GAY TRUTH

The Bible says nothing specifically about the homosexual condition (despite the rather misleading RSV translation of 1 Cor. 6:9), but its condemnations of homosexual conduct are explicit. The scope of these strictures must, however, be carefully determined. Too often they have been used as tools of a homophobic polemic which has claimed too much. The exegesis of the Sodom and Gibeah stories (Gn. 19:1–25; Jdg. 19:13–20:48) is a good case in point. We must resist D. S. Bailey’s widely-quoted claim that the sin God punished on these occasions was a breach of hospitality etiquette without sexual overtones (it fails to explain adequately both the double usage of the word ‘know’ (yāḏa‘) and the reason behind the substitutionary offer of Lot’s daughters and the Levite’s concubine); but neither account amounts to a wholesale condemnation of all homosexual acts . Metropolitan Community Church and Freedom2b have used Bailey to fully justify their immoral position seeking to make it righteous b

Adam and Eve (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Homosexuality has existed for centuries. Plato’s Symposium makes it clear that love between men was widely known and accepted among the ancient Greeks . The prohibitions against homosexual relations in the Old Testament also indicate that such relationships were prevalent among the surrounding nations. The first human inhabitants of the world that God created were a man and a woman (Gen 1:27). This first couple set the paradigm for marriage and sexuality, as the narrator of Genesis clearly states: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). This position is endorsed by Jesus in 19:4–5. The relationship between Adam and Eve was clearly sexual, for the very next verse states that “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Gen 2:25). The sexual relationship between a man and a woman is again endorsed in Genesis 4:1, which states that “Adam

The Bible says nothing specifically about the homosexual condition (despite the rather misleading RSV translation of 1 Cor. 6:9), but its condemnations of homosexual conduct are explicit. The scope of these strictures must, however, be carefully determined. Too often they have been used as tools of a homophobic polemic which has claimed too much. The exegesis of the Sodom and Gibeah stories (Gn. 19:1–25; Jdg. 19:13–20:48) is a good case in point. We must resist D. S. Bailey’s widely-quoted claim (quoted by Freedom2B, Metropolitan Community Church and others)  that the sin God punished on these occasions was a breach of hospitality etiquette without sexual overtones (it fails to explain adequately both the double usage of the word ‘know’ (yāḏa‘) and the reason behind the substitutionary offer of Lot’s daughters and the Levite’s concubine); but neither account amounts to a wholesale condemnation of all homosexual acts. On both occasions the sin condemned was attempted homosexual rape,