...I think the point of the author was that you also have to "cherry-pick" to condemn it.
...
No, that's easily done from a reading of the OT; there is no bones about it - it is considered wrong conduct. What is missed by the "cherry-pickers" is trying to negate it from the logically indefensible position that in the NT that Jesus never specifically condemned it. Doing so is a form of the faulty induction fallacy. OTOH, Jesus essentially validates the Levite proscription on adultery when, in the Gospel story of the woman caught in adultery, he does not accuse her but tells her to go and sin no more. At the same time, he unmasks the hypocrisy of the mob wanting to execute her.
In fairness, let me say that I have no more truck with allegedly Christian literalists who insist that they have a right to subjugate their wives and families because Paul told women to be subservient; they, too, are cherry-picking in order to rationalize their behavior.
Again, as I stated in earlier agreement with you, the religious issue needs to be kept out of the purely secular - rendering unto Caesar and to God respectively.
