Sodom and Gomorrah, abomination, unnatural, shameful and lustful acts. Those are just a few of the many things members of the LGBTQ+ community are told. Hearing this constantly can lead one to believe that there is no room for homosexuals or any sexual perversions in Christianity. You begin to believe that you have to choose between being who God made you to be or hiding that part of your life and following others standards and beliefs.
To clear the air, let me start by saying that I am not bashing the Bible, God, or Christianity, nor is it my intent to offend anyone. I am simply taking the most used and well known “clobber verses” used against homosexuals, putting it into the context as a whole, and explaining what it meant in its original setting.
Since the conspiracy of homosexuals and the Bible is a lengthy debate, this is split up into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Since the Old Testament comes first in the Bible we will be going over its “clobber verses” first.
When you think of homosexuality in the Bible, one of the first things that comes to mind is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. Two angels are sent to see if Sodom and Gomorrah are as bad as what God has been hearing. The angels are welcomed nicely by Lot and go back to his house. Later, many men gather around Lot’s house and yell to Lot to let out his guests so that they “can know them” or “have relations with them.” Lot does not give in and tells them to leave. The angels tell Lot to take his family and leave for the city will be destroyed, and after they get out, the city is destroyed by lightening.
Many people interpret this destruction being due to homosexual acts, however this is where they are wrong. God destroyed the city for being raided with sin, lust, and in-hospitality. There was a high premium put on hospitality in the Old Testament and the way these men went about the two new guests coming to their town was not only gang rape, but went against Jewish culture and laws.
In short, the Story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis is to prove how people should provide hospitality to their visitors and not oppress them. Ezekiel 16:19 confirms this by explaining how Sodom failed by being full of pride, gluttonous, abundance of idleness, and refusing to help the poor and needy.
The people in Sodom instead tried to gang rape the angels. Nowhere does it mention or hint at two homosexuals who are in a loving and caring relationship causing the city to be struck down by lightening.
The next set of “clobber verses” in the Old Testament are in Leviticus. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are the two versus that directly mention homosexuality as an abomination, or do they?
Leviticus 18 talks about unlawful sexual relations and says in verse 22, “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a women; that is detestable.”
Leviticus 20:13 basically says the same thing but lengthier and states how they should be put to death.
This type of “you shall not do x, for x is an abomination” pattern flows throughout the Old Testament and is not just directed at homosexual acts. With this being, if we still lived by the laws of the Old Testament, we would not be allowed to:
- Eat anything that mixes meat and dairy (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:10)
- Eat pork (Leviticus 3:17)
- Eat aquatic creatures lacking fins or scales Deuteronomy 14:9-10)
- Perform any work on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10)
- Plant more than one seed in a field (Leviticus 19:19)
- Wear clothing woven of more than one kind of cloth (Leviticus 19:19)
- Cut the hair on the sides of your head or clip the edges of your beard (Leviticus 19:27)
- And more.
If this was the case, shouldn’t America as a whole be struck down by lightening? Most of our clothing these days are made with more than one type of fabric, our food usually mixes meat and dairy (like a cheeseburger), people work on Sunday’s, cut their hair, you get the idea. We basically violate multiple Old Testament laws every day.
However, with the New Testament came a new set of laws to replace and update the laws in the Old Testament. Yes, there are still “clobber verses” people use in the New Testament as well but we will get to those in the next blog.
The key points to take away from the “clobber verses” used in the Old Testament are:
- It was written in the Old Testament whose laws are not relevant to this day (most of them at least, murder is still wrong!)
- The people in Sodom and Gomorrah tried to gang rape the angels (which is the opposite of a loving homosexual relationship)
- Sodom was mainly destroyed for their in-hospitality, unwillingness to help the poor and needy, gluttony, and pride (confirmed in Ezekiel)
Stay tuned for part two of this Debunking series in the next blog. Up next, the New Testament!
LGBTQ+ Christians: Yes, you can be both! 
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