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There is a mistake in the Christian community that assumes we, as Christians, are bound to the laws of the Old Testament. This is simply not true, we are bound by agape. Love God first, and love your neighbors as yourself.

It is not our duty to enforce rules on others. It is our duty to love others. Anything else is a perversion.

Frankly, I think everyone does at least some degree of "cherry-picking." It's just part of the human condition.

We're all going to approach scripture (or anything else, for that matter) from different points of view that are coloured by our upbringing, our culture, our various life experiences. We're much more likely to latch onto things that we can relate to, things that we feel apply to us personally, and things that justify our world views, and we're much more likely to dismiss things that we feel are less relevant to us personally.

Is it hypocritical to use Leviticus as an argument against same-sex marriage and/or relationships while ignoring the rest of it? Absolutely. Is it unusual? Not at all.

This is what I was trying to say, only far better-worded.

Personally, I feel that what's much more important than taking every word of the Bible literally (and out of historical context) and trying to live your life sola scriptura, is loving and cultivating a personal relationship with God, and acting out of empathy and compassion towards all other human beings. I'm sure there's a lot of people who would disagree with that statement, and that's fine, but personally, I'd rather live my life simply letting my love for God and my empathy towards my fellow man be the driving force dictating my behaviour that just adhering to a rigid set of moral guidelines that haven't changed in 2000 years.

I'm not saying I don't think scripture is important, just that I don't think the Bible is a literal handbook on how to live your life in modern society. Especially because even people who do claim to live sola scriptura...really don't. Like everyone else, they pick out what they like and discard what they don't. So I'd rather just bypass that hypocrisy all together.

1. Taking passages out of context is dangerous, and done by both Christians and non-Christians alike. Christians do it to prove their point (something doctrinal or dogmatic), and non-Christians do it to prove their point (smearing God's name).
2. Why use Leviticus when there are New Testament passages that talk about the same thing? If everyone has such a beef with the Old Testament, use the New Testament.
3. False Dichotomy brought up a very good point. Paul talks about how it is our place to judge only those inside the Church, while God judges those outside. (1 Cor. 5:12-13)

We must strive not to pick and choose passages. As I said, this is dangerous, and it is dangerous because it involves taking passages out of context and usually placing a flawed, human interpretation upon Scripture.