I tweeted a link to this article at the Onion God clarification.
I wanted to put a comment after the letter, but, so far as I can see, you can't comment on an Onion article. That's a bit surprising, but I suppose they get too many crazies.
Anyway, I do like this article. It does mostly reflect the way I see God.
The Onion is uniquely situated to issue this type of article, without qualifying it with something like "I believe God wants ...." They can just baldly assert that "He" actually had a press conference.
I'm pretty sure they would, if necessary, issue another article where "He" makes some qualifying statement about "his" gender. I personally find the assertion that God has gender baffling. Surely God: can appear as whatever God chooses; does not always choose to appear human and with gender; and does not have fixed divine genitalia floating out somewhere in outer space?
There is just one point that I want to address here and that has to do with identifying elements of scripture as being due to human error.
I prefer the interpretation which Baha'ullah gave. He said that scripture was issued with a message to people in a particular time and place. Taking it out of context in another time and place can yield results that were not intended at the time.
Thus, in particular, with respect to the teachings against same sex relationships in the Bible, I believe that they were intended to address marital infidelity. The "do not lie down with a man as with a woman," implies that this person is doing both. I don't think, at the time, people were really thinking about people who might want to marry someone of the same sex. I doubt that occurred to anyone, so people saw no need to address that issue.
