Homosexuality and the Bible

I received an e-mail and decided to reprint it here:
Reprinted from Deacon Andy

Genesis
The creation story in Genesis includes: "God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: 'Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it"(1:27, 28). St. Thomas Aquinas in evaluating genital expression that could not conform to the procreative ordering of the natural finality of genitality wrote, "...a sin against nature in which the natural order itself is violated is a sin against God who is the creator of that order"(S. Th. I-II, Q. 154). It is clear that God created man and woman to complement each other, and to come together and multiply. Man lying with man and woman with woman is contrary to God's creative purpose.

In Chapter 18 of the Book of Genesis Abraham bargains with the Lord to try to save Sodom from destruction (18:22 -33). The two angels who had accompanied the Lord entered Sodom. Lot convinced the angels to stay in his house. In the evening after dinner “...all the townsmen of Sodom both young and old-all the people to the last man closed in on the house. They called out to Lot and said to him, ‘Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intimacies with them.”(19:4-5). Lot tried to reason with them even offering them his two virgin daughters, but they were not interested, they wanted to have “intimacies” with the two angels. We might consider it strange that Lot would offer his two daughters to the men of Sodom but one has to remember that desert hospitality at that time demanded that the host had to defend his guests at all costs. The angels protected Lot and hurried him and his family out of Sodom before it and Gomorrah were destroyed (19:16-25).

An argument used by the defenders of homosexuality is that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed not because of the lust of men for their own sex but because of the lack of Sodom’s hospitality, or because it was rapacious intent and not consensual sex. This is belied by scripture and, not the least, by the word “sodomy” which is derived from the common practice of the men of “Sodom.”

Leviticus
Chapter 18 of Leviticus emphasizes the sanctity of sex and points out the sexual practices which are abhorrent and an abomination to God. Among these is, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination” (18:22). The Lord’s admonitions to Moses goes on: “Do not defile yourselves by any of these things by which the nations whom I am driving out of your way have defiled themselves. Because their land has become defiled, I am punishing it for its wickedness, by making it vomit out its inhabitants. You, however, whether natives or aliens, must keep my statutes and decrees forbidding all such abominations by which the previous inhabitants defiled the land; otherwise the land will vomit you out also for having defiled it, just as it vomited out the nations before you “ (18:24-26).

It is clear from the foregoing, that homosexual practices, among other sexual disorders, defile the land. Such defilement would certainly be more serious if such practices are accepted, made equivalent to traditional marriage, and become the official law of the land. The "Life of the land is (must be) perpetuated in righteousness."

Chapter 20 of Leviticus indicates the penalties for various sins: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives” (20:13).

The supporters of homosexuality argue that such punishments found in the Old Testament are no longer followed by modern society and that change, they argue, also occurs in the acceptance of homosexual practice. While it is true that laws punishing sodomy have been eliminated in the U.S., this does not mean that such practice is considered normal and acceptable by most Americans. In any case the relativism that sets in a particular society, at a particular time, is not an acceptable teaching of the Church as we will see below.

Homosexuality in the New Testament
Following are quotations by St. Paul in Romans, 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy:

“In consequence, God delivered them up in their lusts to unclean practices; they engaged in the mutual degradation of their bodies, these men who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator- blessed be he forever, amen! God therefore delivered them up to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and the men gave up natural intercourse with women and burned with lust for one another. Men did shameful things with men, and thus received in their own persons the penalty for their perversity” (Rom 1:24-27) (Emphasis added).

“Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6; 9-10) (Emphasis added).

“...with the understanding that the law is not meant for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the unchaste, practicing homosexuals, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever is opposed to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted” (1 Tim 1:9-10) (Emphasis added).

Supporters of homosexual behavior center the debate on the last word in 1 Cor. 6:10, áñóåíïêïéôáé (arsenokoitai), literally, “those who go to bed with males.” This is translated as “sodomites” (NRSV) or “homosexuals” (NIV). The NABR, quoted above, renders the term “practicing homosexuals.” The word “practicing” conforms to Catholic theology that homosexual orientation is not sinful but homosexual practice is. The homosexual movement contends that Paul is condemning only male prostitution since it brutalizes the active participant as well as victimizing the passive participant. Most biblical scholars find this interpretation highly dubious. The components of the Greek word are found in Lev 18:22; 20:13, the basic Bible (LXX) available to Paul. Paul's condemnation of homosexual acts is unequivocal in Rom 1:26-27 as quoted above, in that they will not "...inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:10). One can go further and interpret that Paul teaches that sexual activity should be confined to marriage between a male and female when, in 1Cor 6:16, he cites Gen 2:24, “The two will become one flesh.” whom God has created in the divine image (Gen 1:27).

The Letter of Jude
The letter of Jude refers to eternal damnation to those who practice "unnatural vice."

"I wish to remind you, ... that the Lord who once saved a people from the land of Egypt later destroyed those who did not believe. The angels too, who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in gloom, for the judgment of the great day. Likewise, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding towns, which in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual promiscuity and practiced unnatural vice, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire." (5-7) (Emphasis added).

Jesus and Homosexuality
Homosexual advocates argue that Jesus did not condemn homosexual acts. The law against homosexual behavior was so imbued in the Jewish mind during Jesus time that there was no need to address this question. Jesus, however, affirmed traditional marriage. He chose to become part of a traditional family in the home of Joseph and Mary (Lk 1:26-38; Mt 1:18-25; 2:19-23). He celebrated traditional marriage, as He did at the wedding feast at Cana (Jn 2:1-11). In speaking against divorce Jesus affirmed traditional Marriage: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate" (Mt 19:4-6). Jesus clearly supported traditional marriage in the New Testament.