Fortunately, Lazer has several helpful suggestions: First, make sure to pray to God. It helps if you’re both separate when you do this—and ideally, you should abandon him in the desert for this purpose:

You may find this odd, but have you and your husband ever asked Hashem for a baby? If you were here, I’d take your husband out to the desert, give him a canteen of water, and leave him on a hilltop for an hour to yell his heart out to Hashem. Since you’re not here, go with your husband to a deserted stretch of beach on Long Island Sound, take separate directions, and cry your eyes out, praying in your own words - in English - and beg Hashem for what you want. Hanna, the prophet Samuel’s mother, did the same thing. So did Isaac and Rebecca. Repeat this as much as possible.

They did it in English? Seems improbable, but whatever. Seriously, though, I’ve heard that prayer does terrific things. Really. Taking time to yell your heart out to an ancient sky-god—time that you could be spending doing things more likely to produce a child, like having sex or visiting a fertility clinic—is really a worthwhile investment.

Try to eat as naturally as possible. Your husband should eat figs, garlic, and warm eggs. You both should eat red or blue grapes as well.

Red or blue grapes? You mean we can’t have both, even if we want them? And no green or yellow grapes? Shit, this regimen simply couldn’t work for me—personally, I can’t get off unless I’ve had plenty of grapes of all different types beforehand. Also, figs, garlic, and warm eggs? Really? I know that the fig is often a traditional fertility symbol, especially in Mediterranean cultures, and eggs too, of course, but garlic? At least they’re ensuring that their child won’t be a vampire. And what the heck does he mean by “warm” eggs? Like, raw eggs that you left out overnight to raise to room temperature? Or eggs that you warmed by cooking, say, scrambling or making an omelette? (Possibly a garlic/fig/grape omelette?) The former seems unhealthy and unhygenic, and the latter seems, well, not as “natural” as Lazer seems to be going for.

If you’re not pregnant within the next 60 days after taking the above advice, don’t despair: Rebbe Nachman of Breslev writes that living in Israel is conducive to childbearing and to peace in the home. I would therefore suggest that you seriously consider moving to Israel. If that’s out of the question, I would suggest two alternatives - one, give regular charity to a worthy cause in Israel, and that way you are in effect a shareholder in Israel, and second, fill your house with Torah-oriented books printed in Israel.

Because if you’ve waited this long, you can wait another 60 days, but if you still aren’t successful, you can move to Israel! Or at least, buy lots of Israeli Jewish schwag. It doesn’t matter if you read these books or learn anything from them; the important thing is that you buy them. Becoming a “shareholder in Israel”—which essentially means spending money that you could be spending on medical assistance—is absolutely guaranteed to make your husband’s little swimmers faster and stronger and your own reproductive organs healthier and more productive.

And lest the commercialism and “buy my book” attitude that makes Lazer as entertaining as he truly is be forgotten, despair not—he doesn’t disappoint:

Another good ploy that has helped loads of people is by spreading emuna CDs all over the place. Either way, with Hashem’s loving grace, I pray that you’ll be parents within the next 12 months.

If all the above things—trips to the desert, eating unusual foods, and giving half your income to Israel—don’t dehydrate or bankrupt you or give you salmonella, you still have an ace in the hole: buying my CDs! At least Lazer has the grace (or is it a Freudian slip?) to note that this is, at its base, a “ploy”. Or something. But at any rate, he does seem to recognize that all this might not work: “Either way … I pray that you’ll be parents within the next 12 months” is not his usual ringing, clarion guarantee of success.

The truth of the matter is that fertility problems are an extremely complicated and not completely understood area of modern medicine. But none of what Lazer Brody suggests will really do anything to help on the medical end. As per usual, he does a terrible disservice to the people involved by dispensing this kind of quack “advice”. A real shame too, because he is in a position of being able to give genuinely helpful advice that might actually lead to help in solving this couple’s fertility problems. Eating warm eggs isn’t going to do that.

For this essay I will only deal directly with male homosexuality, since that is the kind of relationship that the Bible expressly prohibits. (I will take it as read that the prohibitions on male homosexuality extend also to female homosexuality, since they have been understood that way by both Jews and Christians for centuries. Don’t give me any nonsense about the Talmud simply dismissing lesbianism as “foolishness”; female homosexuality is tolerated just the same as male homosexuality in virtually all religiously observant communities today: not at all. Whether or not this is supported by the texts is irrelevant.) I don’t aim to be exhaustive in this essay; only to give something of a flavour of several different methods of dealing with the specific Biblical prohibition of homosexuality, as well as to explore some modern approaches to the problem as practiced by Jewish communities today.

The primary source text for the biblical prohibition of homosexuality is Leviticus 18:22, which occurs in a long list of forbidden sexual relationships (all translations are my own):

וְאֶ֨ת־זָכָ֔ר לֹ֥א תִשְׁכַּ֖ב מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֑ה תּֽוֹעֵבָ֖ה הִֽוא׃

You shall not lie with a man in the manner of laying with a woman; this is an abomination.

This prohibition is echoed two chapters later in the so-called “holiness code” at Leviticus 20:13, in another long list of forbidden sexual relationships:

וְאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִשְׁכַּ֤ב אֶת־זָכָר֙ מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֔ה תּֽוֹעֵבָ֥ה עָשׂ֖וּ שְׁנֵיהֶ֑ם מ֥וֹת יוּמָ֖תוּ דְּמֵיהֶ֥ם בָּֽם׃

As for a man who lies with a man in the manner of laying with a woman, they have both committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon themselves.

Throughout history, there have been people who have engaged in this kind of forbidden relationship—the very fact that the Bible deems it necessary to prohibit testifies to the fact that people did engage in it, for whatever reason. But today, in a culture where a category of “homosexual” exists, with which people make their primary sexual identification, the Bible’s prohibition needs to be reexamined and rethought: this holds true for both the most religiously observant person alongside the most liberal individual. And this is the challenge of modernity: assuming the Bible’s injunctions and prohibitions still hold some meaning for us today, how do we understand them in light of our current world?

Essentially, it all comes down to one of three positions: (1) do you ignore the Bible for the sake of modernity, (2) do you ignore modernity for the sake of the Bible, or (3) do you try to find some “happy medium” between these two positions? I will argue that both (2) and (3) are endeavours doomed to failure, while (1), though workable and well-attested in the modern world, has its own set of problems.

Position (2), that is, ignoring the modern knowledge of that homosexuality is not unnatural in favour of the Bible’s contention that it is an “abomination”, is employed in virtually all extremely observant communities, both Jewish and Christian. People who reject the modern understanding of homosexuality and its origins in nature will often reject the underlying science as flawed, or not “Torah-true”, or what have you. There is no way for homosexual behaviour to be accepted with this type of thinking: since homosexuality is not a part of nature, it is by definition aberrant, and the Bible—which is taken to be divine and inerrant—defines it as an “abomination”: therefore, homosexuality should be shunned and punished.

Position (1), on the other hand—that the Bible should be ignored in favour of modern understanding—poses its own set of problems. If one truly believes it, one must follow it in every instance. What’s the use of holding, for instance, that the prohibition on homosexuality should be overturned because science holds homosexuality to be natural, but the Biblical account of the creation of the universe should be taken as true? This reduces to position (3)—the “happy medium”—and, as we will see, should be dealt with for its arbitrariness. So let us define position (1) as complete rejection of the Bible’s truth. This solves the problem of homosexuality, in a way: since the Bible is not true, there is no problem with homosexuality from a religious perspective. Yet there are problems here: how would a religious community based on the untruth of its fundamental text survive? What would it mean to be a Jew who disbelieves in the Bible? How would matters of ritual and law be adjudicated? (There are answers to all of these questions; I will leave them as an exercise for the reader.)

However, the most attractive position, on the surface—position (3), finding a “happy medium” between literal acceptance of the Bible and acceptance of modernity—is extremely complicated and requires a great deal of mental gymnastics to function. If we are to say, for example, that the Bible is “divinely inspired” but not “the literal word of God”, who is to say which parts of the Bible are correct and which are not? Homosexuality might be condemned by one believer in this methodology but condoned by another: whose decision is it? This method may work for some people, but it will not work for others: everybody will choose different things, based primarily—and this is key—upon what he or she wants to be true. If one person wants to permit homosexuality, he or she will rule that the bits of the Bible prohibiting homosexuality were the product of a different time and should therefore not be taken as true. But another person will assert that these parts are in fact divinely composed and are therefore binding. When individuals or communities make these judgments for themselves, the results are an arbitrary smorgasbord of what people wish the Bible said rather than what it does say.

But this isn’t the only way of attempting to find a “happy medium”. One of the tricks that is sometimes employed by people who wish to retain some sense of the Bible’s truth while themselves permitting homosexuality goes something like this. The verses in question use the phrase “in the manner of laying with a woman” to refer to the prohibited sexual act. The thinking goes: women have a vagina, men do not—therefore the act in question is totally different, and homosexual intercourse is not “in the manner of laying with a woman”. Again, while this kind of sophistry works for some people, there are two major problems with it. First, it’s painfully obvious what the verses actually mean, especially when taken in their context of lists of prohibited sexual relationships. Second, again, the efforts to find a “happy medium” reveal themselves to be completely arbitrary. They are reflections, as I have said, of what the individual making the judgments about the text wish it said rather than what it does say. All the wishing in the world won’t make the Bible not say that homosexuality is an immoral abomination.

Another way of dealing with the problem is to recommend celibacy: since the Bible only prohibits homosexual intercourse but not homosexual attraction, one may be homosexual as long as one does not have gay sex. The thinking goes that everybody has his or her own “crosses to bear”, as it were, and that a desire to engage in homosexual sex could be one of them. Some very influential people—including both gay and straight rabbis from various walks of Jewish life, including the Orthodox world—advocate this view, at least in part. Yet this position is a disaster. This punishment of dooming homosexuals to a life without any sex at all, which is mentally, spiritually, and physically oppressive. What an awful judgment to impose on human beings.

There is another way of dealing with this problem: homosexuals may be exempted from the requirement to follow the Biblical prohibition on homosexual intercourse because it would be an undue burden on them. In Jewish law, one may be exempted from an obligation on the grounds that it would be an undue burden. (This is how, incidentally, women are traditionally absolved of their obligations to follow positive time-bound commandments, such as daily prayer: it would be an undue burden for them to follow these regulations, since they’re supposedly too busy keeping house to pay attention to the proper times for prayer, etc.) Using this logic, homosexuals may be exempted from their requirements not to engage in homosexual intercourse because to forbid a human being from ever having sex constitutes an undue burden. This position is somewhat attractive because it recognizes that gay people are human beings too, and does not attempt to deprive them of their right to have sex. Yet its drawback is that it seems to view homosexuality as some kind of disability that entitles one to special dispensation to disobey the law of the Bible. While this approach does produce an inclusive effect, it reinforces the continual problem of second-class citizenship for homosexuals within the religious community.

There are many more ways of dealing with this problem; I won’t go into them all. (A good exploration of some of them, as well as a fuller explanation of the history behind the prohibition, can be found in Rabbi Steven Greenberg’s book Wrestling with God and Men, although I disagree with the conclusions put forward by this otherwise brave and forthright gay Orthodox rabbi.) But all these approaches to homosexuality boil down to one of the three positions I have outlined. Either you accept the Bible as the binding word of God, or you don’t, or you bend over backwards to try to make your own vision acceptable in terms of a millennia-old tradition that does not share your values or your vision of which things should be permissible.

And there is another problem on top of all of this. What if you have a religiously observant person who is a homosexual who wishes to remain religiously observant and be a participant in a religiously observant community, and yet transgress a law that the rest of that community views as binding? This problem is explored in the marvellous documentary Trembling Before G-d, and it has no real solution (besides celibacy and perpetual refusal to admit one’s homosexuality openly). The obvious question—why don’t these people join a denomination of Judaism that permits homosexuality?—is not even really a question to many of the people involved: they were raised Orthodox or Hasidic or some in some other kind of observant community, and that is where they wish to remain. Short of denomination-wide change in their religious communities, they will have to live in secret, in un-acceptance, in intolerance.

For Reform Judaism, which represents the largest number of American Jews, this has not really been a problem: since the Torah’s laws are not seen as legally binding, the prohibition on homosexuality can be safely ignored. And indeed, Reform Judaism (along with smaller liberal denominations like Reconstructionism and Renewal Judaism) is where gay and lesbian Jews thrived the best over the past few decades. For Orthodox Judaism (largely), this is also a non-issue: since the Torah’s laws are binding, homosexuality is regarded as illegal. However, there are a courageous few, like the aforementioned Rabbi Greenberg, who are openly gay and Orthodox—yet their numbers are small and the position they represent is not widely accepted at all within Orthodoxy. As for the middle-of-the-road Conservative Movement, it still maintains policies of some ambiguity: openly gay and lesbian rabbis are now ordained, but the decision of whether or not to perform gay marriages or commitment ceremonies, as well as decisions on what honours should be allowed to gay and lesbian Jews in the synagogue services, should be left up to individual rabbis and congregations. (Part of the reason for this ambiguity is the way the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is set up: any teshuvah, or religious responsum, that is officially adopted by the Committee becomes valid halachah, or Jewish law, within Conservative Judaism. Therefore, one teshuvah may be adopted permitting ordination of gay rabbis and another may be adopted forbidding it, and both are valid Conservative Judaism. Confused? So are many Conservative Jews.)

So there we have it. It’s still very much an open question as to how Judaism will regard its Jews who happen to be homosexuals, but what we have seen is that there is everywhere, at least, a framework for attacking this question. It will be interesting to see, as science continues to move ahead with the notion that homosexuality is not a “lifestyle choice” but an inborn characteristic and is therefore not “unnatural”, whether and how Judaism will be able to keep up.

(X-posted to Feministe.)

I would like to examine two things. First, what exactly are the sources for this doctrine, and how did this mistranslation arise in the first place? And second, how and why did it continue to perpetuate itself through the years, even though its foundation has been known to be questionable for a very long time?

Let’s attack the sources first. The original text is the Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14 (all translations are my own):

לָ֠כֵן יִתֵּ֨ן אֲדֹנָ֥י ה֛וּא לָכֶ֖ם א֑וֹת הִנֵּ֣ה הָֽעַלְמָ֗ה הָרָה֙ וְיֹלֶ֣דֶת בֵּ֔ן וְקָרָ֥את שְׁמ֖וֹ עִמָּ֥נוּ אֵֽל׃

Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, the young woman (‘almah) shall become pregnant and bear a son, and name him Immanuel.

Note that the Hebrew word ‘almah means “young woman” and does not imply anything about the sexual status of the person in question. However, this all changed when the language moved out of Hebrew. In the third century and later, the Bible was translated into Greek for the benefit of most Jews, who no longer spoke Hebrew. This translation was called the Septuagint (LXX for short), and its version of Isaiah 7:14 runs like this:

δία τοῦτο δώσει Κύριος αὐτὸς ὑμῖν σημεῖον· ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ λήψεται, καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἐμμανουήλ.

Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin (parthenos) will conceive in the womb, and bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel.

The Greek word parthenos means “virgin” specifically, and does not lack the ambiguity of the Hebrew word ‘almah. It is interesting to note that other Greek texts besides the LXX use the word νεᾶνις neanis, meaning “young woman” without any sexual connotations, but the parthenos reading came to dominate the textual tradition. This is obvious from looking at later translations, such as Jerome’s Latin Vulgate of the fourth century CE, which was translated directly out of the Hebrew but with a strong eye toward the previous textual tradition:

propter hoc dabit Dominus ipse vobis signum: ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium et vocabitis nomen eius Emmanuhel.

Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin (virgo) will conceive and bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel.

By the time of the writing of (at least) the Gospel of Matthew, the conceit that Mary was a virgin was already built in to the theology, and in fact was a necessary condition of that theology to make the prophecies of the Old Testament be brought to fulfilment by the events in the New Testament. The best example of this is Matthew 1:20–23:

ταῦτα δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐνθυμηθέντος ἰδοὺ ἄγγελος κυρίου κατ’ ὄναρ ἐφάνη αὐτῷ λέγων, Ἰωσὴφ υἱὸς Δαυίδ, μὴ φοβηθῇς παραλαβεῖν Μαριὰμ τὴν γυναῖκά σου, τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου· τέξεται δὲ υἱὸν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν, αὐτὸς γὰρ σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν. τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ κυρίου διὰ τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος, Ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσσουσιν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἐμμανουήλ, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Μεθ’ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός.

But when he had made up his mind to do this [i.e. not to marry Mary and send her away], a messenger from the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph son of David, do not fear taking Mary as your wife, for the child conceived within her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus for he will save the people from their sins.” This took place to fulfil the word of the Lord through His prophet: “Behold, the virgin will conceive in her womb and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”

So there you have it. A seemingly innocuous substitution—parthenos for ‘almah, “virgin” for “young woman”—and we have, by the time of the codification of the New Testament, a doctrine that Jesus was conceived of Mary, a virgin, via the Holy Spirit. Errors of textual transmission have been supplemented by theology to create a chimera of a whole different sort.

(The astute reader will have noticed that I did not attempt to deal with all the other transmission problems in this text, notably the identity and number of those doing the naming, and the exact phrasing for “conceive”. I am content to leave the tracking of and wrangling over these things as an exercise for the reader.)

Let me turn now (briefly, I promise) to my second question: why is this doctrine still around, and how does it keep itself going? The answer, as I alluded to above, is that it is essentially indestructible. Like the alien in Alien or the myth about Eskimo words for snow, once the “virgin” mistranslation was loose in the wild, there was no stopping it. And indeed, slaying this chimera is now all but impossible, since there have been so many layers of theological edifice constructed on top of it in the two thousand or so years since it first got its start. Right or wrong, this doctrine is here to stay.

Also, I suspect that a long undercurrent of anti-translationism in many parts of the Western world, which regarded the Vulgate as the only authoritative Bible for centuries and were responsible for the burning at the stake of anyone who owned or produced a translated Bible is partially responsible as well. Currently, this belief seems to take the form of an antipathy toward textual criticism in general, which has as its root the assumption that the Bible is a human document, produced by humans, and susceptible to human error. This is especially evident in the King James Only movement, but more generally in those who argue that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. We simply cannot begin to understand these issues unless you accept that the text of the Bible has changed over the centuries, as it has been passed through different hands and been translated into different languages.

“You may ask,” Tevye the dairyman once noted, “how do these traditions get started? I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition.” Although Tevye didn’t believe in the virgin birth, and we do know how the tradition behind this doctrine got started, his larger point remains valid: it’s a tradition, and regardless of how unfounded or silly they are, traditions oftentimes take on lives all their own.

(X-posted to Feministe.)

So Orson Scott Card says that gays are simply confused, and that legalized gay marriage, such as now exists in California and Massachusetts, represents “the end of democracy in America.” Never mind, of course, that gay marriage has been legal up here in Canada for years—as well as a whole bunch of other places round the globe—and democracy hasn’t suddenly stopped there. But let’s let the man speak for himself. Here is a link to the original article in the Mormon Times, from which I will quote:

We already know where these decisions lead. We have seen it with the court decisions legalizing abortion. At first, it was only early abortions; within a few years, though, any abortion up to the killing of a viable baby in mid-birth was made legal.

The good old “slippery slope” argument: legalizing gay marriage leads to legalization of polygamy, bestiality, marijuana, hooliganism, murder, and Project Runway. Because in British Columbia, where gay marriage was legal before it became legal in the whole country by fiat, we certainly go out of our way to coddle polygamists.

You know, I can’t even really go any further with this. It’s simply a boring old rehash of the same tired arguments by yet another asshole homophobe. For good filking and commentary, refer to the Slog post noted above. I will, however, pause to note one last thing about Card’s amazingly quixotic defensiveness:

How dangerous is this, politically? Please remember that for the mildest of comments critical of the political agenda of homosexual activists, I have been called a “homophobe” for years.

“The end of democracy in America” is mild???

This is a term that was invented to describe people with a pathological fear of homosexuals — the kind of people who engage in acts of violence against gays. But the term was immediately extended to apply to anyone who opposed the homosexual activist agenda in any way.

A term that has mental-health implications (homophobe) is now routinely applied to anyone who deviates from the politically correct line. How long before opposing gay marriage, or refusing to recognize it, gets you officially classified as “mentally ill”?

Did you notice that really underhanded bit of legerdemain? Card retroactively redefines “homophobe” to have connotations it does not possess under current usage—if, indeed, it ever possessed them at all. Homophobia extends to cover exactly what Card spends paragraphs upon paragraphs on in his screed—it may not be pathological, but it’s fear and hatred all the same. In fandom, what Card has done here is called a retcon, but in this homophobe’s homophobic mind, this isn’t simply sloppy logic; it’s the End Of Life On Earth As We Know It Zomg.

Let me repeat what Paul Constant says: “In conclusion, Orson Scott Card is a hateful homophobe. Please make a note of it, and tell your friends that Orson Scott Card is a hateful homophobe.” Personally, I would further add that he’s a stupid-ass fucker whose books are overrated anyway. Also, a homophobe. And a moron.

(X-posted to Feministe.)

And now, Hagee apparently believes that Jews are responsible for their own suffering and persecution:

“It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God’s chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day. …

How utterly repulsive, insulting, and heartbreaking to God for His chosen people to credit idols with bringing blessings He had showered upon the chosen people. Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come … it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people.”

That was me, sorry. My personal rebelliousness and disobedience brought on God’s wrath, and made Him send John Hagee and Louis Farrakhan to earth to let me know just how bad I was for eating a California roll with real crab that one time, or for driving to Seattle yesterday on the Sabbath. My bad.

This is not a new idea, theologically speaking—the Bible provides this justification over and over when bad things happen to the Jewish people, notably in the Book of Lamentations (check out 1.8, 3.39–47, and 5.16–18 for some typical examples). However, nobody except religious nuts and douchebags takes this ‘line of reasoning’ seriously. Kingdoms and countries are always getting sacked by other kingdoms and countries. This is the human race we’re talking about, people. What a douchebag, this religious nut Hagee.

(Hat-tip: AMERICAblog.)

Update: Josh Marshall has video and analysis of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex.) both totally blowing it on McCain and Hagee on television today.

The decision overturns a lower court ruling by a lower court, which said the state need not recognise conversions from Islam because of a religious ban.

Translation: Islam forbids apostasy, and many countries impose the death penalty if Muslims convert to any other religion (though see this recent article in the Guardian for a very interesting perspective on recent religious permissiveness in Egypt). However, it is very important to note that what is making the apostasy of these twelve Christians in Egypt possible is the fact that they were originally Christians before they converted to Islam:

This suggests that Egyptians born Muslim will still be unable to convert to other faiths and have those conversions recognised on their identity cards. Many Muslims believe that converting from Islam is wrong, and some believe it is punishable by death.

What a shame. It should be one’s own decision what religion to profess, if one wants to profess any at all, and the state has no business denying people the right to change their minds—and especially should not be allowed to execute them if they do. This issue goes to the heart of free speech and freedom of belief. This particular ruling is worthy of congratulation, but it is worth very little if total freedom of belief is denied.

Pullum’s key opinion is that Dr. Williams is an unsuitable leader for the Anglican church because he cannot ‘do the demanding job of holding this figurehead position without causing his church to fall apart in social and political discord.’ He further points out that Dr. Williams also took a number of positions on homosexuality that caused dissension in various sizable wings of the church. ‘The people who say he lacks the leadership skills for his job are basically right,’ says Pullum:

Dr Williams is a gentle, learned, brilliant, scholarly man, and a bit of a public relations doofus. I hate to say it, but the calls for his resignation are not unjustified. He should be the holder of an endowed Professorship of Theology and Law at some top-ranking university. He should not be a prominent church administrator, and certainly not the Archbishop of Canterbury. Someone duller, more political, less original, and less intelligent must be found for that job.

Absolutely true, but I have a few caveats to add: First, would there really be no controversy if Dr. Williams were a professor somewhere, and not the Primate of all England? Just think of Ward Churchill and the media furor that surfaces whenever he opens his mouth. Furthermore, is it the case that religious leaders should not voice their political opinions? In other words, is it appropriate for a religious leader to use his religious pulpit as a political bully pulpit? (I have a very strong personal bias against this, but from a conceptual point of view I’m not sure what the answer is.)

But finally, this doesn’t address the underlying issue: to what extent should the secular state accommodate religious law? Back in 2004 there was a controversy in Ontario in which it was proposed to include shari’ah law in the Arbitration Act, which would make decisions rendered by shari’ah courts regarding private disputes legally binding. This had some Muslims, notably the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada, worried that this would create a ’slippery slope’ and end up hurting Muslims more than it helped them. What do you do, for example, to prevent people—notably women—from being ‘coerced’ into using a system in which they might run the risk of unfair treatment? And what do you do when your religious law comes into conflict with established civil law? (And it is important to note that this is not just a Muslim concern; Jews, especially of the more Orthodox varieties, have many of the same problems with their own shadow court system, especially with the agunah problem).

Of course, there are no easy answers here: after all, this is one of the central post-Enlightenment questions in the Western world. But hopefully the current case of Dr. Williams can provide another data point and perspective in the current conversation, if we can get past the stupidity and sensationalism brought about by the media.