Actors, including Chicago native and DePaul University alum John C. Reilly, are speaking out against the gay-marriage ban passed in California last month.  Or rather, they’re singing out.  With choreography.  And jazz hands.

“Prop.8: The Musical,” posted at video site FunnyorDie.com, features Reilly and actress Allison Janney as conservative Christians; Jack Black as Jesus; and Maya Rudolph and Margaret Cho among the colorfully clad “gays and people who love them.”

Created by composer Marc Shaiman and director Adam Shenkman of “Hairspray,” this three-minute comedy compares Bible-based arguments against homosexuality to other Old Testament restrictions that have gone by the wayside—like Leviticus’ restriction against eating shellfish.

Although this line of reasoning may seem silly when funnyman Jack Black is standing on stage in a fake beard holding a glass of shrimp cocktail, it’s something I often wonder as well. Why are some biblical rules maintained while others seem so obviously outdated?

I’m no religious leader or scholar, but I know the answer has to be complicated.  Not only did Jews have to revise their rules (yes, the Old Testament stuff was theirs) when the Temple was destroyed, but Jesus also cleared a lot of these distictions for Christians.  A section of Colossians called “Rules for Holy Living” reads:

Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all (Col. 3:11 in the New International Version).

Thousands of years later-- there's really little consensus.  The verses that many Christians opposing gay rights cite as biblical evidence are often the same as those used by pro-gay believers, who see them in a different context.  

The divide can certainly be seen right here in Chicago, home to the third-largest gay and lesbian community in the U.S.  Christian groups like the Episcopalian Chicago Consultation support gay rights on a religious basis, while nearby Naperville is home to one of the country's most outspoken opponants to gay rights, Americans for Truth.

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