But you're still eating that good old pork barbecue.

That's what I want to say when people who have no business pulling out Bible scripture start pulling out Bible scripture.

Let me say I'm no theologian, would never profess to be one and am certainly not one to cast judgment on anyone, especially in matters of the spiritual realm.

This whole column comes about because I was curious, in the wake of Friday's decision that deemed North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, whether anyone locally had applied for a marriage license. I also received a phone call from someone saying it happened so I called the register of deeds office, got confirmation and posted a brief story.

The one thing I've learned in life is people tend to become dangerous when they resort to quoting scripture. Sometimes I think I'd rather be a passenger in a car with someone who would blow the Breathalyzer machine to smithereens than be subjected to someone who isn't even qualified to be a lay person try to be someone with a divinity degree from Duke or Princeton.

Yet you still love that lobster, love to let snotty-looking oysters slide down your gullet and can't get enough of that cockroach-looking shrimp, is what I was thinking, based on some of the comments that were coming in on our Facebook page.

Need I remind you, I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't believe the government should be meddling in the private affairs of consenting adults, collect taxes, be our moral compass and guide, but you've heard this song and dance from me in plenty of my columns. A refresher course, however, is never a bad a thing.

It got me thinking about the sheer hypocrisy of what I was seeing because that good old North Carolina barbecue, yes sir, that's some good eating, whether it's western or eastern style, there's nothing in scripture that says you shouldn't eat that. Or is it? I think there might be, or did you just decide to ignore that so you can slam someone's lifestyle choice but ignore the rest of it?

Well-meaning people use the Bible for just that reason, to justify their choices in life from one or two scriptures but conveniently throw the rest in the fire because it might not fit the choices they make in life even if the calendar clearly shows the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week — Saturday — and Sunday is merely the first day of the week.

Personally, I don't think it that's easy, throwing out the Old Testament and only embracing the New Testament, I don't think you can cherry-pick the Bible if you're going to follow it because one — you're not a theologian — and two — you're going to find it extremely difficult to walk that narrow road.

While you're casting judgment on someone's lifestyle choice while savoring the goodness of an unclean pig roasted in a homemade cooker, you might want to take a big swig of sweet tea to make sure you don't choke on it.

You're choosing to vehemently defend one scripture while using the rest to wipe the vinegar-based sauce from your chin, or is that tomato-based here, I'm not really sure, because I don't eat pork and try not to judge people's lifestyles.

Maybe the best guide in our spiritual life would be to follow the advice given in Matthew 25, probably, in my estimation, better than the Golden Rule.

It talks about the ones who think they have been good Christians all their lives, who daily use Joel Osteen and select Bible scripture as their social media statuses and tweets, but yet they failed to do one thing — care and tend to the needs of their fellow man.

Yet while steadfastly preaching from one text of the Bible, they judge, eat pork barbecue, worship on the wrong day and prosyletize that the tiny splinter in their friend's hand is worse than the rail spike sticking out of their own hand.

I won't cite the whole thing, let's just say the last part clearly says, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.”

That's probably cherry-picking on my part, but I'm not professing to know what is and isn't right and I'm not slopping down that good old barbecue while vilifying people for the choices they make in life — Lance Martin