Let’s talk about gay marriage. I hope you’re getting as tired of hearing about it as I am. Still, there are some who don’t seem to mind that there have been more than 100,000 civilians killed in Iraq because our president lied to us - or that thousands of children die everyday in Africa from starvation, disease and war - and yet they rail on with their diatribes against gays and lesbians.

There are only five references to homosexuality in the Bible and hundreds and hundreds about loving thy enemy, feeding the poor and taking care of the helpless. Which ones do they focus on?

Leviticus condemns homosexual behavior for males. But it should be noted that, "abomination," the word Leviticus uses to describe homosexuality, is the same word used to describe a menstruating woman.

Yikes! I bet some of our more bibical-literally minded women didn’t know they were right up there with Ellen DeGeneres or Elton John.

Here is an interesting quote from Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong: “There are few biblical references to homosexuality. The first, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is often quoted to prove that the Bible condemns homosexuality. But the real sin of Sodom was the unwillingness of the city's men to observe the laws of hospitality. The intention was to insult the stranger by forcing him to take the female role in the sex act. The biblical narrative approves Lot's offer of his virgin daughters to satisfy the sexual demands of the mob. How many would say, ‘This is the word of the Lord?’ When the Bible is quoted literally, it might be well for the one quoting to read the text in its entirety.”

He also wrote; “Thus it appears that Paul would not approve of homosexual behavior. But was Paul's opinion about homosexuality accurate, or was it limited by the lack of scientific knowledge in his day and infected by prejudice born of ignorance? An examination of some of Paul's other assumptions and conclusions will help answer this question. Who today would share Paul's anti-Semitic attitudes, his belief that the authority of the state was not to be challenged, or that all women ought to be veiled? In these attitudes Paul's thinking has been challenged and transcended even by the church. Is Paul's commentary on homosexuality more absolute than some of his other antiquated, culturally conditioned ideas?

Since I’m tired of writing about the subject, I’ll just reprint this past column.

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It was with interest that I listened to a recent gathering of area folks and two state legislators. A member of the audience began chastising one of them for not offering more support for a state constitutional amendment denying marriage status to any grouping other than one man and one woman.

A legislator, not wanting to seem lacking in good Midwestern values, pointed out that he had sponsored the bill that made it Iowa law that a marriage could only be between one man and one woman. Then he went on to point to its basis in the Bible.

Besides the point of separation of church and state, his comment brought up some interesting thoughts.

If we’re going by the Bible, it should be noted that a one woman/one man marriage concept would have been an alien concept to many of our biblical figures.

According to an organization called Religious Tolerance, Lamech is the first in the Old Testament to have taken two wives. After him, Jacob, Elkanah and Ashur had two wives, Esau and Rehaboam had three spouses, Abijah had 14, Gideon and David had so many you couldn’t spit in the palace without hitting one and Solomon just got by with 700 wives of royal birth. Jehoram, Joash, Ahab, Jeho­achin and Belshazzar also had multiple wives.

And these guys didn’t even live in Utah.

So if we’re going to go on biblical morals, let's go whole hog and be the first state in the country to reinstate polygamy.