A day after Nike ended its relationship with Manny Pacquiao for his recent anti-gay rant, the boxer posted on Instagram quoting a Bible verse that mandated gay people be put to death, according to various sources. The Instagram post quoted Leviticus 20:13, which says:
"If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
He has since deleted the Instagram post after it received at least 18,000 likes.
On one hand, at least Pacquiao is being honest and genuine with his embrace of the Bible. Most Christians pick and choose which parts they are going to embrace. Many of them even parse individual passages. Many Christians like Tony Dungy want to beat people over the head with the first sentence of that passage while conveniently ignoring the second sentence. So it's kind of nice to see a guy like Pacquiao not shy away from the entire passage, which makes murderers of Christians who want to persecute gay people.
On the other hand, Pacquiao is clearly utterly tone deaf on this issue. He hasn't gotten the message about where most of society is on this issue, and he likely doesn't much care. He's running for a Senate seat in the Philippines now that his boxing career is at its sunset, and this may play well there.
Though in an ideal world, Christians — charged with loving everyone — would reject the entire passage. There are far better words and ideas in the Holy Bible to focus on than this one.
