A gay man in Michigan is suing publishers of Bibles because they published versions of the Bible that say homosexuality is a sin.
Um.
He alleges that the publication of Bibles characterizing homosexuality as sinful give him causes of action for, as far as I can tell, fraud and products liability, interfering with his exercise of Constitutional rights (to marry his lover, my guess) and caused him to suffer emotional distress, including estrangement from his family and “demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.”
Excerpts from the complaint, recited in this article, include:
Defendant willfully caused me to endure acts of hate, discrimination, and loss of sleep, appetite, by structuring their New King James Bible to reflect God’s distaste of homosexuals.
By designing this product to promote hate and violence toward homosexuality, because such product is promoted as being the ‘authentic word of God,’ it is a design defect.
This misrepresentation is a willful and deliberate tort. Fraudulently imposing a written defamation or libel in order to prevent me from marrying someone of the same sex in this state.
This obvious coerced method of mind control and social dictatorship violates the religious laws which prevent anyone from adding to the Biblical scriptures or from taking any words away from the text.
[Defendants intended to cause] me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder.
Actually, I have little doubt that substantial portions of the facts alleged are true. The Bible does characterize homosexuality as sinful. The Bible does say that God disapproves of homosexual behavior. Those religious teachings are used as a gloss to encourage discrimination against and shunning of homosexuals and have even been cited to justify violence against them.
None of which gives rise to any legally-cognizable cause of action. Certainly not fraud or products liability. The Bible really does say those things, so it’s hardly a “product defect” to include them. No one forces you to become a Christian, which means you can’t detrimentally rely on the Bible, which pretty much forecloses a claim for fraud. I don’t know what else is in there since I can’t find a copy of the actual complaint. But it hardly matters. Bible publishers obviously have all kinds of First Amendment rights, both of speech and religion, to publish the Bible.
After all, we extend Constitutional protection to all sorts of hate speech, so why not the Bible, too?
Hat tip to Friendly Atheist.
“Hey, wait, did he just call the Bible ‘hate speech’?…”
