Like many Americans, I react to the issue viscerally. My other constraint as I approach this matter is that I am a believer who takes the Bible very seriously as a guide to faith and practice.

To dispense first with the legal issue, I don’t think there’s much room for the outlawing of same-sex unions.

I make no claims to being a legal scholar, but I simply don’t see how, in light of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection under law,” we can deny the same legal protections to gays and lesbians that we provide to heterosexuals, including the right to civil unions.

Besides, one of the hallmarks of American society since at least the 18th century is that we as a society – at least when we are listening to our better selves and adhering to the principles of our charter documents – go out of our way to protect the rights of minorities.

The attitude of the faith community is more vexed.

When I point out that Jesus himself had nothing to say about sexuality (although he said a good bit about money), someone occasionally replies that he affirmed the law, which includes the apparent Levitical proscriptions against homosexuality. True enough.

But what I find disingenuous on the part of those who use this to condemn gays and lesbians is that these same people appear to ignore some of the other proscriptions in the Levitical tables.

If you are going to take Leviticus as your warrant for condemning homosexuality, then it seems to me you should be prepared to advocate capital punishment for adultery and to enforce the prohibitions against wearing clothing with mixed fabric content and against the interbreeding of cattle – all of which appear in the same Levitical tables.

The issue here is what I have come to call the ruse of selective literalism.

Although Jesus says nothing about sexuality, for instance, he says a good deal about divorce – and none of it good. Yet the very people who condemn homosexuality often remain silent about divorce, even though the Bible has far more to say about the latter than the former.

Besides, anyone can quote scripture.

In the lectionary for this past Sunday, for instance, we find Satan quoting scripture to Jesus during his 40 days in the wilderness. The challenge for every believer, it seems to me, is finding the larger meaning in the words and the teachings of Jesus.

As I read the New Testament, Jesus is always tangling with the moralists of his day, those who had appointed themselves the guardians of the law and the arbiters of moral behavior. When Jesus heals on the Sabbath, for instance, they take him to task.

Finally, evidently tired of the logic-choppers, Jesus says, in effect, “Sure, I affirm your laws. But let’s ratchet it up another step. I can summarize all your laws with a two-part statement: Love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.”

As anyone who has ever tried will readily acknowledge, it’s far more difficult to obey Jesus’ version of the law than it is to observe every jot and tittle of the Levitcal laws.

Finally, I write as a recently ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, a denomination currently torn apart over the issue of the ordination of gay clergy and the ecclesiastical blessing of same-sex unions. I took a vow of obedience to my bishop, one that I take seriously and that I intend to honor.

Still, I have to believe that, with a graying constituency and churches hemorrhaging parishioners, we have better things to be obsessed about than who’s sleeping with whom. (If anyone’s interested in further thoughts on this issue – especially the behavior of the Virginia schismatics – I have a commentary in the February 2007 issue of “Episcopal Life.”)

Jesus calls us to an ethic of love. Although some believe that advocating the ecclesiastical blessing of same-sex unions of the ordination of gay clergy are radical ideas, I know of nothing – nothing – more radical than the ethic of love.