Speaking of loopholes, Reverend Tim LaBouf doesn't think there are any which allow women to teach men, so he fired an 81-year-old female Sunday school teacher:

Watertown First Baptist Church Pastor Tim LaBouf, also a city council member in Watertown, N.Y., said women could fulfill any role or responsibility they wanted to -- outside the church.

"My belief is that the qualifications for both men and women teaching spiritual matters in a church setting end at the church door, period," LaBouf said in a statement on the church Web site (http://www.nnyinfo.com/firstbaptist).

LaBouf and the church board fired Mary Lambert, 81, earlier this month in a letter that cited the scriptural qualifications for Sunday School teachers, Lambert said.

"They quote First Timothy Two, 11-14: A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent," Lambert said, reading from the letter.

But I really should leave animal morality to animals and stick to humans. I wasn't sure whether the passage from Timothy meant women should only be barred from teaching Sunday School, or whether they shouldn't be allowed to teach anything, so I went to Reverend LaBouf's web site, where he defends the decision and quotes from the Board's decision that "the scriptural rules concerning women teaching men in a church setting was only a small aspect of that decision."

Only a small aspect? Of what? Of other aspects? I thought I should look at the entire quote from 1 Timothy 2:9-15

9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; 10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. 15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (KJV)

Why that sounds almost like Communism! Or other mean religions.

Aside from selectively picking and choosing (which would allow the above to be simply ignored at will), aren't there any loopholes anywhere?

Well, I guess there's always the option of arguing over the proper context.

Or maybe not taking the Bible too literally.

(By definition, though, that's not an option for literalists.)