The Gospel According to Marc:  

"I have friends who are homosexual, but I’m also a Christian. God did not intend men to marry men or women to marry women."

That’s Tabitha Fregia, on why she voted for the Missouri constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. I ask you, with friends like Tabitha, who needs enemies? It makes me want to burn a pink triangle on her lawn.

Poor Tabitha. She knows not what she does and probably never will. Telling most Christians that 67% of the world doesn’t believe in their God is like trying to explain TiVo to the Amish.

Fundamentalists use the Bible to prove the Bible, which is like saying Garfield exists because he appears in the newspaper. So I’ve given up trying to get them to understand the other four billion people who inhabit the earth. Instead, I’ve decided to beat them at their own game.

That’s right, I’ve become a Bible thumper; but, of course being gay, I thump with a techno beat. I figure if fundamentalists are willing to believe the world was actually created in six days, you can convince them of just about anything. So here’s some of the ammunition I’m using in my own holy war.

The first item to be dealt with is (literally) in the beginning—the old it’s-Adam-and-Eve-not-Adam-and-Steve argument. But the book of Genesis is hardly a model for family values. Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, right? Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, "Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch" (Genesis 4:17). Okay, last time I checked there was only one person on earth at the time capable of giving birth to Cain’s baby: his mother. The God of the Old Testament may hate gays, but apparently he LOVES incest.

The Big G has some pretty screwy ideas. For instance, when Abraham has sex on the side with his wife’s maid and knocks her up, God just says, "You shall keep my covenant" (Genesis 17:9), the Biblical equivalent of "Way to go, dude."

And they say gays are promiscuous.

Meanwhile, back in Sodom and Gomorrah, the lesson to be learned from God’s wrath is that if the Almighty wants to punish sodomites, he can do it on his own without any help from his followers. And so far, no one at a circuit party has ever turned into a pillar of salt.

Next stop is everyone’s favorite, Leviticus, in which God says he hates homosexuals, shellfish and anyone wearing clothes made from two fibers. So, perhaps those in cotton/poly blends should think twice before casting the first stone.

(As for that Levit bit about not lying with a man as you would a woman, I suggest we get around it by having sex standing up. Being Catholic, I’m always looking for loopholes.)

Fundies argue that the prohibition on homosexuality in Leviticus counts more than the other Judaic laws because it’s corroborated in the New Testament; not by Jesus, mind you, who has nothing to say on the subject, but by Paul, who has nothing nice to say about anything.

For instance, here’s a little gem from his First Letter to Timothy: "I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent" (I Timothy 2:11-12). I guess that’s why we sing "hymns" and not "hers."

And here’s another enlightened opinion from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling," (Ephesians 6:5). Unless the Ephesians were leather queens, we can assume Paul advocated slavery, a point that was used to justify 1,900 more years of oppression.

Still, conservative Christians continue to use the Bible to condemn homosexuality, insisting you can’t take a cafeteria approach to God’s word. But if they ignore God’s word on women and slaves, isn’t it time they did the same for queers?

Let’s face it, the Bible is full of contradictions. That’s why they call it the "good book" and not the "great one."

Besides, Jesus loves gays. I’m certain of it. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven" (Matthew 5:11-12).

So to all you sodomites out there, I say rejoice and be glad—and be gay. For as it says in the old hymn:

"Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so."

And that, my friends, is The Gospel According to Marc.