The Six Bible Passages Used To Condemn Homosexuals



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Genesis 19:5 Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13

Romans 1:26-27

I Corinthians 6:9; I Timothy 1:9-10

In preparation for each passage, read the entire chapter. For Romans
1:26-27, read the first 3 chapters of Romans. Read Genesis chapter
38 for a clear picture of the Old Testament attitudes about women,
sex, the necessity of producing offspring, the control of men over
women, the double standard for men and women, and other sexuality
issues.


Genesis 19:5:
"Bring them out to us that we may know them."

Author's Note: "Know" simply means know! No hint at homosexuality
exists in the original Hebrew. No later Bible references to Sodom
ever mention homosexuality as the sin of Sodom. Many modern
translations add words to the text to create the lie that the people
of Sodom were homosexual.

"SODOMY" is not a biblical word. Laws against sodomy not only
violate the Constitutional guarantee of separation of church and
state; they also use an incorrect and wrongly translated term for the
laws. A "Sodomite" in the Bible is simply a person who lives in
Sodom, which included Lot and his family. The term "sodomite" in the
King James Version of Deuteronomy 23:17 and I Kings 14:24 is an
incorrect translation of the Hebrew word for "temple prostitute."
(See the recent book by Mark D. Jordan: The Invention of Sodomy in
Christian Theology. University of Chicago Press, 1997.)

The average person assumes that the Bible clearly condemns male to
male sexual intercourse as "sodomy" and that the city of Sodom was
destroyed because of homosexuality, which is seen as the worst of all
sins in the Bible. These assumptions are based on no evidence at all
in the Bible.

No Jewish scholars before the first Christian century taught that the
sin of Sodom was sexual. None of the biblical references to Sodom
mention sexual sins but view Sodom as an example of injustice, lack
of hospitality to strangers, idolatry and as a symbol for desolation
and destruction. See Deuteronomy 29:22-28; 32:32; Ezekiel 16:49-50;
Jeremiah 49:18; 50:41; Isaiah 13:19-22 and Matthew 10:14-15. In Jude
7, the term "strange flesh" is Greek hetero sarkos ("different flesh"
and from which the word "heterosexual" comes) and refers to foreign
idols or people. It is not homo ("the same") flesh or people.
Sarkos is never used in the New Testament as a word for "sex."

The word "know" in Genesis 19:5 is Hebrew YADA. It is used 943 times
in the Old Testament to "know" God, good and evil, the truth, the
law, people, places, things, etc. It is a very flexible word, as are
many Hebrew words. In Genesis 19:5, the word was used to express the
request of the people of Sodom that Lot should bring out the
strangers in his house so that they could know who they were. Sodom
was a tiny fortress in the barren wasteland south of the Dead Sea.
The only strangers that the people of Sodom ever saw were enemy
tribes who wanted to destroy and take over their valuable fortress
and the trade routes that it protected. Lot himself was an alien in
their midst.

Lot's strange response to the request was to offer his young
daughters to the men, an offer that seems to me to be far more
reprehensible than any problem of sexual orientation. If the men
were homosexual, why did Lot offer to give them his daughters? These
hostile and violent people were heterosexual, and homosexual
orientation had nothing to do with the incident.

Special note on YADA: The Hebrew word YADA "to know" is never used in
the Old Testament to mean "to have sex with". People have been
conditioned to think that "to know someone biblically" means to have
sex. The use of YADA in Genesis 4:1-2 to say that Adam knew Eve and
she conceived and gave birth to Cain is followed by saying that later
she gave birth to his brother Abel without any reference to YADA.
Why? Simply because YADA does not mean to have sex. It is a general
term that describes many kinds of intimate relationships. I have
studied all of the uses of YADA in the Old Testament, and my personal
conclusion is that it never means what we mean by sexual
intercourse. Just substitute a common slang expression for sexual
intercourse instead of the word "know" in Genesis 4:1 and you will
see how inappropriate the idea is. The Old Testament Hebrew writers
never thought or wrote in those terms. The Bible never gives any
details about sexual acts. The only clear Hebrew term for sexual
acts is "to lie with," which is left without any further explanation.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN SODOM?

To twist the story to say what it does not say is to miss what it
does say. The story does not deal with sexual orientation or with
homosexuality and has no bearing at all on the issue of God's
acceptance or rejection of Gays and Lesbians. The story of Sodom
clearly teaches that evil and violent people who attack aliens and
strangers whom they do not know or understand receive God's quick and
terrible punishment.

The purpose of the story is to show that misunderstood, strange, or
feared minorities in any community are in danger from violence by the
majority when that majority is ignorant, ungodly, selfish and
afraid. The real message of Sodom is backwards from the claims of
homophobic preachers and teachers. The Gay and Lesbian minority in
our society today is more like the guests in Lot's house who were
protected behind closed doors ("in the closet") than like the
frightened mindless mob that wanted to expose, humiliate and destroy
people that they did not "know" and control.

Set the record straight! Genesis 19 is about the fear (like
homophobia) and anger of a mob (like many misguided religious
fanatics) directed against a small group of isolated strangers (like
Gays and Lesbians today) in their midst. Sexual orientation is not
the issue here or anywhere else in the Bible.

Read also the strange story in Judges 19:1-30 of the Levite in
Gibeah, which was patterned after the story of Lot and the angels in
Genesis 19. Jewish teachers before the time of Christ never saw
either of these stories as having any connection with homosexuality
or sexual orientation. Neither should we.


Leviticus 18:22:
"You shall not lie with a male as those who lie with a female; it is
an abomination."

Leviticus 20:13:
"If a man lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of
them have committed an abomination and they shall surely be put to
death."

Author's Note: Both of these verses refer not to homosexuals but to
heterosexuals who took part in the baal fertility rituals in order to
guarantee good crops and healthy flocks. No hint at sexual
orientation or homosexuality is even implied. The word abomination
in Leviticus was used for anything that was considered to be
religiously unclean or associated with idol worship.

Because these two verses in Leviticus (18:22 and 20:13) have been
used more than any other Bible texts to condemn and reject gay and
lesbian people, the following material is given to help you think
objectively about traditional abusive use of the Bible regarding
homosexuals.

The use of Leviticus to condemn and reject homosexuals is obviously a
hypocritical selective use of the Bible against gays and lesbians.
Nobody today tries to keep the laws in Leviticus. Look at Leviticus
11:1-12, where all unclean animals are forbidden as food, including
rabbits, pigs, and shellfish, such as oysters, shrimp, lobsters,
crabs, clams, and others that are called an "abomination." Leviticus
20:25 demands that "you are to make a distinction between the clean
and unclean animal and between the unclean and clean bird; and you
shall not make yourself an abomination by animal or by bird or by
anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as
unclean." You can eat some insects like locusts (grasshoppers), but
not others.

Leviticus 12:1-8 declares that a woman is unclean for 33 days after
giving birth to a boy and for 66 days after giving birth to a girl
and goes on to demand that certain animals must be offered as a burnt
offering and a sin offering for cleansing. Nobody today who claims to
be a Christian tries to keep these laws, and few people even know
about them! Why do you think that most people don't know about them?

Read Leviticus 23 to see the detailed regulations
concerning "complete rest" on the Sabbath day and demands of animal
sacrifices to be carried out according to exact instructions.
Leviticus 18:19 forbids a husband from having sex with his wife
during her menstrual period. Leviticus 19:19 forbids mixed breeding
of various kinds of cattle, sowing various kinds of seeds in your
field or wearing "a garment made from two kinds of material mixed
together." Leviticus 19:27 demands that "you shall not round off the
side-growth of your heads, nor harm the edges of your beard." The
next verse forbids "tattoo marks on yourself." Most people do not
even know that these laws are in the Bible and are demanded equally
with all the others.

Why don't fundamentalists organize protests and picket seafood
restaurants, oyster bars, church barbecue suppers, all grocery
stores, barber shops, tattoo parlors, and stores that sell suits and
dresses made of mixed wool, cotton, polyester, and other materials?
All of these products and services are "abominations" in Leviticus.
When have you heard a preacher condemn the demonic abomination of
garments that are made of mixed fabrics?

The warning is given in Leviticus 26:14-16 that "If you do not obey
me and do not carry out all of these commandments, if instead, you
reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances so as not
to carry out all my commandments ...I, in turn, will do this to you:
I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption and fever that
shall waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away; also, you
shall sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies shall eat it up."
The list of punishments and terrors that will come from not keeping
all of the commandments continues through many verses.

Read what Jesus said in Matthew 7:1-5 about hypocrites who judge
others. "Do not judge lest you be judged yourselves... Why do you
look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log
that is in your own eye? ...You hypocrite!"

If you have been led to misuse Leviticus and other parts of the
Bible in order to condemn and hate and reject people, you are on the
wrong path. Jesus quoted only one passage from Leviticus: "You shall
love your neighbor as yourself." (19:18). Jesus used Leviticus to
teach love. Many false teachers use Leviticus and other writings to
condemn, humiliate and destroy. I know which approach seems truly
Christian to me. Jesus never condemned homosexuals or even mentioned
anything that could be taken as a reference to sexual orientation.

Any charge against Gays and Lesbians based on the life and teachings
of Jesus has to be dismissed for a lack of evidence!

The use of Leviticus to judge and condemn anyone today is ludicrous
and absurd in the light of the total content of the book. To call
the content of the Book of Leviticus the "word of God" and try to
enforce any part of it today is without support in the teachings of
Jesus and in the letters of Paul.

Jesus in Mark 7:18-23 chided his disciples for their lack of
spiritual understanding. Jesus and his disciples had been condemned
by the religious leaders because they did not wash and eat according
to the Law. Jesus said, "Are you too so uncomprehending? Don't you
see that whatever goes into your mouth from the outside cannot defile
you; because it does not go into your heart, but into your stomach,
and is eliminated? (Thus Jesus declared all foods clean."). And
Jesus added, "That which proceeds from within you, out of your heart,
defiles you. Evil thoughts, abusive sex acts, thefts, murders,
adulteries, deeds of coveting, wickedness, deceit, not caring, envy,
slander, arrogance and foolishness: all of these evil things proceed
from within and defile you."

Paul also rejected the absolute commands of Leviticus in Colossians
2:8-23, where he said, "If you have died with Christ to the
elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the
world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 'Do not handle, do
not taste, do not touch!' (which all refer to things destined to
perish with the using) in accordance with human commandments and
teachings? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance
of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe
treatment of the body, but are of no value against human indulgence."
(2:20-23). Paul declared in 2:14 that Jesus has "canceled out the
certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us which was
hostile to us; and Jesus has taken it out of the way, having nailed
it to the cross."

Many people have answered the argument that most of
the "abominations" in Leviticus referred to food by saying that the
people back then knew that pork was unhealthy, and that is why pigs
were declared to be unclean. If you follow that logic, you would
declare anything that is unhealthy to be an "abomination." We know
that cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, fat food and many other things
are unhealthy; so why are they not also called "abominations" and
condemned by the rabid Bible literalists with protests and pickets
against cigarette machines, all liquor stores and bars, all fast food
outlets, and any store that sells anything that is unhealthy? The
reason is simple. The use of Leviticus to condemn and reject anyone
is impossible to justify in the light of the facts.

The use of Leviticus to condemn and reject homosexuals is absurd and
makes literal legalistic bible based religion look ridiculous.

To me personally, the message of Jesus Christ always has been good
news for everyone. Personal evangelism has been my basic emphasis in
the ministry since I became pastor of a small rural church in South
Carolina in 1952 when I was nineteen years old. Our little church
led the Baptist Churches of South Carolina one year in per capita
baptisms. In all of my churches, both Baptist and MCC, my emphasis
has been personal evangelism. What is your emphasis in your
ministry? I personally have led hundreds of people to Christ and
taught other hundreds of people to become effective in sharing Christ
with others. During all of this time I have been homosexual. I have
realized that I was gay since I was a about 10 years old. God loves
me just as I am and uses me in ministry that fits me and my life as
an individual. I pray that you find the same thing for yourself.


Romans 1:26-27:
"For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions: for their
women exchanged the natural use for that which is against nature.
And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural use of the
woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men
committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due
penalty for their error."
Author's Note: All of this refers to idolatrous religious practices
that were common in the time of Paul.

Taking anything that Paul said out its context is like trying to
drive a car blindfolded. You don't know where you are, where you
have been, where you are going, or who you just ran over and killed!

Paul's writings have been taken out of context and twisted to punish
and oppress every identifiable minority in the world: Jews, children,
women, blacks, slaves, politicians, divorced people, convicts, pro
choice people, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, religious
reformers, the mentally ill, and the list could go on and on. Paul
is often difficult and confusing to understand. A lot of Paul's
writing is very difficult to translate. Since most of his letters
were written in response to news from other people, reading Paul can
be like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. We know,
or think we know, what Paul is saying, but we have to guess what the
other side has said. As 2 Peter 3:16-18 pointed out, we have to be
on guard against using Paul's writings in unhealthy and destructive
ways.

When I taught a college course in the Book of Romans, I decided to
memorize Romans, as Augustine suggested. The effort paid off. Being
able to visualize the message of Romans as a whole immediately
cleared up a lot of Paul's thought that I had not been able to
untangle before by traditional means of study. It helped so much
that I continued to memorize the books of the Bible that I taught in
college courses.

The theme of the first 3 chapters of Romans is expressed in
1:16: "The gospel is the power of God for spiritual freedom
(salvation) for all who believe." Paul showed that all people equally
need and can have Jesus in their lives. Paul's gospel is inclusive,
as expressed in Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek,
neither slave nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one
in Christ Jesus."

Romans 1:26-27 is part of Paul's vigorous denunciation of idolatrous
religious worship and rituals. Read all of Romans 1:18 to 2:4 for
the context of the verses.

Romans 1:26-27 contains some words used only here by Paul. Familiar
words are used here in unusual ways. The passage is very difficult
to translate. The argument is directed against some form of idolatry
that would have been known to Paul's readers. To us, 2,000 years
later and in a totally different culture, the argument is vague and
indirect.

Verse 25 is clearly a denunciation of idol worship, "For they
exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the
creature and not the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."." Paul
at no point in his writing dealt with same-sex orientation or the
expression of love and affection between two people of the same sex
who love each other.

Paul wrote Romans from Corinth, the second largest city in the empire
and the crossroads of world trade and culture. Pausanius observed at
about the same time as Paul that there were over 1,000 religions in
Corinth. The most prominent were the fertility cult of Aphrodite,
worship of Apollo, and the Delphi Oracle, which was across the bay
from Corinth. Paul's readers would have been aware of the religious
climate from which he wrote Romans and would have understood Paul a
lot better than we do.

The word "passions" in 1:26 is the same word used to speak of the
suffering and death of Jesus in Acts 1:3 and does not mean what we
mean by "passion" today. Eros is the Greek word for romantic love,
but eros is never used even once in the New Testament. "Passions" in
1:26 probably refers to the frenzied state of mind that many ancient
mystery cults induced in worshipers by means of wine, drugs and music.

We do not know the meaning of "burn" in 1:27, because Paul never used
this particular word anywhere else, and it's origin is uncertain.
The term "against nature" is also strange here, since exactly the
same term is used by Paul in Romans 11:21-24 to speak of God
acting "against nature" by including the Gentiles with the Jews in
the family of God. "Against nature" was used to speak of something
that was not done in the usual way, but did not necessarily mean that
something "against nature" was evil, since God also "acted against
nature."

One more word needs special attention. "Committing indecent acts" in
1:27 is translated by King James Version as "working that which is
unseemly." Phillips goes far beyond the evidence and renders it
as "Shameful horrors!" The Greek word is askemosunen and is formed
of the word for "outer appearance" plus the negative particle. It
speaks of the inner or hidden part or parts of the individual that
are not ordinarily seen or known in public. "Indecent" in 1
Corinthians 12:23 referred to the parts of the body that remain
hidden but are necessary and receive honor. 1 Corinthians 13:5 used
the word to say that love does not behave "indecently."

This word for "indecency" was used to translate Deuteronomy 24:1 into
Greek to say that a man could divorce his wife if he "found some
indecency in her." The religious teachers argued endlessly about
what "some indecency" meant. Some said it was anything that
displeased the husband. Others were more strict and said it could
only refer to adultery. In Matthew 19:1-12, Jesus commented on
Deuteronomy 24:1-4, but he did not define the term.

Paul was certainly aware of the variety of ways that the teachers
interpreted the word "indecency," and he used it in a variety of ways
himself. To read into "indecent acts" a whole world of homosexual
ideas is to abandon the realities of objective academic study and to
embark on useless and damaging speculation that cannot be supported
by the meaning of the word or by Paul's use of it elsewhere.

If Paul had intended to condemn homosexuals as the worst of all
sinners, he certainly had the language skills to do a clearer job of
it than emerges from Romans 1:26-27. The fact is that Paul nowhere
condemned or mentioned romantic love and sexual relations between
people of the same sex who love each other. Paul never commented on
sexual orientation. As in the rest of the Bible, Paul nowhere even
hinted that Lesbians and Gay men can or should change their sexual
orientation.

SPECIAL NOTE on Romans 1:31, where the King James Version translated
the Greek word astorgous as "without natural affection." This is one
of the characteristics of people "with a reprobate mind" (KJV of
1:28). The word for "reprobate" is more recently translated
as "depraved" or "perverted" in order more neatly to fit the
sexualizing of everything possible in the list. The literal meaning
of "reprobate" (Greek dokimon) is "to fail to measure up" or "to fail
to meet the test" and simply means that the list of things that
follows is the result of a mind that has abandoned God. The word
astorgous, "without natural affection," is used only here and in 2
Timothy 3:3. It has nothing at all to do with homosexuality or with
sex. It is the Greek word for "family love" or "family ties" with
the negative prefix. It refers to people who despise and reject
their family members. Rather than being directed at homosexuals, it
is a term that is directed at people who despise and reject their own
homosexual children and brothers and sisters! Modern translators,
knowing this, usually render the word as "unloving," and the
implication of some sort of "unnatural" or "perverted" affection is
removed. Many more translation corrections are needed elsewhere!

The use of Romans 1:26-27 against homosexuals turns out to be a blunt
instrument to batter and wound people who were not intended in the
original text. Paul clearly taught throughout Romans, Galatians and
his other letters that God's freely given and all inclusive love is
for every person on earth. Notice what Paul said about judging
others in Romans 2:1: "Therefore you are without excuse, every one of
you who passes judgment, for in that you judge another, you condemn
yourself; for you who judge practice the same things."

I Corinthians 6:9:
"The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. So do not be
deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the realm of
God."
Author's Note: The Greek words translated "effeminate"
and "homosexual" do not mean effeminate or homosexual!

I Timothy 1:9-10:
"Law is not made for a righteous person but for those who are lawless
and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and
profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers
and fornicators and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and
perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound (healthy)
teaching."
Author's Note: The Greek word translated "homosexual" does not mean
homosexual!

These two verses contain completely wrong translations to
create "homosexual ghosts" that do not really exist! Ghosts may not
hurt you, but they can make you hurt yourself! The homosexual ghosts
in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 were created by the
inaccurate and intentionally misleading translation of two Greek
words.

1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 sound very convincing in
including lesbians and gay men in the most dreadful lists of depraved
human behavior imaginable. The fact is that the word
translated "homosexual" does not mean "homosexual" and the word
translated "effeminate" does not mean "effeminate"!

The English word "homosexual" is a composite word made from a Greek
term (homo, "the same") and a Latin term (sexualis , "sex"). The
term "homosexual" is of modern origin and was not used until about
100 years ago. There is no word in biblical Greek or Hebrew that is
parallel to the word "homosexual." No Bible before the Revised
Standard Version in 1946 used "homosexual" in any Bible translation.

The word translated as "homosexual" or "sexual pervert" or some other
similar term is Greek arsenokoites, which was formed from two words
meaning "male" and "bed". This word is not found anywhere else in
the Bible and has not been found anywhere in the contemporary Greek
of Paul's time. We do not know what it means. The word is obscure
and uncertain. It probably refers to male prostitutes with female
customers, which was a common practice in the Roman world, as
revealed in the excavations at Pompeii and other sites.

When early Greek speaking Christian preachers condemned
homosexuality, they did not use this word. John Chrysostom (A.D. 345-
407) preached in Greek against homosexuality, but he never used this
word for homosexuals, and when he preached on 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1
Timothy 1:10, he did not mention homosexuals. See the full
discussion of this in John Boswell's book: Christianity, Social
Tolerance, and Homosexuality - Appendix 1, "Lexicography and Saint
Paul," pages 335-353.

"Soft" does not mean "effeminate." The word translated "effeminate in
1 Corinthians 6:9 is Greek malakoi and means "soft" or "vulnerable."
The word is translated as "soft" in reference to clothing in Matthew
11:8 and Luke 7:25 and as "illness" in Matthew 4:23 and 9:35. It is
not used anywhere else in the New Testament and carries no hint of
reference to sexual orientation. Malakoi in 1 Corinthians 6:9
probably refers those who are "soft," "pliable," "unreliable,"
or "without courage or stability." The translation of malakoi
as "effeminate" is incorrect, ignorant, degrading to women, and
impossible to justify based on ancient usage compared to the meaning
of "effeminate" today.

This incorrect rendering of malakoi and arsenokoites as references to
gender orientation has been disastrous for millions of gay, lesbian,
bisexual, transsexual people. This mistaken translation has enlisted
a mighty army of ignorant religious fanatics against homosexual
people and has turned many Lesbians and Gays against the Bible, which
holds for them as for all people the good news of God's love in
Christ.

Evil homophobic Bible "translations from hell" must not go
unchallenged. The use of these translations by ignorant religious
bigots to incite fear and hate against Gays demands a clear,
academically sound, credible and easily understood response.
Material given in this web site is only a beginning. Every Bible
word that has been incorrectly used to wound, alienate and oppress
people must be examined in detail and carefully exposed. God has
called us to return the Bible to the oppressed and outcast people for
whom it was written.

Three of the passages: Genesis 19:5; I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy
1:10 are incorrectly translated. The other three: Leviticus 18:22;
20:13 and Romans 1:26-27 are taken out of their original setting of
condemning idolatrous religious practices and wrongly used to judge
and condemn people of the same sex who love each other. None of
these passages refer to people of the same sex who love each other.
None originally were aimed at homosexuals. Contact me and I will
answer your questions about these passages by e-mail. See also my
book, Steps to Recovery From Bible Abuse and my NEW SPECIAL OFFER.

"THE SODOMY MYTH"
Update for April 2, 2003

THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

Once again the attention of the United States is focused on the
mythical concept of "sodomy" as the highest court in the land
wrestles with illegal, unjust, dishonest, homophobic, abusive,
inconsistent, repressive state laws that are based on religious
misunderstanding and ignorance.

Many states have removed their state "sodomy laws." The kind of
arguments that the Texas Attorney General has made to the Supreme
Court would require the Court to demand that these states put back
their medieval "Sodomy laws" for the common good! The
entire "sodomy" issue is a bogus cause and unworthy of any serious
intelligent debate and dispute. (See links below.)

"SODOMY"

No word for "sodomy" exists in biblical Hebrew or Greek!
A "Sodomite" is simply someone who lived in the city of Sodom, just
as a "Moabite" lived in Moab. Any use of the words "sodomy"
or "sodomite" in biblical translations is a vicious mistake that
attempts to read incorrect interpretation into the text itself and
thereby discredit all translations. No word for "homosexual" or
for "homosexuality" exists in biblical Hebrew or Greek. In fact, no
word for "sex" exists in the biblical languages! (Look in the major
concordances, and you will not find even one reference to "sex".)

The cultural world of the biblical material is vastly different from
ours today, and not one word means exactly today what it meant 2,000
to 3,000 years ago in a different world and in languages that are not
used any more as they existed at that time.

SEE MY WEB SITE MATERIAL ON ALL OF THIS .

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

The city of Nashville is locked in a great community-dividing battle
over the issue of protecting the civil and human rights of GLBT
people. The presence of headquarters for nine major fundamentalist
religions in Nashville has greatly muddied the community values
regarding LGBT people. Southern Baptists, United Methodists and
National Baptists are among those with publishing and administrative
offices in Nashville. The Church of Christ and other similar groups
have their colleges in Nashville.

When I became pastor of MCC Nashville in 1993, the state of Tennessee
still had state laws against "sodomy". One of my best friends, Dr.
Chris Simien, was a graduate student at Vanderbilt University at the
time studying for his PhD in clinical psychology. Chris joined with
several other young GLBT students who were preparing for careers in
counseling and challenged the Tennessee state laws against sodomy as
unconstitutional in view of the Tennessee State Constitution
guarantee of the individual's right to privacy. They won in 1995.

After several court decisions and appeals, the Tennessee State
Supreme Court agreed that the state sodomy laws were a violation of
the State protection of the right to privacy. All sodomy laws were
removed from the state statutes. (See related links below)

The local Nashville lawyer who handled this case for Chris and his
friends was Abby Rubenfeld, a prominent civil rights attorney, who
happens to be the sister of Paul Ruben, who is also known as "Pee-Wee
Herman." I talked to my friend Chris in Nashville this morning, and
he told me that the ordinance to protect GLBT human rights in
Nashville was just defeated.

THE IGNORANCE FACTOR

Recent arguments against homosexuals and against GLBT civil and human
rights at the Supreme Court along with a lot of the questions asked
by the Justices themselves reflect an incredible level of ignorance
concerning the facts about GLBT people. Dedicated purveyors of
ignorance and misinformation have done a great job of confusing and
distorting the truth about homosexuality and homosexuals.

The "Ex-Gay Fraud" and related religious distortion ministries by
such groups as "Focus on the Family" and "Family Research Council"
have distracted multitudes of people away from the facts about
religious and social abuse of GLBT people.

Correcting misinformation and distortions takes a lot of research and
ever-changing approaches to reaching out with the facts in ways that
will be heard and accepted. My web site has been available since
September 1997, and I have continuously revised and added updates to
deal with current events. The detailed information that is on my web
site answers the distortions and misinformation, but it takes a lot
of time to work through all of the material.

GLBT CONFUSION

One of the most destructive results of the religious, political
distortions and misinformation about GLBT people has been the self-
destructive behavior including a steady rate of suicide among our own
people who have believed the lies forced upon them by their own
families, churches, politicians, friends and other sources of
dedicated ignorance. No simple easy remedy exists to the dilemmas
faced by LGBT people in our society.

For every web site and book that tells the truth about GLBT life and
issues, hundreds of anti-gay homophobic religion based sources of
misinformation flood the Internet, bookstores, media, and public
institutions. We need each other. We need clear convincing
presentations of the facts. We need allies in every level of society
who can stand with us, stand in our shoes, understand us, accept us,
and affirm us in our human value and human rights.

WHERE DO YOU FIT IN?

What are you personally doing to make a difference for truth, reality
and the facts? Are you well informed with the facts that you need to
know? The sources of information are endless. You have to be
selective and undistracted by false voices and uninformed people.
Learning what you need to know in order to make a difference in this
world for yourself and for other GLBT people will demand and require
everything that you can give of yourself, your time, your
relationships, and your opportunities to touch others.

My web site gives a lot of information, but it also directs you to
many other web site sources and books that can help you to know the
facts and act with confidence in your own truth. New issues and new
situations emerge every day.

Chris and Barbara Purdom through their ministry of
information "Religion at Critpath" as part of Interfaith Working
Group have helped me for years to keep up with what's happening in
our world.

BECOME INFORMED

The present debates and decision of the United States Supreme Court
will have a long-term powerful effect on GLBT people everywhere.
Take the time to become informed about all of the details of these
developments.

Do whatever you can to make a difference where you are.

Rembert Truluck

(See new pictures of our kitties in my web site updates.)

Click here for references and other sites

Supreme Court related sites:

http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/qtr1_2003/0326-144.html

Links and stories from Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/nation/courts/supremecourt/20022003/

Lambda Legal Challenge:

http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/documents/record?record=1176

Click here to see the relationship of Jesus to the Bible

See a history of the Sodomy Law issue in Tennessee:

http://www.sodomylaws.org/sensibilities/tennessee.htm

Other related sites:

http://www.qrd.org/qrd/usa/tennessee/1993/sodomy.challenge

http://www.aclu-tn.org/privacy01-02.html

Family Research Council: http://www.frc.org/

Focus on the Family: http://www.family.org/

Focus on the Family and James Dobson recently devoted time and money
to promoting the totally bogus book by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi
on "Preventing Homosexuality". Nicolosi is a professionally
discredited psychologist, whose war against homosexuals has extended
through many years and many books that form the foundation for
the "Ex-Gay" disaster that confuses and distorts all issues related
to GLBT people.
(This Update added on April 2, 2003)

Special Update added September 1, 2001:
"FLORIDA SODOMITES WIN!"
(a response to Florida law banning gay and lesbian adoptions.)

A recent religious attack against progress for GLBT people
declared: "The sodomites have won again!" In view of the recent
Florida decision to deny the rights of GLBT people to adopt children,
we need to take a fresh look at just what the words "sodomy"
and "sodomite" really mean.

WHO ARE THE SODOMITES?

The homophobic religious right often refers to homosexuals
as "sodomites" not realizing that the religious right in their
ignorant rejection and abuse of GLBT people are the
real "sodomites"! (See my discussion of Genesis 19:5 above and in my
book. No word for "sodomite" exists in biblical Hebrew. The
word "sodomite" is a homophobic invention. See book below.) Name-
calling is a favorite pastime of religious fanatics. It creates an
unreasoning emotional response in their submissive hearers.

We are not dealing with logical objective reasonable people in our
battle for acceptance and understanding as GLBT people. We are
wrestling with religious "principalities and powers and the rulers of
the darkness of this world." Religion has darkened the minds of
millions of people to the real truth of God's love and acceptance of
all people as having equal value before God.

Abusive churches have become blind to the personality and purpose of
Jesus of Nazareth. Slick portraits and statues of crucified
feeble "Christ's" have obscured the real Jesus and filled the
imagination of millions of people with a false image of Jesus that
has no social and cultural impact beyond the teachings and demands of
oppressive religious institutions. The traditional images of Jesus
with a flock of sheep or alone with face upturned to a blazing light
or on a cross has created a remoteness that makes it almost
impossible for the average person really to identify with the human
Jesus of the Gospels.

ART AS ENEMY OF THE TRUTH

Art often has been our enemy. Literature also in such "masterpieces"
as Dante's "Inferno" and "Paradise Lost" and thousands of other
flights of imagination have replaced the realism of the Four Gospels
with fantasy and speculation that have caught and dominated human
imagination far more than the truth for over a thousand years.
Current writers and moviemakers have given vivid realistic images of
the "end of the world" and the so-called "rapture" so that the
unending cacophony of confusion about Jesus is multiplied through the
Internet and all other mass media of television and books.

We are nowhere close to a resolution of our dilemma of knowing a
different Jesus from the Jesus of traditional religion that is
entrenched in the minds and hearts of millions of people in conflict
with the real Jesus of the Gospels. Fantasy and speculations have
replaced the realism of the Four Gospels. Artistic pictures of Jesus
are far more vivid in the minds of most people than the simple human
portrait of Jesus in the Four Gospels, where Jesus is most often
pictured sitting with the outcasts and eating with the unclean people
of his community. Jesus accepted and welcomed the people that
everybody else, including religion, rejected and despised.

The suffering of Jesus is magnified in art at the expense of his
realistic humanity and identification with average people. To
identify with the pitiful image of the suffering Jesus is to abandon
the realism of living life to the fullest as a beloved child of God
in the image of God, which is what most of the Gospel story is really
about.

The "pitiful Jesus" has been magnified in art beyond the evidence to
induce emotional self-rejection and to arouse remorse instead of
discipleship, sadness instead of joy. "Man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief" is an unfortunate misrepresentation of the true Jesus,
who enjoyed life with his friends so much that his enemies accused
him of being party boy and a heavy drinker! Jesus welcomed and "ate
with sinners" instead of condemning and rejecting them.

THE IDEAL OF JESUS

The call of Jesus is not to deny your real self and reject who you
really are. It is the same call that Jesus followed by accepting
himself as God had made him and accomplishing what he alone could
do. You also have a mission in life that fits you. It may not fit
anybody else who ever lived. But it fits you.

Why is that so difficult to grasp? Is it because religion itself has
taught you to reject yourself and deny your true nature and reason
for being? Religion has betrayed you, and religion also has betrayed
Jesus. How can you recover the "real Jesus" in your spiritual path
of faith?

How can you really let go and move on? Try being logical and
realistic. What kind of God would create you as a gay or lesbian
person and then condemn you to eternal fires of hell because of how
God had made you? That kind of thinking is totally destructive and
is not logical or realistic. Whenever religion condemns and rejects
people because of how God made them, it is obviously false and out of
touch with reality. Yet millions still believe in it!

ESCAPE INTO REALITY

Leaving the comfortable fold of traditional abusive religion is often
the hardest decision a person has to make. It is far more difficult
than joining the church in the first place. Leaving the fold invites
rejection, condemnation, judgment and self-blame and guilt. It is
not an easy path out of delusion into the truth. Yet your health and
wholeness as a person depend upon your escape from abusive religion.

I receive e-mail every day from people who have made the leap of
faith out of destructive religion into the reality of God's love. I
know that you can do this too, and you can help others to do the same.

WHO ARE THE ANGELS?

In the Sodom story in Genesis 19, the angels were the messengers from
God who represented the truth of God's love and protection for Lot
and his family. The angels were like GLBT people, who are different
from others and who are seen as aliens and strangers and therefore a
threat to those who are misinformed and who do not really recognize
what God is doing. The people of Sodom were the "sodomites" who
wanted to expose, demean, humiliate and destroy the angels, whom they
did not understand and who were strange and different.

Isn't it incredible that the biblical literalists have gotten the
terms backwards! They have called people who like the angels are
different and strangers, such as Gay and Lesbian people,
the "sodomites" when actually the sodomites are the rigid legalists
who judge and condemn people they don't understand and who seem to
threaten them and who must be attacked and destroyed!

Homophobic legalists have distorted and misrepresented the Bible to
create a "power tool," a religious chainsaw, to massacre LGBT
people. We have to challenge and neutralize these deadly weapons
being used against us even by our own families and all too often used
by us against ourselves and against each other.

Biblical literalism always betrays those who try to force their
ignorance on others in the name of God. Run! Don't walk, to the
nearest exit and escape!

WHO IS JESUS?

Jesus is the one person who rises above all of the misinformation and
deceit about the value of each individual to God. Jesus has already
accepted you and loved you and done for you everything that Jesus has
done for all people. Everything that Jesus did was done for the
entire human race, and that includes you and me! "Whosoever" is not
a mistake or a misprint. It is the basic principle of God's way of
dealing with humans, who are all represented in Jesus. Jesus
said, "Because I live, you shall live also." God's acceptance and
approval of Jesus is God's acceptance and approval of you. Enjoy it!

Why can't religion just leave us alone and let us enjoy being God's
children created in the image of God? Money? Political power? Is
that what is really at stake? Is the long torturous history of
abusive religion just one extended selfish mistake for the purpose of
giving power to people over other people in the name of some god?
Probably.

Being logical, realistic, objective and practical comes at a high
cost. You have to let go of illusions, fantasies, imaginations and
inconsistencies, which seem to be what life is about for many
religionists. You have to grow up into the maturity of Jesus and
learn to love yourself and others in the Spirit of Jesus. You really
do have to let go and move on.

Can you? Are you willing to let go and move on? Or do you have such
a sick case of religion that you enjoy hating yourself and others?
Maybe you have to wake up before you can let go and move on!

There goes the alarm clock. Time to wake up!

See "The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology" by Mark D. Jordan:
The University of Chicago Press, 1997.