Christianity & homophobia

[airforsharon]

Hello, can anyone enlighten me re the specific bible passages that condemn homosexuality, and if there are others that counter that position? A relative voiced quite openly homophobic views this afternoon - he is a long time church goer & very involved with his church, his faith determines a great deal in his life so i'm assuming it's behind these views.
aUnfortunately they were said at a point it was pretty impossible for me to respond, and as my bible knowledge is limited i have nothing to counter it with, from a faith perspective.
It's troubling me especially as several of my closest friends are gay men, and my oldest daughter is a lesbian (relative doesn't know this).
If you are a church goer, what is your/your churches view on the subject? Are churches generally more accepting of homosexuality now, and if not, why not?
tia

@Catinabeanbag

Did you actually read those scriptures I mentioned? What would be your interpretation? To me they are so black and white as to be absolutely clear..

Like telling your child don’t play with knives, how many different interpretations can you make out of that?

Okay it was a bad illustration I gave, but I just wanted to show a small example of how we change for our partners - shouldn’t we be willing to make even greater changes for our God?

@LBFseBrom
some people are tunnel visioned and entrenched in their way of thinking.

I take it you’re referring to me?
Why do you think God wrote the Bible then? As a pretty story book, for us to pass the time?

To me, it’s clearly his guidance for mankind. It has proof of divinity. It tells us what he’s going to do for us. It helps us find him.

But I guess we shall have to agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

Anyone can easily misinterpret the Bible

Including you.

Thankfully a lot of, even most, Christians in the UK would disagree with you. The majority of Anglicans back equal marriage even if the higher ups don't seem to. The Church of Scotland will soon allow it.

I can only tell you what the Bible says, in a nutshell, to change our ways.

Gay and bisexual people cannot simply become straight.

@georama

I can only tell you what the Bible says, in a nutshell, to change our ways.

So you believe you can 'pray away the gay' so believe in conversion therapy?

You believe someone gay can choose to be straight?

Or you acknowledge people can't choose their sexuality but they can choose to be in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, which is a deeply harmful thing to do for someone gay?

Gosh. Not very love thy neighbour to believe people should do something that denies them true happiness.

Always baffling to me as an atheist (grew up catholic) that people praise a god they themselves believe wants people to suffer, be sad or reject being in a truly mutually loving relationship with someone.

@JulieYS

Yes, I have read those passages many, many times. They are three of the so called 'clobber' passages used to justify not being gay or in a same sex relationship. I'm a christian. I'm also in a same sex marriage. I've done a lot of reading and thinking and studying over the years, and come to different conclusions than others about homosexuality and the bible. I've got a theology degree, so have learnt to investigate sources and the culture and times within which they were written. Not that any of that makes me an expert, but I"m not coming to these passages 'cold' or without prior knowledge.

“‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable."
As I mentioned about this one further up the thread, as a gay woman I read that and go 'of course not' to that passage. I'd never lie with a man as I do with a woman. Not being facetious either - am I genuinely meant to pretend I'm a straight man when reading that? Because if the bible was written by men for men (because very very few women back then could read), then do I have to read ALL of it through the lens of being a man? In which case, why would God inspire a book which isn't relevant to half of society?
But then if people say 'well the passage can be extrapolated out to mean ANY same sex relationship'.... then surely other passages can be extrapolated or interpreted mean different things? One can't pick and chose what one does or doesn't take literally when it suits them.
And if you are taking that instruction literally, what about all the others in the OT? I mean, Leviticus 13:47-59 talks about showing clothes that have become covered in mould to the priest. Should we do that?
I realise that's a daft example but taking the examples of literal interpretation to their logical end, I don't think they stand up.

"24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones."
Ah, Romans....
I find folk always quote this passage starting 'therefore' without referring to the bit beforehand, indicated by the 'therefore'.
Which goes like this:
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

I became a Christian when I was about 7. I realised I might be gay when I was about 14. During those seven years I hadn't turned away from God, or become hardened or made idols or anything like that. In fact, I spent many years hoping I wasn't gay and trying to be a good Christian, in the hope that one day I would wake up and like blokes.
Didn't happen.
Liking women is natural to me. As natural as being left handed is for me. 'So women exchanging their natural lusts' would be (for me) suddenly liking men. That would be an exchange of my natural desires... and hasn't happened yet.

“9 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[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
I hope that the definition of ‘sexually immoral’ here also includes people (whatever orientation) who have sex before marriage or outside of marriage, get divorced and then re-married (because there’s a LOT more against divorce in the bible than there might be about same sex relations), otherwise there’s no consistency in the argument. It’s ‘one rule for one, one for another’.
This passage is the one where the Greek word ‘arsenokoites’ crops up, and it’s a very uncommon word (in both the Bible and other contemporary literature) and is thought to be a compound of two other words: arseno = men, and koite = lie, be laid.
Because of this it’s not entirely clear what it means – possibly some sort of economic exploitation of one man by another, but not necessarily homosexual acts. Possibly it’s referring to pederasty. Because it’s not used elsewhere - and not in other places where same sex relations are talked about more clearly – we can’t say for sure that it does refer to homosexuality here (and if your bible says ‘ homosexuals’ here, it’s a bad translation, because that word wasn’t used in Bibles until 1947).
The phrase ‘men who have sex with men’ is translated from malakoi and arsenokoitai – ‘malakoi’ possibly meaning ‘soft’, which was then taken to mean ‘effeminate’ and then ‘homosexual’.
In other writings it means cowardice, or moral weakness (Plato & Plutarch), so again, it’s not clear what it means in this context. It could be a number of things, but again we can’t say for sure that it relates to homosexuality.

Sorry... long post... but basically when people say 'the bible clearly says' (in relation to homosexuality), I"m always a bit.... hmmm.. really?

@amoosee

Also the main difference between homosexuality and other sins is that most people who do it are happy to be in a homosexual relationship. With most other sins we still do them but we are trying not to.

Almost like it harms absolutely no one and there is no reason for it to be a sin...

I come from an extremely anti-homosexuality & bisexuality, strict religious background, & I used to think this too; that homosexuality wasn't harmful to anyone, so, unlike murder, stealing, adultery & so on, it couldn't be a sin. But now I'm not sure it's harmless. I am undecided on that. This is why. I'm asexual with a history of spiritual obsessions with other women, &, when I was young I did date women in the hope of finding one to be my mutually devoted significant other & domestic partner. But I encountered very pronounced hostile attitudes & bullying from many, many lesbians over this, & over my whole, very feminine presenting personality, to the extent that I just totally stopped dating women and now have been single for twenty years. What came up again and again was that it was okay for them to have devoted love from another woman, because they physically desired women, but because I was asexual, I had no right. And that women should only be feminine, as I seemed to them, if they were in a butch femme relationship & their femininity was superficial. There was this ideal which was overwhelmingly popular among them called being a strong woman, which I never really got totally I sense, but it was basically about women being very self-dependent, resilient & not much needing others. These women often had very good qualities but with these attitudes, I noticed they were very much against women loving and caring for each other - being friends, real true friends not superficial ones - unless they were lesbians or bisexuals who were sexually involved couples. Now I think women really need other women as friends and as mutual support to each other as regards their femininity. I think if women are against that, and bullying other women for being inclined to be like that, it's socially very harmful. I don't know if all lesbian and bisexual women feel like that or I just experienced a lot of bad luck but it's made me think, what if indulging your same sex attractions makes lesbians and bisexual women act like that? What if it promotes the belief you have to be a woman married to a woman to have real love and care for a woman, and I think it does, as I have had massive life long problems with heterosexuals thinking I'm gay (while lesbians and bisexual women never do).

I also noticed that the gay and bisexual men I met many of in that time of socialising within a LGBTQ world, seemed much more misogynistic than het. men and particularly to have much less respect for mothers. Perhaps their romantic and sexual relationships incline them towards that. Het men are exposed to the reality of motherhood in their relationships so perhaps many learn a respect for it they otherwise wouldn't. Again, I think not respecting mothers is harmful socially. For example, a gay man contemptuous or oblivious of motherhood works as a social worker with families and has no empathy for mothers. Perhaps he thinks he knows all about them because he's married himself and it's all the same if his spouse is a man? ...

I'd like to think I'm wrong, but I just don't know. Perhaps those religious people against same sex marriage have a point.

My sister's church has a gay conversion clinic, to "cure" homosexuals.
I was listening to my mother ( also a fierce believer) speaking to a church friend on the phone - she said " the gays are always lovely ( homophobic in itself) , in fact they are more to be pitied than scorned).

@ElvenMoonwings

So because 20 years ago you couldn't find a lesbian woman to have an asexual relationship with you, homosexuality is harmful?

And the idea that men have to be "exposed to the reality of motherhood" to respect woman is laughable.

@speakout

My sister's church has a gay conversion clinic, to "cure" homosexuals. I was listening to my mother ( also a fierce believer) speaking to a church friend on the phone - she said " the gays are always lovely ( homophobic in itself) , in fact they are more to be pitied than scorned).

It's horrific to think people still hold that attitude in this day and age when we know so much more about sexual orientation. When I have read about gay conversion therapy and seen it portrayed on television (Frankie Howerd springs to mind), I feel quite sick and ashamed on behalf of us 'straight' people.

I wonder what folk are afraid of? |I mean, what is the big deal, honestly? Gays have always been and will always be, a minority of the people on this earth. They just want to live their lives alongside others and aren't going to intrude on anyone else, ie they won't make anybody gay, that isn't possible, neither do they want to. What does happen now that people are more open is that those who are gay, who previously kept it a secret, feel able to come out and walk tall. I think that is a good thing.

@speakout

My sister's church has a gay conversion clinic, to "cure" homosexuals. I was listening to my mother ( also a fierce believer) speaking to a church friend on the phone - she said " the gays are always lovely ( homophobic in itself) , in fact they are more to be pitied than scorned).

Thankfully that will be banned soon, although how well that will be enforced I don't know.

Unfortunately my sister isn't in the UK, and no plans where she lives to prevent the clinics from their horrific practices.

@thistimelastweek

Leviticus 18: 22 - you shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Used by nasty old bigots to justify homophobia.

I read that this was rewritten like this in the 1940s or 50s. It originally was about not laying with a child.

My mum is quite religious and hangs on every word her minister said. The very homophobic one has retired. She'll consider moving churches if "a gay minister" gets ordained.

She'll still vent to me about "that's just not right" and other terribly homophobic stuff. She wants me to engage with her. I just tell her I don't agree with her and she should stop the conversation before we fall out.
I've tried debating with her and it's just a waste of energy.
Apart from that she's a lovely woman

To @Catinabeanbag and everyone in this thread

I just want to say that it was not and is not my intention to upset, denigrate, or criticise anyone – I honestly respect everyone, and whatever choices you’ve taken are yours to make.

My intention jumping onto this thread, as you will see from my initial post in it, was to show that God is love, and though the bible disapproves of certain practices (in fact, any kind of immorality, not just homosexuality, including adultery, stealing, lying, murder, etc), God is not necessarily condemning the person, but disapproving of the act itself.

You don’t know me, but I will go out of my way to help anyone in need (whatever background you come from, and I’m definitely not homophobic) – yet people on this thread have clearly expressed their animosity toward me, standing up for what the bible says. I knew this would happen. But I will stand up for what I think is right – not just on this subject, but also in other situations. If someone slanders my friend, I will stand up for them; if someone hurts someone, I will try my best to help.

@Catinabeanbag
I don’t have a degree in theology - I’m a simple, unlettered person, who just wants to find out what God’s view is – which is why I too am constantly checking the Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek bible dictionaries, in order to ensure that I’m truly getting what God meant to tell us, pure and simple, i.e. being super careful not to misinterpret holy scripture to fit into what I want it to say.

I was going to leave this subject alone, but since you addressed me specifically, here are my responses (in sections, for ease of reading):

Leviticus 13:47-59 – clothes infected with leprosy, not mould (I looked this up in six different bibles, and they all say ‘leprosy’ – I have time! I’m stuck at home recovering from an operation ). This is an excellent scripture! At a time when medical practices from people of other nations included using leaches to suck blood from patients, and slapping excrement onto open wounds, this scripture shows how God directed his people to quarantine if they came into contact with anything contaminated with leprosy. Now, it wasn’t until the mid-1800s that doctors realised the importance of washing hands in between patients. Yet Leviticus was written in the 16th century BCE – that’s 3,500 years ago! This certainly proves that the bible, when it touches on medical/scientific matters, shines with God’s superior knowledge.

Now, I know you used Leviticus as an illustration, but, actually, we are no longer under the Mosaic law of Leviticus, as this scripture shows: he “erased the handwritten document that consisted of decrees and was in opposition to us. He has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the torture stake.” Acts 2:14
So all those laws given to the Israelites back then – who were surrounded by pagan nations with quite disgusting practices, thereby needing to keep clean physically, spiritually, morally – are no longer valid to us today. However, the principles still apply, because God doesn’t change (James 1:17).

@Catinabeanbag
You quoted Romans 1:24, missed out verse 25, then you quoted verse 26, and missed out verse 27 (this may have been because of the cited scripture in one of my posts, my bad!). You will note that I did not quote the verses in my post, because the passage is very strong. I was trying to be tactful/gentle. But since you yourself quoted parts of it, here it is in its entirety, for the benefit of us all:

“Therefore, God, in keeping with the desires of their hearts, gave them up to uncleanness, so that their bodies might be dishonoured among them. They exchanged the truth of God for the lie and venerated and rendered sacred service to the creation rather than the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen. That is why God gave them over to disgraceful sexual passion, for their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; likewise also the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full penalty, which was due for their error.” Roman 1:24-27

Now there might be some physical reason why people have certain tendencies, but of course we’re talking here about the willful desire, females with females, men with men. The many strong adjectives in this passage make God’s feelings on the matter quite clear. If you would like me to include other bible translations of the same passage, I’d be happy to do so in order for there to be no doubt on the matter (I use BibleHub.com which not only has bible concordances that go into the meanings of each Greek/Aramaic/Hebrew word, but also has zillions of bible translations to compare).

You mentioned the preceding verses of this scripture, for context – brava, it’s definitely always good to look at context. In fact, I started reading from verse 1 of the chapter. But I was a little puzzled, because those verses are actually in favour of my argument… (“For God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who are suppressing the truth in an unrighteous way” Romans 1:18)

1 Corinthians 6:9,10. You mentioned that if a bible uses the word ‘homosexuals’ it’s a bad translation. Well, Strong’s Concordance shows here (biblehub.com/greek/733.htm) that the definition of arsenokoites is: a sodomite. And the usage is: male engaging in same-gender sexual activity; a sodomite, pederast. Then, HELPS word-studies defines arsenokoites: properly, a man in bed with another man; a homosexual.

Yes, the Greek malakos has the basic meaning of soft, but again, Strong’s concordance here (biblehub.com/greek/3120.htm) shows that in this context it means: effeminate, a male who submits his body.
There is no mention of cowardice or moral weakness on that definitions page though. (I was confused by your reference to Plato, he died around 387 BCE, hundreds of years before 1 Corinthians was written… Also Plutarch, who was a priest of the Temple of Apollo of Delphi, i.e. non-Christian.)

Interesting that 1 Corinthians 6:9 specifically mentions both malakos and arsenokoites for homosexuals: showing the passive and active roles of those who engage in such acts, both disapproved by God. Bringing back Romans 1:24, we can say that the principle applies whether it’s men or women.
(By the way, the bible shows that God wanted his worshippers/the common folk from ancient times to read and write, Deuteronomy 6:6-9 – it was not just a privilege of the upper echelons/literati).

@Catinabeanbag
Lastly, you said that the Greek word arsenokoites is not mentioned anywhere else in the bible/where same sex relations are talked about – you’re wrong. Strong’s concordance (here: biblehub.com/interlinear/1_timothy/1-10.htm) shows clearly that it is also used in 1 Timothy 1:10, which reads in context:
“Now we know that the Law is fine if one applies it properly, recognizing that law is made, not for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, ungodly and sinners, disloyal and profane, murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, manslayers, sexually immoral people, men who practice homosexuality, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and everything else that is in opposition to the wholesome teaching.” 1 Timothy 1:8-10

Please do feel free to look up all these verses in the zillions of bible translations on the biblehub.com website. You will find that they are almost all carrying exactly the same message.

I’m sorry to have ‘clobbered’ you or anyone with all of the above, it wasn’t my intention to go into such in-depth detail – I felt that you rather forced my hand…

You don't mean to offend people, just state that gay people are immoral and that your interpretation of the bible is objectively correct. Okay then.

And by the way, saying that homosexuality is wrong makes you a homophobe

Sorry, here is the correct link for the 1 Timothy scripture:
biblehub.com/interlinear/1_timothy/1-10.htm

@georama
You still don't get it. It's not me saying all this, it's me quoting from the bible.

@georama
No, I'm not a homophobe - sigh! One of our family's best friends was a homosexual, one of my husband's employers was a homosexual.

I actually loved that family friend, went through a lot of heartache with him as he battled aids. I was in tears for him at one stage.
I also really liked my husband's employer, and spent much time chatting jovially with him - even had him round for dinner once. Fantastic company.

[quote JulieYS]@georama
No, I'm not a homophobe - sigh! One of our family's best friends was a homosexual, one of my husband's employers was a homosexual.[/quote]
LMAO You can't be homophobic because your husband used to work for "a homosexual"? That ones new. I mean I've heard of "I'm not racist I have a black friend" but this is more "I'm not racist my neighbor's aunt's acquaintance is black".

And if you believe that homosexuality is wrong you are homophobic. It doesn't matter if that belief comes about because of your subjective interpretation of the bible (although IME it's often the other way around).

And you till haven't explained what yo think gay people should actually do.

@JulieYS

I actually loved that family friend, went through a lot of heartache with him as he battled aids. I was in tears for him at one stage. I also really liked my husband's employer, and spent much time chatting jovially with him - even had him round for dinner once. Fantastic company.

You do realise that a big part of what exacerbated the AIDs crisis was the homophobia of society and those in power? Including those who were inspired by religion, thought that AID's was God's punishment etc.?

Loving JulieYS 's virtue signalling.

And so much implicit homophobia in this comment also really liked my husband's employer, and spent much time chatting jovially with him - even had him round for dinner once. Fantastic company.

Even had a gay round for dinner

Fantastic company. Implying what? That gay people are more jovial than most? That he can laugh despite being homosexual?

A bit like saying black people are very cheerful. ( which my mother a devout christian also says)

It is quite disturbing why the church is so obsessed with what people do with their genitalia.

Have they nothing better to do- like striving to allow women an equal voice and power in the world. Oh wait.............