Random Notes from a Crank

I'm quite late to the party, but I recently read Nick Offerman's book, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living. A fine piece of nonfiction. Two back chapters, "Horse Sense > The Bible" and "Leviticus Can Blow Me," are worth the price of the paperback. And there is plenty of wisdom in those pages. 

Like me, Mr. Offerman is man who enjoys a fine whiskey. I, however, prefer bourbon. I'd like to try some of the Scotches he touts though, but those single malts are expensive for this nice hombre. 

Reading his book made me start watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix. Great show. Like I said, "late to the party." 

Regardless, his "Leviticus Can Blow Me" chapter got me a bit riled up about how people use the Bible to discriminate. A person's religious "liberties" are not being protected if they refuse to sell this or that to a gay person. That person is just being an asshole. 

Speaking of Leviticus, let's explore some of the injunctions found in that crazy-ass book of the Bible that bigots like using to discriminate against gay people. 

Here are some selected ones (I cut the ones that are downright gross or common sense--you know, the ones about screwing family members and farm animals, etc.) that so-called Christians should be following if they really believe that the injunctions of Leviticus are proper guidelines to live one's life:

• Eating fat
• Touching an unclean animal
• Letting your hair become unkempt
• Tearing your clothes
• Eating an animal that doesn't chew cud and has cloven hooves
• Eating any seafood without fins or scales
• Touching the carcass of a weasel, rat, any kind of great lizard, monitor lizard, skink, etc.
• Making idols or "metal gods"
• Picking up grapes fallen in one's vineyard
• Stealing 
• Lying
• Perverting justice by showing partiality to the poor or rich
• Spreading slander
• Seeking revenge or bearing a grudge
• Trimming your beard
• Cutting your hair at the sides
• Getting tattoos
• Not standing in the presence of the elderly
• "the foreigner residing among you must be treated as one of your native-born"
• Working on the Sabbath
• Selling land permanently

Obviously, you can see how some people of the Jewish faith abide by these rules (eating pigs and shellfish, for example). 

But what I'm trying to get at here is that some Christians obviously use Leviticus to discriminate against gay people, whereas they're not apt to follow injunctions found in the same book about eating fat, touching animals, eating pork, having crappy looking hair, eating shellfish, having non-typical pets, lying, gossiping (spreading slander), getting themselves tatted up, and doing stuff on Sundays. Also, this whole principle about treating "foreigners" should be relevant to the Republican Administration's executive order about banning people from seven certain countries that recently got overturned. Some of these Christians love to cherry-pick passages that fit their needs. Keep "loving thy neighbor," douchebags.