A well-known Christian publisher in Grand Rapids, Michigan is facing a 60-million dollar lawsuit. 39-year-old homosexual activist Bradley Fowler is suing Zondervan, claiming the Bible has given him emotional stress and violating his constitutional rights. Fowler says Zondervan Bibles linked homosexuals with being unrighteous in 1st Corinthians 6:9, and he says that's made him an outcast in his family. Zondervan spokeswoman Terra Powers responds, by saying "Zondervan relies on the scholarly judgment of the highly-respected translation committees behind each translation and never altered the text of the translations they're licensed to publish." Powers says Zondervan only publishes credible translations produced by credible Biblical scholars. Fowler has also filed a ten-million dollar lawsuit against Tennessee-based Thomas Nelson Publishing.
Wow. Think of the possibilities. I wonder if this guy has though through all the ramifications if this goes to court . . . or if he knows it's going to get tossed out and is just trying to get attention.
I used to have this daydream that I would be able to sue the parents of the bullies who picked on my in Jr. High, which contributed to my low self-esteem issues that I was dealing with through college.
Hm, between Bradley and me, I just wrote an episode of Boston Legal!
Seriously, I feel for him. If he's an outcast in his own family because they believe the Bible, then they're reading it wrong.
Then again, I could sue the publishers of the Bible as well. It says, pretty explicitly, "No one is righteous." That would include me. And his family. Seems to me the guy should be suing his family. They're the ones who forgot that they're just as unrighteous as him, jumped on their high horse, and instead of, you know, loving him like they're commanded to, made him into a pariah.
(Really? You want to debate with me that they should treat him with love? You think they should treat him like an outcast? Hmmm, you might be on to something. Maybe they SHOULD treat him like an outcast . . . considering the way Jesus treated outcasts. You know, spending time with them and loving them. I went round and round with a guy about this, who was ina situation where someone had wronged him. He believed he had every right to "treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector", which is what Jesus said to do. But, the one problem with that argument was if you examined the way Jesus treated tax collectors and pagans: eating with them and spending time with them.)
(Full disclosure: I am published by Zondervan.)
UPDATE: Zondervan has not been served any papers. Thomas Nelson's lawsuit has already been thrown out of court by a judge who warned that, had a lawyer brought the case to him, said lawyer would be fined for a frivolous lawsuit.
~ Ben
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