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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Bible passages that are pro-homosexuality
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
quote:
which is why I think the OP is a bit facetious. Hmmmmm.
Oi! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) But, seriously, why?
Mainly because for the Israelite tribe, sex - of some kind, at any rate - between men had been made illegal and the death penalty was attached!
So of course there wouldn't be any sort of celebration of sexual relations between men at least.
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
quote:
which is why I think the OP is a bit facetious. Hmmmmm.
Oi! But, seriously, why?
Mainly because for the Israelite tribe, sex - of some kind, at any rate - between men had been made illegal and the death penalty was attached!
So of course there wouldn't be any sort of celebration of sexual relations between men at least.
"of some kind, at any rate" being one of the key points.
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Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
I'm no Biblical scholar, but personally I feel that the only thing that's actually condemned is "lying with a man as with a woman", which I take to mean anal sex, and that for cleanliness reasons.
Since anal sex isn't, despite the stereotype, practiced by every homosexual, and from the statistics I've seen, isn't even the most popular act by a long shot, it doesn't seem that big of a deal.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Er, WHY was Sodom destroyed ?
WHAT was it's sin ?
Careful now.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Rape.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Come to that, I've never been clear on how handing over your daughter to be gang raped makes you the only good man in the city. Rather than say, a child abuser or a pimp.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
Volcanic activity, most probably.
But in the story itself, a violent threat towards God's messengers. The city's arrogance. And, yes: indifference towards the stranger, and towards the poor and needy.
(Or did we think the men of Sodom - or at least those who showed up to see who the messengers were - were all gay? That would be bizarre indeed....)
[ 29. January 2011, 18:24: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
(And actually, this article by Ken Collins is an interesting read on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The summing-up paragraph:
quote:
God and the two angels came to Abraham in the heat of the day (mid-afternoon), ate a large meal which required extensive preparation (the main course was on the hoof), and had a lengthy conversation. Then the two angels set out for Sodom on foot and arrived there at dusk the same day. Later on in Genesis 19:13, the angels explain to Lot that they have been sent to Sodom to destroy the city. It is obvious that the investigation was completed and the fate of the cities determined before the angels were dispatched. The angels were not sent on a fact-finding mission, they were sent to execute a sentence. Therefore the conversation between God and Abraham could not have had any effect upon the fate of Lot and his family or the people of the city of Sodom. The purpose of the conversation was to educate Abraham about righteousness and justice, as God stated in Genesis 18:19.
What he's saying is that the actions of the "men of Sodom" were irrelevant to the ultimate fate of Sodom. God had already determined that the cities were to be destroyed. The violence at the gate is just further evidence that God has good reasons to destroy them - but has nothing to do with the "Why" itself.)
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Er, WHY was Sodom destroyed ?
WHAT was it's sin ?
Careful now.
It most definitely wasn't 'sodomy'.
Of all the passages commonly brought up as anti-gay, that's the one that is by FAR the easiest to dismantle.
[ 29. January 2011, 21:55: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The sin of Sodom was inhospitality. Ezekiel 16:48-50, Matthew 10:1-15, cf. Luke 10:1-12
Can we add Judges chapters 19 and 20 to this list, especially 19:22-25.
A rather powerful demonstration that the gender of a rape victim really doesn't mean squat.
If Sodom was destroyed for homosexuality, the inescapable logic is that the Benjamites were destroyed for heterosexuality. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) Therefore heterosexuality is intrinsically evil.
[ 29. January 2011, 22:01: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
(And actually, I forgot about Collins' examination of the verb "to know" in that article; apparently only 12 out of almost 1000 Biblical uses of the word are references to sex - and in every other case its use has referred to sex between married people. Sheesh.
And I forgot some of the other stuff, too. It's amazing this passage has been used for so long as a weapon to torment gay people....)
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Vulpior
Foxier than Thou
# 12744
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Posted
Isaiah 56: 1-8 is a favourite of mine. Verse 7 quoted by Jesus when he cleansed the Temple.
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Posts: 946 | From: Mount Fairy, NSW | Registered: Jun 2007
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Vulpior:
Isaiah 56: 1-8 is a favourite of mine.
It's a favourite of mine too but I've got no idea what it is has to do with homosexuality - are you comparing gays to foreigners or eunuchs here?
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The sin of Sodom was inhospitality. Ezekiel 16:48-50, Matthew 10:1-15, cf. Luke 10:1-12
Only if you define inhospitality as the attempted violent gang rape of the guests. That is pretty inhospitable of course. Would probably get a bad review in travel guides of the time.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The sin of Sodom was inhospitality. Ezekiel 16:48-50, Matthew 10:1-15, cf. Luke 10:1-12
Only if you define inhospitality as the attempted violent gang rape of the guests. That is pretty inhospitable of course. Would probably get a bad review in travel guides of the time.
As I understand it, it still does in Middle Eastern culture. A guest in your home is under your protection, and allowing anything to happen to them is an abhorrent thing. To them, that IS the essential meaning of 'inhospitality'.
(I've seen a program where a Yemeni Muslim critic used this as one of the reasons to explain to a former radical why attacking Western tourists was wrong. They were the country's guests.)
[ 31. January 2011, 11:27: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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iGeek
Number of the Feast
# 777
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
(Or did we think the men of Sodom - or at least those who showed up to see who the messengers were - were all gay? That would be bizarre indeed....)
Rape is a crime of violence intent on subjugation and humiliation. Orientation rarely enters into it (just as it doesn't enter into it in the modern day prison setting). Raping the vanquished enemy (male soldiers included) to make a point wasn't uncommon.
Posts: 2150 | From: West End, Gulfopolis | Registered: Aug 2002
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by iGeek:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
(Or did we think the men of Sodom - or at least those who showed up to see who the messengers were - were all gay? That would be bizarre indeed....)
Rape is a crime of violence intent on subjugation and humiliation. Orientation rarely enters into it (just as it doesn't enter into it in the modern day prison setting). Raping the vanquished enemy (male soldiers included) to make a point wasn't uncommon.
OK - but my point was to ask why this verse has always been used against homosexuals and never as a cautionary tale against domination.
But then, the Collins thing linked above doesn't even consider this passage to contain a sexual reference at all, so there you go. (AFAIK, Collins is a conservative Evangelical....)
[ 31. January 2011, 14:53: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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iGeek
Number of the Feast
# 777
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Posted
quote:
my point was to ask why this verse has always been used against homosexuals and never as a cautionary tale against domination.
Convenient scapegoats and cultural shorthand -- "Sodomites" and the subsequent unwarranted conflation of the word to mean "homosexual"
We're in violent agreement.
Posts: 2150 | From: West End, Gulfopolis | Registered: Aug 2002
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by iGeek:
quote:
my point was to ask why this verse has always been used against homosexuals and never as a cautionary tale against domination.
Convenient scapegoats and cultural shorthand -- "Sodomites" and the subsequent unwarranted conflation of the word to mean "homosexual"
We're in violent agreement.
Yeah. I wonder how long this has been going on; do you happen to know if the whole "Sodom/sodomites" thing has been used for, like, millennia - or is it fairly recent?
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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iGeek
Number of the Feast
# 777
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Posted
"homosexual" has only been in coin since the late 1800's along with the modern concept of a same-sex orientation.
I suspect that prior to that, the focus was on the behavior from which we have "catamites" and "sodomites" as the word to describe the action.
Posts: 2150 | From: West End, Gulfopolis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Edward Green
Review Editor
# 46
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Posted
Leo has it.
But I would argue that from a catholic perspective that covenant loving relationships of the type that David and Jonathan shared are part of the tradition.
I hate to say that a lot of the gut reaction against homosexual relationships in the current climate has as much to do with fear of that sort of relationship as anything to do with sex. Or perhaps the fear that those in the relationship may or might at some point have been having sex, or that people might think they were having sex.
The issue of sexual attraction and expression is different to that of life long love and partnership - that could come from a marriage seminar.
My conservative side then says let same sex couples live together, affirm such companionships as a church for both clergy and laity. Keep the issue of sex between them and their confessors.
My liberal side asks more questions about what sex now means to us theologically beyond biological procreation and what a fulfilled Pauline understanding of 'No Male and Female' means in terms of 'natural order', which we already apply by ordaining female priests.
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Cor 7:9)
From the same author as penned the only troublesome New Testament passages, this is all we should need. From it we can deduce that those who are married either cannot control themselves, or are not really all that serious about living biblically.
It is common to turn to gay people and say "you don't really need to have sex, do you?" as if we all had some secret wellspring of self-control totally unimagined by most straights. Thanks for the back-handed compliment, but I am afraid it is just as often undeserved as it evidently is for heterosexuals.
As for David and Jonathan, I think that they are a case of adolescent homoerotic relationships. They are not unusual: a phase, if you will. But this is by no means to belittle them. IMHO such a relationship, even though one or both partners go on to heterosexual love, is, while it lasts, as holy as any other and just as deserving of reverence from peers and elders. And I fail to understand the desperate voyeuristic curiosity of wondering whether they do or do not at some point rub erect penises against each other's bodies, as though that makes all the difference between whether the relationship is good or evil.
But then, amorous relationships have never been the brightest bulb in my personal chandelier. The fact that most people eventually find mutual love which lasts years and years is something that can only I observe with absolute amazement. It's so easy for them that throwaways, either in their own lives or in someone whom they presume to judge, are considered of little consequence.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Well done orfeo.
As Leo somewhat euphemistically put it, they weren't 'hospitable':
Ezekiel 16:48-50
“‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen...
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I think the beloved disciple leaning on Jesus breast deserves another look. Here it is in the NRSV:
One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; 24Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. 25So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’
The translation doesn't mention Jesus breast at all, simply speaking of reclining next to. The Greek uses two words for breast. First time it is kolpos, second time, stethos. The KJV uses bosom the first time, and breast the second.
The NRSV translation is surprising in that it has chosen a very bland form of words, hiding the physicality of the Greek. Hiding also the parallel with the Lukan parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where Lazarus is described as being in the bosom of Abraham. (The NRSV says 'by his side' but gives bosom in a footnote - no footnote in the John passage.)
I don't suggest that Jesus and the beloved disciple were homosexual lovers, nor do I think John (the gospel writer) thought this. But he clearly describes a close same-sex relationship, probably best described as not being between equals, and he does so in language that today cannot be heard without homosexual possibilities being raised. Especially in conjunction with the fact that the disciple in question is repeatedly described as the one Jesus loved.
I think the NRSV has translated as it has because it is, if you like embarrassed. It might be better to say that it is aware of likely misapprehensions if it translated it more naturally.
The passage isn't evidence of a gay relationship, but a reminder of a time and culture when intimate same sex relationships could be expressed physically in public without censure. I think the difficulty in translating it today reveals the fears and judgmentalism that we suffer.
Today, the description in a narrative of two males holding hands, or embracing at length, or one reclining on the other's chest would almost certainly have to be making a point about sexuality, or be explicitly justified in some other way. The Fourth Gospel just doesn't feel that compulsion at all. It can tell us about these two and leave it at that.
I find that quite a challenge to our uptight need to stick every person, every relationship and every act into a box labelled gay or straight.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
In this case it helps to know something about ancient dinner table arrangements. At the last supper everybody was probably arranged on couches or mats of some sort, leaning on the left elbow by the table with the body diagonally out behind them. Three to a couch is the usual spacing, and you eat with your right hand.
This means that if you are so lucky as to be reclining next to Jesus (next to him in FRONT of him, I mean), Jesus will be looking at the back/top of your head most of the time. If you then wish to speak to him quietly, the only logical thing to do is to lean back against his chest, so your head will be lower than his though in the same vertical plane, and you can see each other's faces. After all, you probably haven't got room to turn around or sit up--at least, not without disturbing the diner next to you. But the lean-back maneuver is easy and natural, and requires no shouting of private questions.
How do I know this? Because my family of three watches TV in basically the same position every night, with Mr. Lamb in John's spot and I in Jesus'. Many's the time he's had to ask me something by leaning back that way.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Yes, I've assumed that image, and that we are meant to picture that John leaned back against Jesus, his head probably touching his chest, his face upturned, inches from Jesus. Asking a question privately seems to confirm this physical nearness.
It could be that the phrase should be read as giving nothing more than the reclining arrangements, and that we should picture a 'proper' distance being kept at all times, just as 'sitting on the right hand of' someone doesn't actually imply any hand to bottom contact, but the double reference to breast/bosom and the different sensibilities of ancient middle-eastern society make me think otherwise.
[As I write this, you have 11111 posts!]
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Oh dear! How loth I am to spoil it!
But it's worth keeping in mind that "proper distances" vary across cultures too, not just in time but today. Well I remember visiting a Vietnamese home and sitting on the sofa, whereupon the lady of the house, after a little preliminary chitchat, came and sat right next to me and put her leg across my own! Total stranger.
Not to mention the handholding and arms around the waist various Vietnamese girls have initiated with me, generally in a very public place like an airport.
And me an uptight American. What we suffer for the Gospel's sake. ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I understand that in Russia, pre-Revolutionary at least, but more recently, too, it was normal for men to have one or two special friends with whom they would hold hands as they walked together. So the meaning of such things does change.
Still, I maintain that our reactions to the passage from John reveal that our current expectations and preoccupations are culturally determined, and rather brittle in the areas of sex and gender.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
There are references in Jane Austen to male friends walking arm in arm. Even in the UK cultural norms have not always been what they are now.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
If you think the passages about David and Jonathan are suggestive, you might want to look at the speech of Ruth to Naomi, one of the strongest statements of love in the Bible.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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PonderFactory
Apprentice
# 16415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
If you think the passages about David and Jonathan are suggestive, you might want to look at the speech of Ruth to Naomi, one of the strongest statements of love in the Bible.
You know what I find interesting? If there were any suggestion of a homoerotic nature between David and Jonathan, or Naomi and Ruth, why these accounts were not redacted or edited in some way after the Pauline epistles were circulated.
Just seems a little odd to me.
Posts: 25 | From: Brisbane | Registered: May 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PonderFactory:
If there were any suggestion of a homoerotic nature between David and Jonathan, or Naomi and Ruth, why these accounts were not redacted or edited in some way after the Pauline epistles were circulated.
The first thing is the weight of tradition. The evidence is largely that Jews and Christians have not redacted their scriptures. They've developed other methods of explaining awkward passages, of which allegory and midrash were the most common in the period of the pre-Constantinian Roman Empire.
The second is that Paul wouldn't necessarily have been concerned about homoerotic suggestions in the way that we are. Conservative readings of these passages assume that there's some trans-cultural behaviour pattern called 'homosexuality' that manifests in the same way in every society and generation. (*) But the context in which Paul is framing his understanding of the problems is different from the twenty-first century West and that's different again from iron-age Judaea.
(*) Apparently it consists of anal sex and "the gay lifestyle".
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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