by Kerby Anderson

In a recent column, Mollie Hemingway documents that “religious illiteracy among journalists is reaching crisis levels.” She mentions a column from a number of years ago by Terry Mattingly with the title, Reporters, crow’s ears, and Karma Light nuns that provides some humorous examples of reporters who obviously know nothing about Christianity in general or Catholics in particular. She also reminds us of reporters who thought Jesus was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and that Easter marks the time when Jesus was resurrected into heaven.

We may merely shake our heads at such illiteracy, but we should be concerned with the latest claim made in the pages of the New York Times. Jeremy Peters wrote about the political divide on gay rights because of the shooting in Orlando. He then goes on to talk about a member of Congress who supposedly read a Bible verse from the book of Romans “that calls for the execution of gays.”

Even someone with just a Sunday school understanding of the Bible knows that is not what the Apostle Paul is calling for in the book of Romans. In order to back up such an outrageous claim, Peters links to a story from Roll Call that makes the same claim. The Congressman mentioned in the article actually read from Romans 1 and a few verses from the Book of Revelation. These verses do not call for the execution of gays.

By the way, if you are looking for any religious works that do call for the execution of homosexuals, you might look at another religion. Andrew McCarthy recently wrote a piece with the title: Killing Homosexuals Is Not ISIS Law, It Is Muslim Law. He takes the time to quote from the classic sharia manual (Reliance of the Traveller) to show that killing homosexuals or adulterers is commanded. He then quotes extensively from one of Sunni Islam’s most influential sharia jurists.

Apparently journalists who want to find a religious text that justifies killing gays have been looking in the wrong place.