Boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao recently said that gays should be “put to death” in an interview with National Conservative Examiner, spurring a ban from an LA shopping mall, a giant wave of backlash, and most likely a lot of lost multi-million dollar sponsorships.
When asked about Obama’s recent a-OK’ing of gay marriage Pacquiao reportedly quoted Leviticus 20:13, which reads: ““If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
On one hand, it’s despicable that a public figure who so many looks up to has such a backwards way of looking at things. On the other hand, it’s good to know that he likes to read. People don’t read enough these days, ya know?
No word on whether Manny Pacquiao dislikes other things that are apparently sins in the eyes of God, such as eating shellfish (Leviticus 11:10), tattoos (Leviticus 19:28), having a flat nose or being blind (Leviticus 21:17), eating fat (Leviticus 3:17), misbehaving children (Deuteronomy 21:18), or having sex while on the rag (Leviticus 20:18).
We’ll keep you posted when he makes up his mind on those things, readers. In the meantime, here’s Manny in Cat Power‘s latest video for “King Rides By.”
Update: The writer of the article, freelance journalist Granville Ampong, is now backtracking and saying that Manny did not actually say that gays should be put to death.
May 16, 2012 at 10:13 pm, Jeremy Luna said:
It's just moronic Christians being Christian.
May 16, 2012 at 10:13 pm, Hńš Mrśtł said:
is amused with the writer's erratum. $uspi€ious.
May 16, 2012 at 10:25 pm, Scott Whitaker said:
What an asshole.
May 16, 2012 at 10:29 pm, Nick Young said:
Looking at the original article…the problem here is with the poor use of quotation marks by Ampong, the article's writer. If Pacquiao DIDN'T cite Leviticus, then Ampong should have been clear that the quotation marks surrounding the verse were in reference to the Biblical passage, not to a statement by Pacquiao. Not doing so leads to what we have here: the possible reading of that specific paragraph to indicate that the quoted verse directly relates to the first sentence of that paragraph, "Pacquiao's directive for Obama…"
I'm amused that Ampong is demanding that others apologize to him for taking him out of context. If only he'd used quotation marks correctly…
May 17, 2012 at 3:21 pm, Norm R. Allen Jr. said:
According to the latest news reports, Manny did not quote Leviticus to argue that homosexuals should be put to death. And in his latest remarks, he has repeated that he does not believe that homosexuals should be put to death. However, he is opposed to same-sex marriage.