Feminist religion scholar Paula Cooey penned this piece for Religion Dispatches. Here's a snippet:
Bad Theology Leads to Bad Ethics
For my part, beauty pageants ceased to be of interest some time ago. In my opinion they are exercises in the banality of soft-core pornography; a feminist critique that appeared over thirty years ago. So it would normally be ridiculous to weigh in on this brouhaha, except that in this case the ethical and theological implications of opposition to same-sex marriage--always in the name of God and Christian faith--are horrible for those who don't agree with her position, at least some of whom understand themselves to be Christian.
Furthermore, the ironies and inconsistencies that riddle her claims and those of her defenders reveal a deep ambivalence toward human embodiment that extends, beyond the fatuousness of their assertions and their religious loyalties, to the culture at large. Of course, each citizen has guaranteed rights to religious expression and free speech, but what are the implications of what we express in terms of what we actually practice? And how do our practices affect one another? In the last analysis, this is a matter of bad theology and cultural hypocrisy leading to bad ethics.
Read the rest HERE.