2011-06-19
Explanation
This comic features a priest making a provocative theological argument. The priest declares, "Why would I be anti-gay? God specifically says gay sex is preferable." His shocked companion stammers, "W-what? Where?" Below the panel is a caption providing the punchline: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
The joke hinges on a deliberately cheeky reinterpretation of the Golden Rule. The priest takes "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and applies it with sexual literalness: if you are a man and you want certain sexual acts performed on you, then by the Golden Rule, you should perform those acts on others -- who, if you are a heterosexual man imagining what you'''d want, would logically also be men. The comic gleefully twists one of Christianity'''s most fundamental ethical teachings into an endorsement of the very thing many churches have traditionally opposed.
The votey extends the gag further. Someone brings up the standard anti-gay Bible citation -- "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman" (Leviticus 18:22) -- and the priest responds, "That'''s God recommending sodomy. Think about it." The logic here is that if you should not lie with a man "as" you lie with a woman (i.e., in the same way), then the passage is instructing you to have a different kind of sex with men -- specifically, the kind you would not have with women. It is another example of SMBC'''s fondness for taking religious texts at face value in unexpected ways to produce humorously subversive conclusions.