Unfortunately, I mistook my filing deadline two weeks ago and was unable to respond to Claire Chretien’s throwback piece on this page titled “Same-sex unions not equal.” She was rebuffed in a letter to the editor by Bryan Martinez, in which he argued that homophobes are going extinct and was rightfully disemboweled in the comments section. I remarked last year that if you’re writing opinion pieces to make friends, you’re doing it wrong. I’m glad to finally find something Ms. Chretien and I agree on.

While I largely agree with his letter, Mr. Martinez has missed the benighted forest for the homophobic trees. Continued resistance to same-sex marriage and other steps toward full equality are not an isolated phenomenon. It is just the current lost cause in a long string of lost causes for which self-important busybodies insist on fighting.

Many have pointed out inconsistencies in Ms. Chretien’s reasoning, mostly the inconsistent application of the principle that all sex should be procreative sex. Ms. Chretien’s faith used to be consistent on these issues, of course. Conservative churches long opposed all sorts of fun, morally innocuous, non-reproductive behavior and practices not consistent with their idealized views of marriage.

However, the majority of their constituents are now straight people who adventure with sex, birth control or divorce, so most of these Christian sects have now performed an about-face, which I believe is specifically prohibited somewhere in Leviticus.

We should also not forget what the churches used to teach (and in some places still do) when they could get away with it. We should count ourselves lucky, I suppose, that the extent of conservative Christian preoccupation with sexuality usually falls short of the prescriptions of the Bible. Leviticus 20:13 sentences any two men who have sex with each other to death, and then, with all its tender mercy, blames them for the murder.

Let me forestall the claim that this is isolated to the Old Testament. I Corinthians 6:9 makes clear that, in the adorable phrasing of the King James Bible, “abusers of themselves with mankind” are unrighteous and shall not inherit the kingdom of God, and Romans 1:26-32 affirms the rectitude of the Old Testament’s proscriptions.

I have observed four approaches to dealing with this barbarism in the Bible. Some simply say that any book with such vile messages shouldn’t be appealed to as an authority on moral questions. Others adopt a liberal theology and rely on a personal sense of the divine for guidance, treating the Bible as a sort of living document which has different relevance in different time periods (which is similar to the only reasonable approach to the Constitution, but I’ll pick that fight later).

Still others double down and claim that the Bible means what it says and is infallible. And then, almost invariably, that person will eat a cheeseburger for dinner. They have read the Bible in much the same way that I read Madame Bovary.

Conservative churches take the most incongruous track, by citing scripture as an authority and then denying it the next. This is a symptom of a deep-rooted cognitive dissonance, for which I have sympathy. Ms. Chretien and her fellow believers are far more moral than the myriad authors and redactors of the Bible. Thus they must compromise by blocking the rights of others but do it with a smile and a secular but equally asinine argument. “Less brimstone, more incorrect assertions about the history of marriage rites” seems to be the PR strategy.

While this is certainly an improvement, I anxiously await the day when my fellow global citizens will think more critically about morality and jettison at least a few more Bronze Age superstitions. Ms. Chretien suggests that liberals will call her a “hateful bigot.” I do not think that term applies as such. I think that Ms. Chretien’s bigotry is a function of a deep confusion about morality, not necessarily hatred. Hopefully she is redeemable.

Brad Erthal is a graduate student in finance.