If you haven’t heard of the uproar of the passage of Proposition 8 in California by now, here’s your chance to engage in a lively, current and intriguing cultural issue. The debate over the validity of gay marriage and gay rights isn’t new. What is new is a major periodical taking a side in the debate and making it a cover story. Newsweek’s cover story is Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy.

Wherever you are on this issue, you need to be there not by blind conviction but by careful and deliberate analysis of both sides of the issue. I have friends who are for and friends who are against. I have gay friends who think it is ridiculous to use the Bible to support gay marriage and friends who think it is silly to use the Bible to rail against gay marriage. And herein lies one of the key problems, those friends are “using the Bible” not faithfully interpreting it. Whatever your conviction is, if you use the Bible, don’t. Instead, interpret it as you would want your blog, paper, or will interpreted—word by word, aimed at getting the author’s intention, not in sneaking in your bias.

Newsweek offers one reading of the Bible. Get Religion offers another reading. Both pieces are pretty inflammatory and thin on reading the Bible closely. If you read both, I hope youll be convinced to read the Bible itself.  Grab a Bible, turn to the Concordance, and look up “marriage” and “homosexuality.” Then read two scholarly treatments of the issue here and work through some conclusions. Do it with integrity; do it in love, please.