DOES FOX'S NEW HERO THINK GAY PEOPLE SHOULD BE PUT TO DEATH?
(Apparently not -- see the updates)
Fox Nation regularly cheers efforts by legislators to ban the use of foreign law in American legal decisions (Eeek! Sharia!), but apparently Fox Nation believes that America should makes its decisions on gay marriage based on the opinion of ... a Filipino boxer.
Well, a Filipino boxer who's now a legislator. Fox News and Fox Sports are reporting:
Boxing champion Manny Pacquiao has come out swinging against US President Barack Obama's personal endorsement of same-sex marriage.
In an interview with the National Conservative Examiner, the religious Pacquiao said Obama's view was nothing more than a direct attack on the morals of society and the will of God.
"God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other," he said.
"It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of old," he added, citing the Bible....
That Examiner.com interview is here. Reporter Granville Ampong's prose is somewhat hard to follow -- is Pacquaio really endorsing Leviticus here?
Pacquiao's directive for Obama calls societies to fear God and not to promote sin, inclusive of same-sex marriage and cohabitation, notwithstanding what Leviticus 20:13 has been pointing all along: "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
...he implies Obama must read "the manual of life" for better living, which is the Holy Scripture, and follow the precepts that "God" wants us to embrace.
Pacquaio isn't calling for the death penalty for gays in the Philippines, though he is opposing a popular reproductive health services bill; he says he opposes all use of contraception even though his wife says she uses contraception. His recent turn to religion follows rumors of adultery.
But, of course, Fox, in its relentless desire to beat Barack Obama, will pick up any stick and use it.
(Oh, and let's not overlook the fact that Politico also thought this was a legitimate story.)
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UPDATE: Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams chides those who, like me, accused Pacquaio of taking Leviticus literally; Williams points out that the Examiner doesn't say that Pacquaio quoted or invoked Leviticus. I'd argue that it's impossible to tell one way or another, and that Fox leapt on the story despite that ambiguity. Gay groups attacked Pacquaio and urged Nike to drop him as an endorser, Williams says, and now he's saying he has a gay relative and Leviticus is the furthest thing from his mind. I'll take him at his word, though under the circumstances, that's just what you'd expect him to be saying.
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UPDATE: Granville Ampong says in an Examiner.com update that "Pacquiao never said" anything in reference to Leviticus, "nor recited, nor invoked and nor did he ever refer to such context." Well, fine. But I wrote this post primarily to target Fox for praising this guy based on an ambiguouis article that could reasonably be interpreted as suggesting that Pacquaio agrees with Leviticus. I'm sorry, but given Ampong's prose style, no one can be blamed for being confused about that point. And I don't think Fox bothered to get a clarification before valorizing the guy, because any Obama critic is a good Obama critic.
