How to respond to Bible versus that “condemn” homosexuality

Often times, members of the religious right turn to the Bible to prove being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is a sin. They can site verse after verse. But there’s always two sides to every story. Below, experts from the Colorados LGBT-inclusive Christ community respond with their own interpretations of “clobber verses.”

Genesis 19:1-5

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”

 “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”

 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

Fr. Don Sutton, Catholic Pastor of Saint Paul Lutheran and Catholic Community responds: 

What does this story say about homosexual orientation as we understand it today? Nothing. This story is really about power and revenge as the men of the town attempted a gang rape of the visitors–an especially heinous act to visit upon visitors who were supposed to be the recipients of hospitality.

Leviticus 18:22

Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

The Rev. Kevin R. Maly, PhD, Lutheran Pastor of Saint Paul Lutheran and Catholic Community responds: 

The Leviticus passages clearly indicate that the ancient Hebrews regarded same-gender sexual intercourse taboo. So, how will we regard these and other taboos? Martin Luther, for example, was of the opinion that while there are certainly ethical principles in the Hebrew scriptures that can be seen as universal, such as the commandments against murder, theft, greed, slander, and marital infidelity, much of the Hebrew legal code is culturally bound. The early church concluded that dietary taboos were not binding upon believers. The same is true of the commands regarding male circumcision which the Hebrew scriptures regarded as inviolable. Lending money at interest is forbidden in the Hebrew scriptures, and while the early church held firm to that commandment, eventually the church abandoned it. The truth is that every strand of Christianity picks and chooses which principles are binding and which are not. We hear Jesus doing this. The apostle Paul certainly does this. Paul goes so far as to state that while nothing is in itself clean or unclean, not all things are helpful. So in many strands of Christianity, the question is, “What is for the good of the neighbor?” The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)’s social teaching statement on human sexuality notes that it is not good for a person to be alone, and that committed, stable, monogamous relationships between equal, mutually consenting adults, lived out in the structure of family and community, work toward building up the common good and the good of individuals. Concern for the neighbor, therefore, overrides the Levitical taboos surrounding same-gender sexual intercourse, even while establishing an ethical norm that decries using other people as sexual objects and that commends mutual, monogamous, committed, life-long relationships as the most desirable context for exercising the gift of intimate sexuality. That same concern for the neighbor also allows advocacy for laws that establish equal protection, rights, and responsibilities for both same-gender and opposite-gender couples and their families.

I Corinthians 6:9-10

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Pastor Jim Burns, MCC of the Rockies responds: 

This passage, like a similar passage in 1 Timothy, is a clear example of mis-translation. The phrase translated as ‘men who have sex with men’ consists of two Greek words. The first, aresnokoites, is an extremely rare word that cannot be translated with any degree of certainty. The second, malakos, is a common word that means ‘soft.’ It is the same word that is found in Matthew 11:8–’What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes?’ In the 1 Corinthians passage, it probably meant something like ‘moral laxness,’ but the word has no sexual connotation.

Speaking more generally, it is a mistake to pull a phrase or a verse out of the context of the entire scriptural witness. The Bible is a wonderfully rich record of how people over generations have experienced God. At many points, a new understanding has replaced an earlier one. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, and those of us who ‘take the Bible seriously but not literally,’ can in good faith use it as a moral resource in living a GLBT life.”

I Timothy 1:9-10

We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.

Pastor Betty Bradford, Highlands UMC responds:

Most of the later translations do not use the word “homosexuality,” but “sodomites,” which offers a very different understanding in today’s world.

The author of 1 Timothy is writing to clarify that faith in Christ defined as “sound teaching” is a firm foundation for those who are new seekers to the faith. Today, the category of lawlessness the writer refers to as “sodomites” is a focus of religious debate. Over the years, other traditional “sound teachings,” mainly put forth by Paul, have come into question and debate in the Church. The exclusion of women in leadership roles of the church and, of course, the perverseness of slavery have been found not to be sound teachings at all. Today, Christians must grapple with the broader theme of love and acceptance put forth by Jesus, and a changing understanding of the complexity of human sexuality.

If we are open to the Spirit’s leading, we can focus with clear eyes on the message at the heart of the gospel. We, like the early believers, are called to struggle with an openness of faith and Christ’s command to “love the neighbor as ourselves”–a sound teaching for all times and places.

Romans 1:24-26

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

Pastor Mark Tidd, Highlands Church, responds:

Context is everything. When we pull different verses out of the Bible to make our point now without first understanding what the point was then, we end up constructing our truths like a kidnapper’s ransom note. Even most conservative scholars acknowledge that when the Apostle Paul wrote to the first-century Christians living in Rome, he wrote to a people whose daily context meant they witnessed idolatry, fertility goddess worship, and shrine prostitution (same-sex relations with priests serving the goddess Cybele). For all of Rome’s many advances, few would deny that the excesses of its hedonism under the guise of pleasing the gods was rampant. To use Romans 1 to clobber couples like Jane and June or Bill and Bob is like using prohibitions against rape to describe couples like Mike and Mary.