. This, from an agricultural standpoint, is bad because some plants will kill others when planted adjacent to one another. It’s also extremely difficult to reap a crop of mingled seed. Secondly, the garment issue is limited to a mixture of linen and wool. Neither cotton, nor polyester, qualify. As for the blaspheming, unless he is cursing God directly (not just saying stuff YOU don’t like) AND he is in Israel, then it doesn’t count. As far as getting the whole town to stone him, that is not correct either. It takes the whole congregation, which includes several towns, small villages and sometimes several cities, depending on the location of the offender. As far as, “burning people with fire”, it can only be ASSUMED that the passage meant, “to death”, because it doesn’t say that. Either way, Jewish traditions and laws command that members outside the family must be involved if anyone is to be put to death, for any reason. So a, “private family affair”, wouldn’t do in either case.

At any rate, your pitiful and miserly arguments that Jewish law is sadistic are failed, and really have nothing to do with whether or not homosexuality is wrong. But, thank you for trying.

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