Homosexuality As an Abomination: Moral or Ceremonial Uncleanness?

  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 bloodguiltiness is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13) (emphasis added)

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 refer to homosexuality as an abomination, a detestable act. Both passages use the Hebrew word toevah, and the context demands that the word be understood as referring to that which is morally unacceptable to God. 

However, revisionists who contend that the Bible does not prohibit all forms of homosexuality, declare that the word toevah actually refers to some manner of ritual or religious uncleanness and not moral defilement; they argue that the word speaks solely of ceremonial defilement.

By choosing such a definition, without regard to the context, however, the revisionists unwittingly reveal some level of recognition between the moral and ceremonial aspects of God’s law. In order to dismiss Leviticus from the current discussion on homosexuality, they vigorously strive to place the prohibitions of Leviticus against the practice into the ceremonial category, thus reducing them to an exclusively Jewish issue. 

Late homosexual author John Boswell represented this viewpoint.

  The Hebrew word toevah, here translated “abomination,” does not usually signify something intrinsically evil, like rape or theft (discussed elsewhere in Leviticus), but something which is ritually unclean for Jews, like eating pork or engaging in intercourse during menstruation, both of which are prohibited in these same chapters. It is used throughout the Old Testament to designate those Jewish sins which involve ethnic contamination or idolatry and very frequently occurs as part of the stock phrase toevah ha-goyim, “the uncleanness of the Gentiles” (e.g., 2 Kings 16:3).
  Chapter 20 begins with a prohibition of sexual idolatry almost identical with this, and like 18, its manifest (and stated: 20:3–4) purpose is to elaborate a system of ritual “cleanliness” whereby the Jews will be distinguished from neighboring peoples. Although both chapters also contain prohibitions (e.g., against incest and adultery) that would seem to stem from moral absolutes, their function in the context of Leviticus 18 and 20 seems to be as symbols of Jewish distinctiveness.
  In the Greek, then, the Levitical enactments against homosexual behavior characterize it unequivocally as ceremonially unclean rather than inherently evil.

More recently, Roman Catholic priest Daniel Helminiak commented similarly.

  “Abomination” is a translation of the word toevah. This term could also be translated “uncleanness” or “impurity” or “dirtiness.” “Taboo,” what is culturally or ritually forbidden, would be another accurate translation.
  The significance of the term toevah becomes clear when you realize that another Hebrew term zimah could have been used—if that was what the authors intended. Zimah means, not what is objectionable for religious or cultural reasons, but what is wrong in itself. It means an injustice, a sin.
  Clearly, then, Leviticus does not say that for man to lie with man is a sin. Leviticus says it is a ritual violation, an uncleanness; it is something “dirty.”

Such revisionist authors assert that toevah (abomination) does not refer to something that is “inherently” or “intrinsically evil, like rape or theft.” 

They want us to believe that toevah does not refer to that which is morally wrong; it is merely referring to some type of ritual uncleanness, a ceremonial impurity. Helminiak goes so far as to liken the usage of the word toevah to social indiscretions such as “picking one’s nose, burping, or passing gas,” showing himself to be guilty, either blindly or purposefully, of the malpractice in translation of designating such things as abominable when the Bible does not do so. 

The only way these revisionists can maintain their assertion that the Leviticus prohibitions of homosexuality are an exclusively Jewish (ceremonial) matter, something that pertained only to the Jewish religious and cultural environment of that day, is if their translation and interpretation of Leviticus is valid.

White, J. R., & Niell, J. D. (2002). The Same Sex Controversy: Defending and Clarifying the Bible’s Message about Homosexuality (pp. 235–238). Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.