I think what the argument (that the church has repeatedly used its favored interpretation of Biblical texts to support, at various times in history, different systems of oppression toward political and social minorities) is intended to bring to light isn’t an inconsistency in interpretation or reading of the text per se but rather an argument about the church’s general ethos in such matters.

More plainly put: given its history, even in recent years, of supporting systems of oppression rather than acting as a prophetic voice against them, until, really, it’s much too late, I am suspicious of the church’s motives and ability to act as an in-good-faith interpreter of the text at all, because history shows that the church’s favored readings of Biblical texts tend toward supporting the politics of conservative rich white males.
It has come to the point that when I hear any argument about social mores or politics coming from evangelical or post-evangelical circles I assume bad faith on the part of the theologian or author or pastor. That may not seem fair, but my experience has been that the theology and interpretive lens serve the worldly political projects of the speaker and his/her community, rather than some transcendent, kingdom-of-heaven-ly goal. (* this gets complicated — see below)
For example, the majority of the same voices that are anti-homosexual marriage *also* tend to read the Bible in such a way as to tone down or ignore altogether the communalist or socialist-leaning economic theologies in the Old and New Testaments.

That’s a different argument than the one you’re addressing here, which is about whether or not the same *logical* mistake is being made. It’s not. Each of these instances (regarding black people and slavery, regarding women, regarding gay people, regarding economics, etc) uses a completely different and unique interpretive mechanism. What’s similar about them is that they all consistently serve the political ends of political conservatives and neoconservatives. What it presents to the general public is a church that says whatever it will take to get at a certain set of end goals — a church that is willing to employ internally inconsistent interpretive logics if they will result in a particular kind of society. Like the person we all know who is willing employ great contortions in logic to hold to a particular idea or set of ideas.

The problem is that this makes them seem incredibly untrustworthy and desperate. To remix Samuel Johnson: “The Bible says so” is the last refuge of a scoundrel. If the *only* recommendation an idea has is that a small set of people believe the Bible commands it, I’m going to remain highly suspicious of both the idea and the small group promoting it, and if that small group also happens to be the same small group who used that same defense to promote *other* oppressive politics in the past, then I’m doubly suspicious.

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* Ok, so this is the complicated stuff, and maybe only interesting to some people, but, of course, i think that’s what we *all* do — create theologies ad hoc, after acting, in order to present narratives to ourselves and the world that makes our choices and projects seem desirable, sensible and coherent. So why do I think it’s bad that evangelicals tend to do this?
Mostly because their master narrative pretends that they *don’t.* The common assumption of most evangelical theologies and pastors is that their theologies exist outside the morally contingent set of circumstances that form the rest of our language-use. Whereas I’m perfectly willing to say that my preferred interpretive methods favor my personal idea of a good society and are employed toward that project, evangelicals tend to argue the opposite — that their theologies are mirrors to the natural and supernatural order or are closer to being such than anything offered up by their political/social/theological rivals.

It’d be better if they were honest about the whole thing : that they, like everyone else, uses language to get the things done they want in the world, and that their theologies exist to further their own temporal projects. But I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon.

How many times have you heard someone talk about X issue or passage in the Bible and ask “Is that what God wants for us or is it just ‘cultural’”? Think of discussions about women’s head coverings in 1 Cor 11, a passage that, interestingly, links the prescribed practice to “creation” (to use the categories often invoked in related debates). Both traditionalists and more progressive folks in the homosexuality debate tend to, at least tacitly, operate with this kind of assumption about the Bible and its authority. To the extent we demonstrate something to be “cultural” we somehow remove it from the “essence” of the Gospel or God’s ethics for us today.

We probably need to move beyond this way of construing the Bible’s authority. If only the “non-cultural” aspects of the Bible are authoritative or get us to the real deal of the timeless Gospel, then…well, there’s no Gospel or “authority” left in the way we evangelicals generally ponder these topics. Heck, Paul’s discourse about union with Christ is inseparably bound up with demonstrably “cultural” assumptions about science, what people are made of, and the structures of the universe (i.e., some of the “physics” of his time). We are united to Christ materially by his material pneuma. Paul’s hybrid of Stoic and middle-Platonic positions about physics and moral-psychology (“anthropology”) combined with his Hellenistic Jewish Apocalyptic positions are not some separable and secondary “cultural” element from some “non-cultural” and “timeless” notion about Uniion with Christ that Paul entertained separately.

This, btw, is where theological issues about the Bible and homosexuality raise their heads in a more profound way. Paul’s statements about “homosexuality” (and women for that matter) remain inseparably bound up with certain ancient Mediterranean notions about women, gender, masculinity, “physics,” and the like that NO ONE on any side of the theological debate wants to or will accept. This does not solve the theological debates, but it does, however, indicate a different level for them that we all should take seriously.

But no, I don’t see homoerotic stuff going on with David and Jonathan or Jesus and the disciples alone on the mountain or God and Moses or the rest. One reason I’m not able to affirm the “inclusive” position on homosexuality is that I see the biblical evidence as rather uniform and with no strong counter-indications.

I disagree. The very fact that we are having this conversation is proof to the contrary. There are ongoing conversations going on about the role of women in the church, drinking alcoholic beverages, sex, heaven, defining “The Gospel,” immigration, capitalism — all of these things are tied to the question of contextualization in some degree.

By your authority as a biblical scholar, do you assert that all possible texts in the bible condemn homosexuality?

I.e., David and Jonathan aren’t lovers, Moses and God aren’t engaging in gay sex on Sinai (see ‘rabbi Douglas Rushkoff), or whatever else someone comes up with.

http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Homosexual-Practice-Texts-Hermeneutics/dp/0687022797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279908197&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Homosexuality-Bible-Robert-J-Gagnon/dp/080063618X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279908197&sr=8-2