Homosexuality is a capital offense? That’s a new one! Georgia Rep. Bobby Franklin stated in an interview this week that he opposes President Barack Obama’s recent push to allow gay people to serve in the military. His justification: it’s written in the Bible.
“The Bible says it’s a capital offense,” he said. “You want someone with unrepentant criminal behavior?…The church is full of sinners, but we’re told in 1st Corinthians it rattled off the homosexual, the adulterer, the thief, the liar…do you want an unrepentant drug dealer in the military? Same thing.”
Clearly, this particular quotation packs quite a punch. Because there’s so much crazy to sift through, I feel that it’s appropriate to dissect Franklin’s statement line by line.
First, I find it a bit odd that Franklin would refer to a religious text when talking about a political matter. He skipped right over “separation of church and state” and decided to make up his own legal opinion based off a religious text.
If we follow this logic, Franklin himself has broken the law by staying clean-shaven. The Bible also sets strict stipulations about what kind of bugs are okay to eat. Grasshoppers and crickets are okay, but if you eat a beetle, you should watch your back. Does this mean that we should lock up every frat boy who eats a worm when pledging during Hell Week? Of course not.
He moves on to (kind of) quote 1 Corinthians in the Bible, claiming that it equates homosexuality to “criminal behavior.” I don’t know which Bible Franklin is reading. I mean, it’s been a while since I cracked open the Good Book, but I don’t remember reading anything about homosexuality being a crime. Here’s what the passage from 1 Corinthians, which Franklin presumably refers to, actually says:
“But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person.” (1 Corinthians 5: 11-12)
Yep, just as I thought. There’s no mention of homosexuality at all. I knew I smelled crazy. Franklin is just another Looney Tune using a misinterpretation of the Bible as justification for hating gay people.
Because Rep. Franklin double-majored in Biblical Studies and Business Administration (lolz), I would have assumed he knew that Jesus never mentions homosexuality, and only seven passages out of thousands in the Bible refer to homosexual behavior in any way. Of those seven, none address homosexual identity as it’s understood today, let alone suggest that being gay is a crime. He just made it up – just like he made up his qualifications to be a state representative (hey-oh!).
Seriously, though, it’s difficult to imagine how this man got elected into public office. After doing some research on the representative, I realized that a profound ignorance of current political issues mixed with a third-grader’s understanding of the Constitution does not a good leader make.
For example, the Georgia representative thinks that the Constitution requires Americans to only use gold and silver as legal tender. Franklin also opposes funding of public schools and the use of driver’s licenses. When questioned about this particular view, Franklin said because “taking on the restrictions of a license requires the surrender of an inalienable right,” he’d be okay with letting 12-year-olds drive on Georgia highways.
It may be true that nobody takes him seriously because of his off-kilter ideas, but the fact that a man as obtuse as Franklin can be elected into public office is scary. Representative Franklin and people like him wield real power.
In the case of using Biblical texts as validation for discriminating against gays and lesbians, the majority of the problem stems from his notion that it’s okay to a) comment on something as personal as sexual identity, and b) infuse his own religious views into his policymaking.
The only reason why Franklin won in his district is because he was running unopposed. This might be due to the fact that his opponents probably couldn’t decide where to begin refuting anything he said.
The fact of the matter is that Rep. Franklin is ass-backwards. He has nothing constructive to add to the DADT discussion, or a debate of any other social issue, for that matter. Something tells me Jesus wouldn’t be down with that.
Emily O’Donnell is a sophomore in the College of Communication and a weekly columnist in The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at emilyod@bu.edu.
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