Sexism in the Bible

I have the great P.Z. Myers in my RSS feed, and read his post, Men, Women Divided Over Sex Bill. It’s about a bill that proposes to criminalize marital rape, and it’s opposed by bible thumpers (even a women is quoted) on the grounds that “the woman and the man become one flesh” so marital rape, by definition, cannot occur, it’s abuse of one’s own body. It’s a view that strongly encourages the thinking of women as property, rather than partner.

Reading the objections to the bill reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend about The Bible and Homosexuality, who claimed that I had misinterpreted the following passage:

  • Romans 1:26-27

    For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
    And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

I claimed that this was the only passage mentioning lesbianism. But apparently this is not true, the real interpretation I would never have guessed because I’m not misogynistic enough.

Apparently the sin of women in this passage, isn’t that they slept with each other; it’s that they refused to sleep with a man (their natural use). And the men sinned in that they disregarded the women for their natural use.

I know that the Bible is awash in passages that treat women as chattel, but, really, this is just too much! I have to agree with Christopher Hitchens when he says that Christianity is immoral. I’m also perplexed by the statistics which show a slightly higher religiosity among women; do people even read their Bible, or are they too busy thumping it?! I think that many of the moral gains achieved by our culture have been made in spite of the Bible. It’s a good thing that our secular culture promotes equality and tolerance; because the Bible sure doesn’t!