Homosexuality and the Bible
From John Lee, Johannesburg:
In response to Joseph Williams, “Are gay parishioners welcome?” (August 18), my experience over many years has been that gay people, who comprise at least 10% of the population, are generally very active and certainly welcome and numerous in our Catholic parishes.
Homosexuality — a genuine preferential attraction to people of one’s own gender — is like heterosexuality: a natural and normal variant of human sexual make-up. It is not something one chooses, as the uninformed imagine. The attraction forms long before puberty, the earliest experiences of the young child.
No single factor causes a particular orientation. Even in today’s world of changing attitudes, gay men and women often lead lives of quiet desperation and anxious secrecy. Who in their right mind would choose a “lifestyle” fraught with such rejection and discrimination?
In a darker age they would have been burned at the stake by the Catholic inquisition. In more recent times, gay men and women have been gassed in Hitler’s concentration camps.
Most experts agree that the condition is as irreversible as heterosexuality. The condition is not a sickness; therefore the attraction itself cannot be sinful.
What does the Bible say? Neither the actual narrative concerning Sodom and Gommorah (Gen 19:1-29), nor the preceding references, demand that the immediate sin of the Sodomites was sexual, let alone homosexual in nature.
The Hebrew word yadha—to know—also means to observe, so it is more reasonable to think that “the two strangers” were considered spies for neighbouring enemies. On 15 occasions elsewhere, another word, shakah, describes homosexual relations in Scripture.
Today’s biblical scholars see the subject of the Sodom story as one of gross inhospitality. The offer of Lot’s daughters is a possible diversion to avoid the sacred duty of hospitality, which was more important than the honour of Lot’s daughters. In any event, Lot must have been incredibly stupid to offer his daughters if the intent of the men was homosexual rape! No references to Sodom is given in any of the Old or New Testament texts prohibiting same-sex vices, whether in Leviticus, Romans, 1 Corinthians or 1 Timothy. Jesus refered to Sodom only in the context of inhospitality. It was only in later centuries that the idea of same-sex rape came into the Sodom episode.
True, homosexual acts are condemned by the Bible. In the same chapters of Leviticus, marital relations during the menstrual period are prohibited; celibacy is seen as abnormal. Nudity is judged reprehensible even in the presence of one’s family, yet polygamy and concubinage are regularly allowed among the Hebrews. They could not eat rabbit or ham, nor cut their hair or wear fabrics of blended materials. Men could not clip their beards and women could not don male attire, nor could farmers plant two types of crops in a single field. All these were described as abominations. Looked at today, we can see that many of these prohibitions were culturally conditioned.
Scripture is full of close, intimate, same-sex relationships. Ruth made an extraordinary commitment with Naomi, even after death to lie inseperably by her side. David asserted that his love for Jonathan was for him “more wonderful that the love of a woman” (2 Sam 1:26). St Aelred of Rievaulx, who was undoubtedly gay, idealised same-sex attachements.
Why are these examples in scripture? For our edification and to approve, encourage and even praise multiple variants in human relationships.
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