Dear Dr. Laura

I was talk­ing to one of you recent­ly and learned that you had­n’t seen it before, so I decid­ed that I must share it.

An open let­ter to Dr. Laura
by J. Kent Ashcraft
May 2000

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to edu­cate peo­ple regard­ing God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowl­edge with as many peo­ple as I can. When some­one tries to defend the homo­sex­u­al lifestyle, for exam­ple, I sim­ply remind him that Leviti­cus 18:22 clear­ly states it to be an abom­i­na­tion. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, how­ev­er, regard­ing some of the spe­cif­ic laws and how to best fol­low them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sac­ri­fice, I know it cre­ates a pleas­ing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The prob­lem is my neigh­bors. They claim the odor is not pleas­ing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daugh­ter into slav­ery, as sanc­tioned in Exo­dus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

c) I know that I am allowed no con­tact with a woman while she is in her peri­od of men­stru­al unclean­li­ness (Lev 15:19–24). The prob­lem is, how do I tell? I have tried ask­ing, but most women take offense.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed pos­sess slaves, both male and female, pro­vid­ed they are pur­chased from neigh­bor­ing nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mex­i­cans, but not Cana­di­ans. Can you clar­i­fy? Why can’t I own Canadians?

e) I have a neigh­bor who insists on work­ing on the Sab­bath. Exo­dus 35:2 clear­ly states he should be put to death. Am I moral­ly oblig­at­ed to kill him myself?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eat­ing shell­fish is an Abom­i­na­tion (Lev 11:10), it is a less­er abom­i­na­tion than homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. I don’t agree. Can you set­tle this?

g) Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear read­ing glass­es. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wig­gle room here?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, includ­ing the hair around their tem­ples, even though this is express­ly for­bid­den by Lev 19:27. How should they die?

i) I know from Lev 11:6–8 that touch­ing the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play foot­ball if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He vio­lates Lev 19:19 by plant­i­ng two dif­fer­ent crops in the same field, as does his wife by wear­ing gar­ments made of two dif­fer­ent kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blas­pheme a lot. Is it real­ly nec­es­sary that we go to all the trou­ble of get­ting the whole town togeth­er to stone them? (Lev 24:10–16) Could­n’t we just burn them to death at a pri­vate fam­i­ly affair like we do with peo­ple who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have stud­ied these things exten­sive­ly, so I am con­fi­dent you can help.

Thank you again for remind­ing us that God’s word is eter­nal and unchanging.

Your devot­ed dis­ci­ple and ador­ing fan.