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 A Michigan gay Christian is suing two Bible publishers over verses labeling homosexuality a sin and causing him emotional pain and estrangement from his family.
However, plaintiff Bradley LaShawn Fowler, 39, may have more chance of walking on water than extracting the A$62.4 million he is seeking from Zondervan Publishing and A$12.4 million from Thomas Nelson Publishing.
Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr. has refused to appoint a lawyer to represent Fowler in his case.
"The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims," the judge wrote.
Fowler claims Zondervan's Bibles have made him an outcast from his family, contributed to physical discomfort and caused periods of "demoralization, chaos and bewilderment”.
In his suit against Zonderan, Fowler wrote that the publisher intended to manipulate a sacred document in order to cause "me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence... including murder".
He claims both publishers made revisions to a passage in 1 Corinthians that has been used to condemn homosexuals as unworthy of heaven.
Since 1970, the Bibles have changed the translation of the critical word from “effeminate” to “homosexuals” and “sodomites” in 1982, and then to “men who have sexual relations with other men” in 2001.
Fowler, an ex-convict who converted to Christianity in prison and is now a member of the Christian Writers Guild, has previously written a book, 365 Reasons to Study the Bible.
On his blog, Fowler writes that the book exposes “hidden secrets bible publishers have fought- feverishly to keep hidden from the general public for centuries. An avalanche of secrets that are keeping millions around the world enslaved today".
"Discovering how much the bible has been changed through man's decisions and incorrect interpretations was hard to accept" but "proves we all have been strung along, foolishly, lost in the essence of our minds."
However, a spokesperson for publisher Zondervan has told US TV that Fowler is suing the wrong people because the company doesn’t translate the Bible or own the copyright to any of the translations. Rather, it relies on the "scholarly judgment of credible translation committees”.
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