In "Letters" July 25, 2007, Paula James used the Old Testament to justify keeping homosexual couples from enjoying the same legal rights as other loving couples though Civil Unions. She defends this discrimination by saying it is not bigotry, it is just what "Christians who uphold entire Bible" are required to do.

She is entitled to her beliefs, but eating shellfish is an abomination. Leviticus 11:10. I do not know if it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. Leviticus 18:22.

Those who work on the Sabbath should be put to death. Exodus 35:2. I do not know if that is the Jewish Sabbath or the Christian Sabbath, maybe both? You cannot light a fire on the Sabbath. So, we must all turn off our gas or oil furnaces, and just use electric heat.

We may own slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations of from strangers. Leviticus 25:44. Selling a daughter into slavery is sanctioned. Exodus 21:7.

There should be no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual "uncleanliness." Leviticus 15:19-27. And men are forbidden from trimming the hair around their temples or from shaving. Tattoos are out too. Leviticus 19:28.

Any farmer who plants two different crops in the same field should be should be stoned to death. Leviticus 19:19. Likewise, a person who wears garments made of two different kinds of thread (say a cotton/polyester blend). Leviticus 19:19.

I support anyone's right to believe in a religion or no religion. They may even believe that their religious text is inerrant. But, I do not want the civil laws we live under set by any of those religions.

Let the civil law give us the most freedoms possible, and let our own moral compass decide what we do within that framework. (I would exclude the owning of slaves and the selling of a daughter into slavery from this list.) But, let us not use anyone's religion to stifle the civil ceremony between to people in love.

Eric Dickman

Burien