I don't know about you, but when I'm in learning mode, I tend to key on certain aspects of the subject at hand and get really strong in that area and forget to nuance that strength with other facets of the learning. It's easy to take something that resonates and make it the end all and be all of the subject. Reading through the Old Testament, one wonders if the Hebrews didn't do the same thing.

For example, God's first encounter with Abram led to Abram's asking God for some kind of assurance that God's promise to him to be the father of billions and billions of descendants led to focusing on animal sacrifice as something God wanted. Why? Because God, I believe, tends to give us signs of God's presence and truth in ways that we as individuals can understand based on who we are and where we come from. The best way to do that is by means with which we are familiar. With Abram, coming from a dark and murky past, God knew that his tradition was to offer a sacrifice to whatever particular God needed prodding. Since this was Abram's first encounter with the God of Gods, why not give Abram a sign via something he knew? So God told Abram to gather up some animals and offer them in sacrifice. This became the vehicle for Abram's dream of the torch and smoking pot to confirm to him that he had indeed been visited by the God of Gods and God's promise was true. Would Abram have understood anything else? Perhaps, but we'll never know. I think that had God assured Abram in any other way, Abram would have spent more time trying to interpret the sign than in getting the message that he had just entered into a covenant with the Most High God. For whatever the reason, the idea of sacrifice caught on and Scripture is full of rules and regulations concerning the offering of sacrifice despite passages in which God pleads with his people to stop it and offer their hearts instead.

I think the call to "Be fruitful and multiply" from Genesis has had much the same effect on us and is one of the fundamental reasons why we're having such a mean-spirited debate over same-sex union issues. The argument du jour is, of course, how same sex unions are destroying the family and the values we have held for millennia. What seems more plausible, however, is that out of their fear of change in something they don’t really understand, those opponents fail the see the nuance of the subject at hand. They've focused on the "be fruitful and multiply" part because it's easy to understand, but they haven't looked at the reasons why we were called to multiply in the first place.

I suspect God had reproduction in mind when God created Adam and Eve and began the world. Any biologist will tell you that there is a certain number of (enter the creature or plant of your choice here) where the conditions within the environment become self-sustaining. Any more or less creates an imbalance and ultimately the environment corrects or fails. So God wanted the Creation to be successful and self-sustaining and gave Adam and Eve and the other creatures and plants the tools to do it. And it made sense for the generations that followed. The nomadic nature of the people God created mandated that they reproduce for survival. They needed numbers for strength against invaders, to work the work of the tribe, to continue their existence. Every opportunity to reproduce was important and couldn't be wasted. So the males of the species would mate with every female they came in contact with to increase the chances for progeny, preferably male.

Of course, as we all came to find out, to "Be fruitful and multiply" also was a hell of a lot of fun. As you might guess, things could get easily out of hand. Some controls needed to be instituted. Blood lines and racial purity were important and needed to be maintained. What better way to do that, and to ensure continued growth in a religious people than to make the directives come from God? So when questions arose about whether or not an opportunity to reproduce was right, rules were created to ensure the healthiest and most politically advantageous propagation of the species. Laws regarding inheritance along blood lines were created and if no heir was available through normal blood lines, rules for creating an heir from a slave in your household were created. All coming from God, of course. Hence admonitions about the abomination of men lying with men, engaging in intercourse with a woman during her period, and masturbation. None of these were opportunities to "be fruitful and multiply" and so were forbidden for the good of the tribe by God. Love never entered into it at this stage. Marriages were arranged for blood and political reasons. There was little, if any, relationship involved. The whole concept of romantic love didn't come for quite some time, and it changed everything. The natural attraction of men and women came, quite frankly, because that's the way to reproduce.

Over time, and with lots of practice, we got used to the admonitions and grew this creation to a place where it is now out of balance. But we’re still holding on to the old traditions and using any departure from those traditions as an opportunity to blast a sinful culture. We’re pretty good at that. In a time when relationship has become more important than reproduction, we fail to see that the only thing that makes a relationship between and man and a woman different is their ability to reproduce. Because of really outdated societal preferences, we can’t see beyond that and any relationship that doesn’t have a reproductive quality about it repulses us.

"Relationships" are a relatively new concept. Certainly relational issues between a man and a woman have been considered for a longer time, because of the reproductive nature of their union. The concept of a loving, committed, homosexual relationship, however, has only been around since the 19^th century. This is pretty new and radical when placed on a time line of biblical proportions. Is it any wonder why the keepers of the status quo are so freaked? It’s easy to point to the sinful nature of a same sex relationship when you have several thousand years of mis-interpretation working for you. It’s a lot like the woman who cuts the ends off the ham before she puts it in the oven, "Because it tastes better that way." When pressed, she will say that her mother taught her that trick. When her mother is pressed, we find that her mother taught her the same thing. Going back far enough, one comes to find out that somewhere along the line, somebody’s mother cut the ends off the ham, not because it tasted better, but because the damn thing wouldn’t fit in the pan.

I’m not sure the keepers of the status quo will ever change their minds. I honestly believe they’re going to have to die off. Until then, they will use fear tactics and religion to condemn perfectly good people for expressing their love and commitment to each other in ways that others will never understand because they won’t see that the sacred tenets they hold so dear were set down for reasons that have nothing to do with life today. I’d rather a couple model love and commitment to society and the children of that society than the hate and vitriol we have instead.

I think God would see that as fruitfulness, too.