{"id":981,"date":"2015-06-26T10:19:20","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T14:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/?p=981"},"modified":"2016-01-21T23:14:18","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T03:14:18","slug":"quantifying-how-people-cite-the-bible-in-the-same-sex-marriage-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/2015\/06\/quantifying-how-people-cite-the-bible-in-the-same-sex-marriage-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Quantifying how people cite the Bible in the same-sex marriage debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent New York Times<\/i> feature discusses how evangelicals<\/a> interpret a few Bible passages in support of or against same-sex marriage. The pro-con format of the Times<\/i> feature supplies anecdotes, but it doesn’t answer the question of how people are applying the Bible to the debate on a wider scale. For that, we have to turn to data.<\/p>\n

This site has a topical Bible<\/a> that allows people to vote on and suggest Bible verses they think are relevant to a particular topic. Since 2007, the topics of homosexuality<\/a>, same-sex marriage<\/a>, and gay marriage<\/a> have received over 30,000 votes across 940,000 pageviews, providing a reasonably broad window into the passages that people–largely evangelical Christians–apply to the debate.<\/p>\n

The statistical patterns of these 30,000 votes reveal sixty Bible passages that commonly enter the discussion, falling into ten thematic clusters:<\/p>\n

\"Statistical<\/a>
\nThis chart shows the strongest statistical connections among the ten clusters.<\/p>\n

Three of these clusters are used against same-sex marriage: nineteen passages about sexual immorality<\/a> (the largest cluster), four relating to the Old Testament Law<\/a>, and three about man and woman becoming one flesh<\/a> in marriage.<\/p>\n

Four clusters are used to justify acceptance (or at least tolerance) of same-sex marriage: seven passages about loving your neighbor<\/a>, five about David and Jonathan<\/a>, four about not judging<\/a>, and four about valuing eunuchs and the childless<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The final three clusters don’t deal directly with the topic: ten passages about living morally<\/a>, two about how everything has a purpose<\/a>, and two about Paul’s personal struggle with sin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We can also examine how the popularity of each cluster has changed since 2011:<\/p>\n

\"Topic<\/a>
\n(This chart uses a logarithmic scale to better distinguish the lower vote counts; the top lines have much higher vote counts than the lower lines.)<\/p>\n

This data is hardly scientific since it depends on visitors to a single website and doesn’t necessarily indicate culture-wide rhetorical shifts. With that caveat in mind, however, we can observe a few trends.<\/p>\n

First, the three clusters with the most votes are all against same-sex marriage. The “one flesh” cluster gained speed in March 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.<\/p>\n

Second, the three most-popular clusters in support of same-sex marriage started earning substantial numbers of new votes at the end of 2013, when Hawaii, Illinois, and New Mexico legalized same-sex marriage, and a judge ruled Utah’s ban unconstitutional. A Christianity Today<\/i> article from the time<\/a> indicates that at this point evangelicals started to recognize that same-sex marriage would probably become legal everywhere and began to change their rhetorical strategies. The above chart suggests a shift in tone at this time away from “do not judge” to “loving your neighbor” and applying to the debate passages about accepting eunuchs and the childless.<\/p>\n

Third, the chart shows a more-recent (and still nascent) rhetorical shift to comparatively ambiguous positions. The general command to “live morally” can apply to both sides of the debate, for example.<\/p>\n

These shifts are consistent with recent polls<\/a> that suggest opposition to same-sex marriage is softening among evangelicals. Just looking at the topical Bible vote counts above, in October 2013, 95% of votes were for passages used against same-sex marriage; by May 2015, this percentage had fallen to 72%.<\/p>\n

These trends suggest to me that many people who use Bible verses in the debate are adapting to a shifting rhetorical landscape. They’re attempting to discern how the Bible can remain relevant to the conversation and are in turn changing the mix of passages they cite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent New York Times feature discusses how evangelicals interpret a few Bible passages in support of or against same-sex marriage. The pro-con format of the Times feature supplies anecdotes, but it doesn’t answer the question of how people are applying the Bible to the debate on a wider scale. For that, we have to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[29,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}