This dissertation examines the citational use of the Judeo-Christian Bible in two sociopolitical debates within the United States: first, the debate over the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century, and second, the contemporary debate over gay rights. This study incorporates two core theses. First, I argue that the contemporary religious right, in its anti-gay use of the Bible, is replicating the hermeneutical practices used by opponents of the abolitionist movement. My second thesis parallels the first: I argue that the contemporary activists who reclaim the Bible as a pro-gay instrument are standing in the same hermeneutical tradition as nineteenth-century Christian abolitionists. This study is thus about the acts of interpreting texts and putting those interpretations to use in the public sphere.

The first chapter lays out the historical and conceptual groundwork for this study. Among the issues considered are the evolution of the biblical canon, the role of interpretive communities in biblical interpretation, and the matrix of human difference, privilege, and marginalization. The second chapter reviews more than thirty biblical passages used by anti-abolitionist activists in their public discourses. There is a comparative thrust to this chapter, because it juxtaposes this “slavemaster’s Bible” with the biblical passages used in anti-gay discourse. The third chapter is a comparative analysis of the biblical hermeneutics practiced by nineteenth-century abolitionists and contemporary pro-gay thinkers. In this chapter I identify seven general strategies which these two groups hold in common as each engages the biblical text. The fourth and final chapter considers the possible connections that link the hermeneutics of the American abolitionist and gay rights movements to three other currents of thought: first, the ubuntu theology of Desmond Tutu; second, the minjung theology of South Korea; and third, the philosophy of hermeneutics developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer. The study ends with a brief coda, which considers some of the political and cultural events of 2009 in light of the dissertation’s main ideas.