>> Leviticus applied to the ancient tribes of Israel, and were superseded in Christianity

Sorry, but many hard core fundamentalists would disagree, insisting that the whole Bible is the Inviolate Word of God (TM). In their 700-Club way of thinking, Levicitus is still part of the Truth, even though all they care about is Just That One Verse and Nothing Else.

Indeed - and you know as well as I that later on in the New Testament that nearly all of them had been pretty much altered and/or rescinded, with few exceptions.*

Again, many "Christians" would disagree. After all, that would suggest that God changes His Mind, which, of course, He never does -- well, to their way of thinking anyway.

>> They largely ignore it (IIRC) because even back then it was a huge source of controversy, and a very large number of Christians thought it to be wrong (and since it didn't come from Jesus, it was wide open for debate).

Not so. The early Christians were not sexual egalitarians, no more than the Jews were. Women could worship, but they could not participate, save in the most subservient of roles: caregivers (not doctors), nurses, maids -- from which we got the concept of nuns, which was purposely designed to remind women participating in the Holy Church exactly what their place was in the Heavenly Hierarchy*.

Err, Gays weren't the only people targeted by such things.*

Of course not. But while we'll look at intellectuals and "independent women" and the rest and shake our heads in disgust at the folly of our distant ancestors, we'll quietly and quaintly remain silent when "sodomites" are mentioned -- something we still have yet to learn, given the controversy over the recent unveiling of the memorial to the gays and lesbians who were murdered in the camps during Nazi Germany. We shall celebrate the deaths of the Jews and the gypsies and the mentally ill and the rest of the folks who died there, but mention the gays and everyone acts shocked that you would have the affront to say anything suggesting those atrocities actually happened.

Have we learned nothing since Paul's time?

Apparently not.

>> It certainly doesn't excuse bad behavior, but likening oneself to martyrs and innocents during a 600-year-old period of dystopia doesn't do much for the argument

See note above. Indeed, we havent learned anything in the past half millenia, just how to cover our tracks better.

Besides, arent we basing our entire religious credo on things that happened two millenia ago, when things were even more dysfunctional? That aint helping the RR's argument much either.

>> None to me, but it widens a whole lot of loopholes.

And straight society will just have to deal with them. We are not responsible for a legal age of marriage at 14; the larger heterosexual society, in its infinite wisdom, decided on that. We are not responsible for the 62% divorce rate; you folks created on that all on your own. We are not responsible for heterosexual polygamy -- that was around and widely accepted long before we raised our heads over the hedge line. Seems to me the loopholes are all of your own making.

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