GAY TRUTH

As we consider the significance of Romans 1 for contemporary ethics, one view is that Romans 1 identifies a temporary Jewish purity rule rather than a universal moral principle. When Countryman makes that suggestion, he errs in reading the literary context. In this context, the passage, with its “nature” terminology, can be interpreted only as an appeal to creation.  The words of verses 26–27 are on the level of universal moral principle. Unless the writer signals a change in meaning, context will not allow a limited purity rule to be sandwiched between universal moral standards in verses 24–28. The first and the third of three parallel passages clearly are universal and deal with sin, not impurity. Note Paul’s warning that “God abandoned them” in vv. 24, 26, and 28. God cannot consign the Gentiles to punishment for breaking a Jewish purity rule. The literary form of Romans 1:1–2 also demands identification of homosexuality as sin. When Paul says that “God abandoned them,” the the...

Homosexuality seems to have existed more widely among the ancient Greeks than among any other ancient people. Excursuses 3 and 4 provide substantial quotations of Greek sources relating to the place and forms of homosexual behaviour. From those sources it is apparent that the predominant form of homosexuality was pederasty between men and boys.  The ethics of Greek love for boys was based upon “an aesthetic and religious foundation,” and it was sanctioned by the state. It was a supplement to marriage and an important factor in education, so it was decidedly bisexual.  Not surprisingly, women objected to such sexual diversions. Pederasty goes back forty-five hundred years in ancient Egypt and occurs in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Solon issued laws to prevent slaves from having connections with free-born boys. The rape of boys was an established “custom.” The Greeks even used boys for paying tribute.54 However, the Greeks knew and practised additional forms of same-gender behavi...

Rorate Caeli reported published a report from InfoVaticana yesterday morning showing that two Catholic bishops and a monsignor participated in a pagan ritual (venerating and praying to Pachamama) in a conference intended to prepare the way for Pope Leo’s trip to Peru this November. The initial story came from the Vatican News , and unsurprisingly, Vatican News omitted several key details. The event titled “Weaving Voices for Dignity: For Human Rights and the Common Good” was organised by three organisations: Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDDHH), Comisión Episcopal de Acción Social (Episcopal Commission for Social Action of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference), and Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras . I n addition to representatives from unnamed “social organizations, Indigenous peoples and communities, grassroots groups, leaders, and human rights defenders,” the list of participants in the event included Bishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of ...

The Dicastery for Culture and Education reaffirmed a 2019 Vatican document against modern gender theory in education but took no action against the controversial pro-LGBT program. Catholic parents who begged Pope Leo XIV to halt the implementation of pro-LGBT sex education in Hamburg’s Catholic schools received a brief Vatican reply reaffirming Church teaching on gender, but no direct intervention to stop the program. The pro-LGBT diocesan sex-education guidelines remain set to take effect on August 20. According to a report published by Italian outlet La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana , the Dicastery for Culture and Education responded to the parents’ complaint by pointing to a 2019 Vatican document which rejects modern gender ideology in education, but it did not announce any measure to stop the pro-LGBT Hamburg guidelines from being enforced in Catholic schools. The Vatican response was sent to Varinia Arauco, a Peruvian-born mother who wrote to Pope Leo XIV and other Vatican officials to...

  From the op-ed pages of the New York Times comes “ The Secret History of Leviticus ,” an improbable essay by Idan Dershowitz. A scholar of the Hebrew Bible and a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, Dershowitz has written for the Times a popular version of the academic argument he published recently in the journal Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel . The Book of Leviticus contains two prohibitions against homosexual acts, the first of which (18:22) states: “You shall not lie with a male as though lying with a woman; it is an abomination.” According to Dershowitz, “before Leviticus was composed, outright prohibitions against homosexual sex … were practically unheard-of in the ancient world.” But he proposes that “an earlier version of the laws in Leviticus 18 permitted sex between men,” albeit tacitly. Supposedly, the laws were revised by a later editor to include the prohibition, and to “obscure any implication that same-sex relations had once been permissible.” Dersh...