Leviticus is very clear on same sex sin
You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)
These verses are abundantly clear. Both passages unquestionably prohibit any type of same-sex intimacy and even prohibit the interest in same-sex intimacy. If God forbids certain deeds—declaring them sinful—we must necessarily conclude that the desire, the longing, or the interest in committing such deeds is sinful as well.
One cannot say that although the deed of murder is sinful, the desire to murder is morally (and scripturally) acceptable; therefore, from the outset, we can discard the attempted and unacceptable evasion that presents these passages as only dealing with homosexual acts and not with homosexual interest or desire.1 The Bible, particularly these passages in Leviticus, prohibits homosexuality in both deed and desire.
Due to their clarity, these passages from Leviticus lie at the heart of the same-sex controversy that has come upon the church. The clarity of these verses is even recognized by those who advocate homosexuality as a biblically acceptable practice. Daniel A. Helminiak, in What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality, after citing these Leviticus passages, admits, “This sounds pretty straightforward, and it sounds pretty bad.” Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, in Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? do not contest the clear import of these words: “Two Old Testament passages make explicit reference to homosexual acts.” John Boswell, in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, also acknowledges the Leviticus passages as prohibitions against homosexual behavior.
What do such revisionists do with these passages? How is it possible to avoid their clear teaching? We will see that the Leviticus passages in question are either rejected for present-day applicability or are revised with regard to their historic context.
White, J. R., & Niell, J. D. (2002). The Same Sex Controversy: Defending and Clarifying the Bible’s Message about Homosexuality (pp. 53–54). Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.
