Composer Marc Shaiman and director Adam Shankman, the minds behind “Hairspray,” have recently opened their “Prop 8: The Musical” with an all-star studded cast that includes Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris and John C. Reilly at Sacramento Community College. The musical shames the voting public for passing Proposition 8 a month ago, which simply defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman.
Jack Black, who portrays Jesus Christ mis-uses scripture in order to help drive across the point that “you can’t take the Bible literally” in defense to the fact that most Bible believers point out the passages that clearly indicate homosexuality as a sin.
As Jesus, Jack Black confronts the “Yes on 8” supporters for their belief that homosexuality is an “abomination” first by lifting a shrimp cocktail to them and stating that Leviticus also says eating shellfish likewise is an “abomination.”
He then goes on to say the Bible also teaches that you can “stone your wife,” or “sell your daughter into slavery,” as evidence that you really can’t trust everything the Bible teaches.
It is no surprise to me that Hollywood would come out with such a vicious attack on voters that approved the measure as well as those who hold the traditional value that marriage is to be between one man and one woman and not for those of the same sex.
I was glad to come across a most excellent post today by Frank Pastore of the “The Frank Pastore Show” which airs on KKLA in Los Angeles. Frank does an excellent job explaining to context behind the scriptures that Jack Black so erroneously mis-uses.
Frank first of all points out that the whole point of Leviticus and Deuteronomy was to teach Israel how to separate and become distinct from all they had learned while in Egyptian captivity.
So with regards to shellfish and the scripture reference (Leviticus 11:9-12) Jack Black eluded to while holding up a shrimp cocktail, Frank points out that God is simply bringing distinction.
“Eat fish, don’t eat bugs. Fish have fins and swim, bugs have legs and crawl. Even if you find things in the water that aren’t crawling, if they have legs, they can crawl—so they’re bugs, don’t eat them. Fish, good; sea-bugs, bad. Honor the distinction.”
As far as the actual eating of shrimp, Jesus permits the eating of shellfish under what he says in Matthew 15:11: “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” And Paul emphasized in Romans 14:14 that it’s all about personal conscience anyway.
Frank also provides an excellent answer to the “stoning your wife” and “selling your daughter into slavery” references Jack Black makes.
“In 1400 B.C., before the law was given to Moses by the hand of God at Mt. Sinai, no nation had any moral code that prohibited a man from killing his wife, wives, or children for any reason. Pagans sacrificed their children to Baal and Moloch; Israel would not. Pagans could kill their families; Israel would not. So, the Old Testament improved the extant moral order by requiring men to go before the elders before any child was to be stoned (Deuteronomy 21:19). And, in all of the rabbinic writings to my knowledge there’s not one instance of the elders ever approving of a single stoning of a child,” Frank writes.
Frank goes on to say, “When you read the full context of Exodus 21:7-11, the ‘selling your daughter into slavery’ slur, it too was an improvement over the ancient moral order. My paraphrase again, ‘If you sell your daughter off to a man and he becomes unhappy with her, he must give you a chance to redeem her and buy her back, he may not sell her off to foreigners. And if the man bought her for his son, she must not be treated as a slave, but as a daughter.’ Like all the other teachings in the Old Testament, this was a big improvement over what was going on among the peoples around Israel.”
I’m with Frank as well as Michelle Malkin as one of those who is waiting for the “other” Prop 8 musical to come out, “the one with angry activists storming restaurants and Mormon temples, hectoring elderly people over their signs, and hounding donors large and small until they pay off their tormentors in the name of tolerance,” as Michelle says.
