Wow, what a timely topic, huh?

Tl;dr, the Bible never condemns LGBTQ people and it is our Christian duty to accept, affirm, and embrace our LGBTQ neighbors. Happy Pride!

About the Bible and gay people, again

It feels like I have to go over this every day, so here we go.

Leaving aside the fact that 100% of modern Christians don’t follow the law in Leviticus—and will often go to the mat arguing why it no longer applies to us, because we’re under a new covenant, and yes I mean SAINT PAUL HIMSELF said we don’t have to keep that law…

The passage in Leviticus is not referring to modern notions of homosexuality (which did not exist at the time), but of compromising a man’s sexual agency and dominance over women. 

The practices it condemned were 1) use of penetration to humiliate and demean a man, 2) pederasty (ie what we understand today as SA of a male child).

It is not about modern homosexuality, which again, wasn’t even conceptualized at the time. That term doesn’t appear in the text until 1948.

And even if you’re going to ignore the Hebrew, the context, the logic, the analysis… even if that went entirely over your head or you don’t find that convincing… you’re still looking at the Bible for excuses to hate a whole subset of people you find icky. 

You are blaming your petty bigotry on God. And that’s blasphemous.

Do you really think, when you stand before Jesus for judgment, that he’s going to say “sorry, you didn’t sufficiently HATE gay people”?

Or is he going to say, “as you did to the least of these, so you did to me—begone, I never knew you”?

Don’t be a goat.

Choose to be a better person.

…

Some common questions:

Is it about assaulting young boys or is it about patriarchy?

It is about both.

The primary intention of the passage was to prevent men’s sexual agency from being diluted, as it was assumed that being penetrated would do.

The example they would contextually have understood was pederasty, ie the common practice in the ancient world of adult men “initiating” adolescent boys into the ways of manhood. Which we today see (rightfully) as child abuse.

It has nothing to do with a homosexual orientation, which wasn’t even a concept to people back then. They thought it was weird so came up with all kinds of myths about what men might want to have intercourse with other men, and none of them were “that’s their sexual orientation.”

Basically, the passage is not about being gay or doing gay things. It is about abusing people in what was, at the time, considered a highly demeaning, anti-male way.

But the Bible Says “Man with Mankind” or “Homosexuality”

No it doesn’t, that’s a mistranslation. The phrase “Man with Mankind” dates to the King James Version, which was released in 1611, and the word “homosexuality” was added in 1946 in the RSV.

The original text says, more directly, “If a man lies with a male as with a woman…” using two different words for “man” and “male.” That’s because they weren’t referring to men generally with “male” but to very young men, ie pederasty, like I said before. Don’t rape boys.

But Paul said no “effeminate”/“homosexual” men…

Seriously, this again? Sigh.

Paul was clearly hung up on a lot of things, including a decided disgust with all things sexual. He advised people not to get married, you know—and only do it if you couldn’t hack celibacy and needed to “indulge your urges.” Sounds like a modern closeted pastor to me.

But remember, he’s referring to the Old Testament, specifically Leviticus. He didn’t even have access to the New Testament, which wasn’t written until AFTER his letters.

So he’s using the same source. Which wasn’t about gay people QED.

But it’s called Sodomy!

Incorrectly, as it happens.

Ezekiel 16:49-50 directly tells us that the sin of Sodom was INHOSPITALITY. It’s right there in the text. And the “sexual morality” mentioned there is “trying to rape angels/foreigners in the street,” not the fact that those angels/foreigners may have been man-shaped.

Simple critical analysis. Read your Bible. Sheesh.

“But being trans is a sin!”

No, the Bible never suggests anything of the sort, and only tangentially addresses people outside the gender binary.

Jesus says there are “eunuchs from birth” and he’s completely fine with eunuchs following him. (Not saying a eunuch is in the LGBTQ—only saying it’s tangentially connected in that these were people outside the binary.)

The Bible never mentions lesbians or genderqueer people, just like it never mentions helicopters or email. These are evolved concepts that didn’t exist at the time. Sure, there were people attracted to people of a similar gender to their own, but they were not recognized by society as a distinct group.

Also, being trans has nothing to do with sex, and isn’t that the core of your objection to gay people? A lot of trans people are straight, and yet STILL you’re spun up about this.

Stop scapegoating yet another minority for the sake of your own authoritarian identity politics. Choose Christ, not Trump.

But Jesus said one man and one woman!

Jesus was talking about divorce.

Polygamy was highly normalized in Biblical times. The scribes of the OT and probably the NT had multiple wives. Numerous Bible stories depict plural marriages and concubinage.

No one in the Bible ever advocated for one man and one woman marriage.

But but but…

No, man, give it a rest.

Stop looking to the Bible for reasons to hate people, and start practicing the love of our neighbor that Jesus preached.

That’s it.

Happy Pride!

Further reading:

Advice for Unclobbering, by Rev. Doug Hagler, First Presbyterian Church of Phoenixville, 2023-2026