July 13, 2003

Living by the Book

A delicious attack on homophobic Anglicans (and by extension on all revealed religion) was published on the letters page of the Independent on Sunday and reproduced in The Week. I can't find it anywhere online, so I'll reproduce it here:

As the central biblical injunction against homosexuality occurs in Leviticus, and since such an injunction would have no moral force if we could pick and choose our proscriptions, it might be an idea for the clergy to develop a test of belief in this 3,000-year-old desert religion — the Leviticus Test.

Prospective clergy would be inspected for mandatory circumcision. Any other mutilation would render them unfit, as would a confession of having eaten pork, shellfish, insects (other than locusts) etc. A male must not touch the dead... except for his mother, father, son, daughter, brother... or virgin sister.

No priest with a blemish may offer to God or come near the vicarage.

This test would be simple and pure and thus appeal to those who worry about other people's sex lives. And it is eccentric, irrelevant and slightly mad, which will appeal to dogmatists.

Robert Harmon, Hastings

Posted by timo at July 13, 2003 12:07 AM | TrackBack
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