Nathan Balan at NewsBusters reports that “On Tuesday’s CBS This Morning, Norah O’Donnell hounded popular Christian pastor Rick Warren over his support of defining marriage as being between one man and one woman. O’Donnell quoted the second greatest commandment of Christianity — ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ — to Warren as she asked, ‘Why do you oppose same-sex marriage?’”

Don’t you just love it when liberals quote the Bible — selectively? Of course, the devil also quoted the Bible. Like O’Donnell, the tempter referenced Jesus’ ability to do something He could do and quoted verses out of context. Jesus could have turned stones into bread (Matt. 4:3); He certainly had the power to do so. We know that He made the blind see, the lame walk, and the dead live. He also turned a few loaves of bread and some fish into a feast for thousands. Doing it because Satan suggested it for an unrighteous purpose — that was the problem.

And Warren could support homosexual marriage in the same way that Jesus could stones into bread. But he can’t support homosexual marriage because he is bound, like Jesus, by “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (4:4; Deut. 8:3).

Loving your neighbor as yourself does not mean condoning everything your neighbor wants to do. What if your neighbor wants to divorce his wife or commit adultery? Does the command to love my neighbor as myself nullify God’s other commandments?

How does the writer of Ecclesiastes conclude his advice to the weary and perplexed?”

“The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (12:13–14).

The same Jesus who commanded that we love our neighbors as ourselves also said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE [Gen. 1:27; 5:2], and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH [Gen 2:24]’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matt. 19:4–6).

The definition of marriage is “male and female,” not male and male and female and female. Marriage from the beginning was between one man and one woman (Gen. 2:24).

The chapter where Jesus reiterates the biblical definition of marriage found in Genesis, the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is also found (Matt. 19:19). Jesus was quoting from Leviticus 19:18, a verse that is located between Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, two verses that prohibit homosexual relationships.

It’s unfortunate that Rick Warren didn’t make this biblical argument. It would have been a perfect opportunity to set her straight.