Biblical Ouotes

This segment from an episode of "West Wing" is apropos in light of Judge Walker's opinion overruling California's Proposition 8.

Did you know that Judge Vaughn Walker was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan. Also, it is common knowledge in San Francisco that Judge Walker is himself gay. So why didn't the defenders of Proposition 8 ask for him to recuse himself? To answer these and other questions, Melissa Block interviewed law professor David Levine of the U.C. Hastings College of the Law about Judge Walker's ruling.

BLOCK: I've been reading some analysis of this ruling, and folks are concluding that this was an opinion that was specifically targeted at the U.S. Supreme Court and specifically at Justice Kennedy. What does that mean?

Prof. LEVINE: Well, because I think so many people assumed that this is going to be a five-four opinion if it gets to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that Justice Kennedy is going to have his now-familiar role as the swing vote, you have to write an opinion that's going to appeal to Justice Kennedy. And Justice Kennedy, after all, has written a couple of pretty gay-friendly opinions. And a lot of the language in Judge Walker's opinion kind of echoes what Justice Kennedy did in those opinions. And so, if Justice Kennedy is kind of true to what he did before, he will vote with the four liberal justices in this case and affirm this opinion.

BLOCK: Let's talk a bit about Judge Walker. He is a Republican appointee to the federal bench. Opponents of gay marriage are calling him an activist judge. What can you tell us about him?

Prof. LEVINE: Well, you know, when he was first appointed, nobody thought he was going to be an activist judge in the sense of - the way the conservatives mean it. The gay community in San Francisco vehemently opposed him because, very famously, he represented the Olympic Committee in a case that stopped the gay games from calling themselves the Gay Olympics. And so, as a result, the feeling was that he would be anti-gay when he got on the bench, and indeed he's been anything but.

He is certainly - I mean, he's a - I would call him a libertarian Republican. He has not hesitated in some cases to rule in favor of criminal defendants. He certainly has an independent streak about him. And the way he went about handling this case certainly was completely reminiscent of the way in which he tends to run his courtroom.

BLOCK: And he is, according to numerous published reports, himself gay.

Prof. LEVINE: Yes. Certainly, that's common knowledge in San Francisco. It was in the San Francisco Chronicle. And when that came out in the newspaper, all the lawyers in the case, you know, I think it's fair to quote "Seinfeld" and just say, they all thought, not that there's anything wrong with that. The defenders of Proposition 8 certainly could have raised that to the court as a basis for disqualifying Judge Walker, and they just let the issue of his sexuality slide.

I mean, everybody has a sexuality. You have one. I have one. And you have to be able to decide cases.

Looking at the Bible through Cartoons UPDATE

The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb: A Review
By Greta Christiana's Blog

It's true what they say. Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Especially when those pictures are drawn by Robert Crumb.

And especially when those words come from the Bible.

For those who haven't heard yet: Legendary comics artist Robert Crumb has just come out with his new book: The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb, a magnum opus, five years in the making, telling the complete, unedited book of Genesis in graphic novel form. And I'm finding it fascinating. It's masterfully illustrated, of course, Crumb being among the very best creators in this burgeoning literary form. And it's getting Genesis across to me, deep into my brain and my imagination, in a way that it had never quite gotten there before.

Of course I've read Genesis. More than once. It's been a little while since I've read the whole thing all the way through, but it's not like it's unfamiliar. But there's something about seeing the story fleshed out in images to make some of its more striking narrative turns leap out and grab your brain by the root. There's nothing quite like seeing the two different creation stories enacted on the page to make you go, "Hey! That's right! Two completely different creation stories!" There's nothing quite like seeing Lot offer his daughters to be gang-raped to make you recoil in shock and moral horror. There's nothing quite like seeing the crazed dread and burning determination in Abraham's eyes as he prepares the sacrifice of his own son to make you feel the enormity of this act. Reading these stories in words conveys the ideas; seeing them in images conveys the visceral impact. It makes it all seem vividly, immediately, humanly real.

Now, that is something of a mixed blessing. Spending a few days with the characters in Genesis isn't the most relaxing literary vacation you'll ever take. Richard Dawkins wasn't kidding when he said, "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction." The God character in Genesis is cruel, violent, callous, insecure, power-hungry, paranoid, hot-tempered, morally fickle... I could go on and on. And God's followers aren't much better. They lie, they scheme, they cheat one another, they conquer other villages with bloodthirsty imperialist glee, they kill at the drop of a hat. This isn't Beatrix Potter here. It's more like Dangerous Liaisons by way of Quentin Tarantino. With tents, sand, and sheep.

Yet at the same time, there's an unexpected side effect to reading this story in images as well as words. And that's that the story becomes more... well, more of a story. Reading it in comics form made it easier for me to set aside, just for a moment, the relentless hammering on the text that I typically engage in when I read the Bible: the theological debates, the treasure hunt for inaccuracies and inconsistencies, the incessant "How did this pissy, jealous, temperamental warrior god get shoehorned into the All-Knowing All-Powerful All-Good ideal again?" bafflement. It made it easier to set all that aside... and just read it as a story. A story about some very human, very fallible characters: strong and interesting, but not moral paragons by any stretch of the imagination... and not really intended to be.

Including the God character. Who, in many ways, is the most human and the most fallible of them all.


[Click on pictures to enlarge]

Read more>>>here.





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UPDATE: For another review see:

Crumb’s Genesis

by Paul W. Morris

Keep on truckin’ in the Garden of Eden.