By the book.

• Position: UPFRONT

If there's a hell, I guess I'm going there. After all, I eat pork, and the Bible specifically lists that as a no-no. In Deuteronomy 14:8, Moses cites it on a menu of divinely prohibited fare: "And the swine, because it divideth the hoof yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean onto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase." (We're using the King James version here. Everybody knows the ancient Hebrews talked like characters in a Shakespearean play, and if it's good enough for Cecil B. DeMille movies and the Calvary Baptist Church of my youth, it's good enough for me.)

In fact, the Bible says a lot more about what people shouldn't eat than it does about whom they may marry. But those inclined to believe that this book is the inerrant Word of God pay little heed to the former while cleaving to the latter as some sort of divine will, something to be ignored only at risk of eternal damnation, thereby making it more than sufficient grounds to amend the state constitution. And, yes, I know the gospels were a game changer, the coming of Christ toppling the old law like some celestial version of the Warren Court The fact is, many religious people, as well the politicians who prey upon them, tend to pick and choose, treating the testaments like columns A and B on a menu at a Chinese restaurant, selecting from whichever whatever best fits their prejudices. But that is as it always has been.

Whether the Bible was inspired by God is, at...