Moby Dick: The Great Green Whale and Biblical Definitions of Marriage

If I were to claim that Moby Dick is God, many people might disagree and say I am wrong, but nobody could definitively prove otherwise.

But if I were to claim that the great white whale in Herman Melville’s classic book is depicted as being green and others disagree, they could easily prove me wrong by picking up the book and pointing out the passages in which Melville clearly describes the great white whale as being white.

If I were an influential, well-known person, the press might likely report it something like this:

“Although Dave Stalling continues to insist that the great white whale Moby Dick is depicted as being green, several thorough readings of the book find no evidence to back his claims. To the contrary, there are numerous passages in which writer Herman Melville describes the great white whale as being white as well as great.  According to Yale Literary Professor Elijah Ishmael, widely considered the world’s expert scholar and authority of Melville’s work, the great white whale is indeed depicted as white. “As ludicrous as it may be, Mr. Stalling is well within his rights to believe Moby Dick is God,” Ishmael says. “But to persist with his false notions that Melville depicted the great white sperm whale in his story as being green is absolutely absurd and easily refuted. Stalling should actually read the book he ignorantly professes to understand before perpetuating lies and ridiculous misinterpretations.”

I’m sure I would be justifiable scoffed at, but at least such lies and misinterpretations would not harm others, or inspire hundreds of thousands of Americans to flock to a fast food restaurant to support the denial of equal rights to a large segment of American citizens (See Hate Appreciation Day: A Sad Day in America).

Yet every day, I read reports of people such as Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachman, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Robert Jeffress, Dan Cathy, Bryan Fisher, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and dozens of other influential, well-known people claiming that God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman, that the bible defines marriage as between one man and one woman, and that they support and defend the biblical definition of marriage. Hundreds of thousands of American share these beliefs – beliefs that often ignite bigotry, hate, violence along with efforts to rescind and deny equal rights to many Americans. 

When others disagree, the media reports it simply as a difference in opinion, a “cultural war,” a matter of a religious faith vs. other beliefs where neither side can be definitively proven right or wrong.

But what about the facts?

Although many Americans continue to insist that the bible depicts marriage as being between one man and one woman, several thorough readings of the book find no evidence to back these claims. To the contrary, there are numerous passages that define marriage in ways that include polygamy, incest, rape, slavery and even calls for the stoning to death of women who fail to prove their virginity before marriage.  As ludicrous as it may be, people are well within their rights to believe God opposes same sex marriage. But to persist with false notions that the bible depicts marriage as being between one man and one woman is absolutely absurd and easily refuted. People making such claims should actually read the book they ignorantly profess to understand before perpetuating lies and ridiculous misinterpretations.

Here are the undeniable, irrefutable, easily demonstrated facts of what the bible says about marriage:

Marriage consists of one man and one or more than one woman (Gen 4:19, 4:23, 26:34, 28:9, 29:26-30, 30:26, 31:17, 32:22, 36:2, 36:10, 37:2, Ex. 21:10, Judges 8:30, 1 Sam 1:2, 25:43, 27:3, 30:5, 30:18, 2 Sam 2:2, 3:2-5, 1 Chron 3:1-3, 4:5, 8:8, 14:3, 2 Chron 11:21, 13:21, 24:3); Nothing prevents a man from taking on concubines or sexual slaves in addition to the wife or wives he may already have (Gen 25:6, Judges 8:31, 2 Sam 5:13, 1 Kings 11:3, 1 Chron 3:9, 2 Chron 11:21, Dan 5:2-3); A man might choose any woman he wants for his wife (Gen 6:2, Deut 21:11), provided only that she is not already another man’s wife (Lev 18:14-16, Deut. 22:30) or a relative (Lev 18:11, 20:17, Lev 20:14, Lev 18:18). The concept of a woman giving her consent to being married is not in the Bible. If a woman cannot be proven to be a virgin at the time of marriage, she shall be stoned to death (Deut 22:13-21); A rapist must marry his victim (Ex. 22:16, Deut. 22:28-29), unless she was already a fiancé, in which case he should be put to death if he raped her in the country, but both of them killed if he raped her in town (Deut. 22:23-27); If a man dies childless, his brother must marry the widow (Gen 38:6-10, Deut 25:5-10, Mark 12:19, Luke 20:28); Women must marry the man of their father’s choosing (Gen. 24:4, Josh.15:16-17, Judges 1:12-13, 12:9, 21:1, 1 Sam 17:25, 18:19, 1 Kings 2:21, 1 Chron 2:35, Jer 29:6, Dan 11:17); Women are the property of their fathers until married and the property of their husbands thereafter (Ex. 20:17, 22:17, Deut. 22:24, Mat 22:25); The value of a woman might be approximately seven years’ work (Gen 29:14-30); Inter-faith marriages are prohibited (Gen 24:3, 28:1, 28:6, Num 25:1-9, Ezra 9:12, Neh 10:30, 2 Cor 6:14); Divorce is forbidden (Deut 22:19, Matt 5:32, 19:9, Mark 10:9-12, Luke 16:18, Rom 7:2, 1 Cor 7:10-11, 7:39); It is better to not get married at all—although marriage is not a sin (Matt 19:10, I Cor 7:1, 7:27-28, 7:32-34, 7:38).

People who claim the biblical definition of marriage is between one man and one woman can easily and clearly be proven wrong – and yet such dangerous lies (which fuel ignorance, hate, bigotry and violence against others) are commonly and continually passed on as faith, as a simple difference in opinion.

Why do they get away with it? Where’s the accountability?

Note: A version of this essay was published in the Advocate on September 17, 2012 

Hate Appreciation Day: A Sad Day in America

I don’t know what’s more disturbing: That so many hundreds of thousands of Americans hate people like me, that so many hundreds of thousands of so-called Christian Americans have no clue what the bible really says, or that so many hundreds of thousands of Americans who profess to love American values oppose fundamental American principles such as liberty, equality and freedom for all. Of course, they’re all tied together.   

On Wednesday, August 1st, 2012, hundreds of thousands of Americans flocked to the 1,600-plus Chick-Fil-A franchises all over the nation to show support for the restaurant chain president’s recent anti-gay statements and misinterpretation of scripture. Lunch lines were as long as a 30-minute wait, drive-throughs  were backed up to the point of causing traffic jams, and at several places police were called to maintain order.  Sarah Palin boasted about having lunch at Chick-Fil-A, as did Rick Santorum, tweeting “OK leftists, go crazy.”

The huge crowds were responding to a call to action from former Arkansas governor and former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who is now a talk show host for The Mike Huckabee Show on the Fox News Channel. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, strongly opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects gays, lesbians and transgender people from job discrimination; speaks adamantly against gay marriage and civil unions; does not think gays should be allowed to serve in the military; endorses a federal, Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between “one man and one woman;” is against hate-crime laws; says people with AIDS should be quarantined; calls homosexuality “an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle” that can “pose a dangerous public health risk;” has compared being gay to “drug addiction,” “incest,” “pedophilia,” “sadomasochism” and “necrophilia,” and refers to gay adoption as a “bad experiment” that should be outlawed.

And yet hundreds of thousands of Americans responded to Huckabee’s call for a “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day,” calling the company and its president “a great American story that is being smeared by vicious hate speech and intolerant bigotry from the left.”

A few weeks ago, in public interviews, when asked about his stance on gay marriage, Chick-Fil-A President Dan Cathy said the following: “We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit . . . I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage' . . . I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about." The company has also donated more than $3 million to anti-gay hate groups, including the Marriage & Family Foundation and the Family Research Council.

In response, Muppets creator Jim Henson Company canceled contracts it had with Chick-Fil-A, vowed to never work with Chick-Fil-A again, and donated all the money it had made from its partnership with Chick-Fil-A to gay rights groups. The Mayors of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco also criticized Cathy’s comments and vowed to block Chick-fil-A from opening new restaurants in their cities. Many Americans and gay rights groups called for a boycott of Chick-Fil-A.

Yes, that’s the “hate speech” and “intolerant bigotry from the left” that Huckabee was referring to.

So why would so many hundreds and thousands of Americans heed Huckabee’s call to action and flock to Chick-Fil-A’s defense?  In interviews, many said they were defending the “biblical definition of marriage” and “American values.” Do these people realize that the biblical definition of marriage includes polygamy, rape, incest and slavery? Do these people realize that the fundamental tenants of our Constitution  – the very foundation of or nation – is the notion of liberty, equality and freedom for all Americans?

Some have said they support “gays and gay rights” but were defending Cathy’s "right to free speech."  This is like someone saying they support Jewish liberation but then defending the Nazi party. If Cathy and Huckabee called black people “niggers,” promoted archaic biblical definitions of slavery, and said blacks are not entitled to the same rights as other Americans, would these same Americans answer a call to action, rally to Chick-Fil-A’s defense, and claim they support blacks and civil rights but choose to defend Cathy’s right to free speech?

These people aren’t defending and supporting free speech – they are defending and supporting ignorance, bigotry, hate and violence.

Certainly Cathy, Huckabee and others have a right to say whatever they want – but words do have consequences.

According to the U.S. government, hate crimes rose 13% in 2010, and there is an annual average of 191,000 hate crimes each year with 18% of those committed against gays and lesbians. And since we gays and lesbians make up a small percentage of our population, crimes against us are six times higher than the overall rate. Young people are affected, perhaps more so. Nine out of 10 gay and lesbian teens report being bullied because of their sexual orientation. Gay teens are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than other teens, five times more likely to miss school out of fear, and 28% do, indeed, drop out. Last year an 18-year old Texas man was slain by a classmate for being gay, and a 24-year old Florida lesbian was killed by her girlfriend’s father. Much of this, no doubt, derives from misinterpretations of ancient ambiguous biblical scripture and the ignorant, bigoted, hateful words and actions of people like Dan Cathy, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum and many others.

Dan Cathy, President of Chick-Fil-A

And on August 1st, their words and actions inspired 600,000 Americans to eat chicken in support of ignorance, bigotry, hate and violence.

If these people want to use their rights of free speech to promote and encourage ignorance, bigotry, hate and violence, then they shouldn’t be upset or surprised when others exercise their rights to protest, boycott and ban them from their cities. It’s pretty clear who is actually being smeared by "vicious hate speech and intolerant bigotry" – and it’s not from the “left,” as Huckabee suggests.

Those hundreds of thousands of Americans will likely continue believing their misinterpretations of archaic biblical passages and their false notions of “American values” while they go about their daily lives, freely marrying whomever they want, and not worrying about getting fired, harassed, bullied, beat up or murdered for who and what they are.

It was a sad day in America.

God May Hate My Underwear, But Does He Really Hate Me?

I greatly admire and respect good, influential, powerful writing. So it recently hit me that if a collection of stories dating back as much as 3,500 years can remain popular and still evoke an interesting, potent, and diverse array of heated debate, hate, violence, war, judgment, love, empathy and kindness, then it must be a pretty great read.  I decided to finally check out the Bible, and to be honest, I find it rather dry and tedious — similar to, but definitely not up to par with, say, Tolstoy’s War and Peace.



Still, a lot of readers are devoted to the Bible. They use it to justify bullying, hatred, bigotry, oppression and even the killing of certain segments of society, including gay people like me. North Carolina’s recent constitutional banishment of gay marriage, followed by President Obama’s public support for it, released a ferocious eruption of Bible verses and righteous rants (apparently speaking on behalf of God) reminding us what the Bible says about our current events. “Watching the moral decline of our country causes me great concern," wrote the Rev. Billy Graham in his endorsement of North Carolina’s ballot initiative. "The Bible is clear — God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman.”

I’ve read that pastors in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and other swing states are readying Sunday sermons inveighing against same-sex unions, while religious activists have begun laying Bible-based plans for social media campaigns, leafleting drives and other get-out-the-vote efforts. Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association tweeted this to the world: “Romney for natural marriage, Obama for unnatural marriage.” (“Natural” and “unnatural,” I assume, being his interpretation of terms from the Bible, and not Mother Nature herself.) And all over the blogosphere, I‘ve seen “Leviticus” and “Romans” passed around like Thanksgiving turkey with hefty toppings of “Amen” and “Hallelujah.”

I decided to find out for myself what the Bible says and if the righteous claims of people like Rev. Fred Waldron Phelps Sr. and his faithful Westboro flock are true: Does God really hate me?

I started, of course, with an old gay-hating favorite, Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” And Leviticus 20:13: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” 


It doesn’t seem pertinent to me. There was a time when I tried to be straight and “liethed” with a few womankind. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an “abomination,” but it certainly wasn’t very fun or satisfying for anyone involved. One thing’s for certain, as I eventually and pleasantly discovered — the way I lieth with mankind is nothing whatsoever at all (thank God) like the way I lieth with womankind. There’s no comparison. So I figured I was safe; no death or blood upon me.

But then I read Leviticus 19:19: “You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.” And Levitcus 11:12: “Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you.”

 This concerned me.

A few weeks ago I bought myself several pair of new briefs, of assorted and fabulous colors. I looked at the labels: 89% nylon and 11% spandex. Apparently, God hates my underwear. God also hates most farmers, ranchers, and people who eat scallops and shrimp — and still  no persuasive evidence, thus far, that God hates me for who I fall in love with and sleep with.



But then I saw an article on a homophobic Christian website steering me toward Romans 1:24-27: "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."

 Others also use Romans 9:13 to explain God's hatred for gays: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated," which ties into Malachi 1:3, where God explains that he turned Esau's "mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals" because Esau "sold his birthright for a mess of pottage."

This, according to some people (like Rev. Fred Phelps), serves as proof that God is capable of hatred. Hence, if God can hate, surely he must hate gay people.

 It all seems open to various interpretations (some more rational and logical than others), and lots of smart, knowledgeable, so-called “Bible experts” have debated and disputed the various meanings for a long, long time. 

I see it this way: Some guy named Paul wrote a few ambiguous words more than 1,950 years ago (about 50 years after Christ supposedly lived) and people use those words to justify hatred for, and non acceptance of, an entire segment of people who are just trying to be themselves and love whom they love.

The power of words? Last year an 18-year old Texas man was slain by a classmate for being gay, and a 24-year old Florida lesbian was killed by her girlfriend’s father. According to the U.S. government, hate crimes rose 13% in 2010, and there are an annual average of 191,000 hate crimes each year with 18% of those committed against gays and lesbians. And since we gays and lesbians make up a small percentage of our population, crimes against us are six times higher than the overall rate.

Young people are affected, perhaps more so. Nine out of 10 gay and lesbian teens report being bullied because of their sexual orientation. Gay teens are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than other teens, five times more likely to miss school out of fear, and 28% do, indeed, drop out.

Much of this, no doubt, derives from misinterpretations of ancient ambiguous words of Leviticus and Romans passed on by the likes of Rev. Phelps, Rev. Graham, Bryan Fischer and many others.

Those are the Bible’s only passages I have found thus far that can even vaguely be considered “antigay.” Yet I have run across hundreds of tiresome redundancies about love, peace, compassion, kindness, gentleness and not judging others.  Luke, John, James, Matthew, Peter and even Paul himself seem to repeat, over and over, things like: “Judge not least ye be judged,” “Love one another,”  “Love they neighbor as thou would love yourself and God,”  “Let him without sin be the first to cast a stone,” “Wish what others would do to you, do so to them,”  “Live in harmony with one another,” “Do not speak evil against one another,” “Put away malice and hypocrisy,” and so on.



So why all the obsessive focus on gays?

 Here’s the funny thing: There’s no evidence in the book that Paul ever met Jesus, at least not while Jesus was still among the living. There is an exciting scene where Paul is walking along the Damascus Road and sees “a bright light” and hears a “voice.” Other men with him also hear a “loud sound” but don’t see anything. Though Paul never claims to have seen Jesus at the time, many readers have interpreted it that way. Paul does claim to have met the resurrected Lord in another scene, later in the story. It’s not so clear what they talked about, or if they talked at all, but one thing’s for certain:  Jesus never once says anything at all about homosexuality, at least nothing that is mentioned in the book. You would think if it was so damn important he would have mentioned it, at least once, instead of going on and on about love, compassion, nonjudgement and acceptance.



Since so many people enjoy adding their own twist to the story, here’s mine:  I’d like to think that when Paul reached the Pearly Gates, God looked at him and said, “Paul, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, so please don’t take this the wrong way. But that whole 'Romans 1:24-27' thing; What the hell were you thinking? Did you listen to anything my son said?”

I do like what Paul wrote in Romans 9:20: “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’”

I used to hate what the molder molded of me — if there is indeed a molder. But not anymore. Now I prefer to believe what I read in Song of Solomon 8:7: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.”

 Certainly ignorance and crazy interpretations of a book won’t quench nor drown love, even if that love is the love of a man for a man, or the love of a woman for a woman.

Sorry for all the redundancies in the use of the word love, it’s something I picked up while reading the Bible. 

This essay was originally published on Advocate.com on June 12, 2012:  http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2012/06/12/david-stalling-wonders-if-god-hates-his-underwear