Is the Bible anti-gay? | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• DISARMG A SACRED WEAPON: DEBUNKG ANTI-LGBTQ+ CLOBBER PASSAG USED BY THE CHURCHWHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT HOMOSEXUALY, SAME-SEX ATTRACTN, AND BEG TRANSGENR? GOD LOV LGBTQ+ PEOPLEJOEL NIHLEAN·FOLLOWPUBLISHED AN INJTICE!·11 M READ·JUL 12, 2022--5SHAREIMAGE BY JOEL NIHLEANTHE RIGHT THE UNED STAT IS ENGAGED AN ALL-OUT WAR ON CIVIL RIGHTS. AFTER THEIR RECENT VICTORI OVER REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS, ADVANC LGBTQ+ RIGHTS ARE THEIR SIGHTS. THEIR EXTREMISM IS RMED BY A FAH FUELED BY MISTRANSLATNS, IGNORANCE, AND WILFUL BIGOTRY.CONSERVATIV CE A LOT OF PASSAG THE BIBLE TO SUPPORT THEIR TOLERANCE. BUT THEIR EVINCE DON’T HOLD UP TO THE SCTY OF HISTORIL AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.THEY’RE SET ON SEEG HOMOSEXUALY AS A S, OFTEN SCRIBG AS A “LIFTYLE CHOICE.” EVEN THOSE THAT BELIEVE ISN’T A CHOICE SEE AS SOME KD OF TWISTED TT OM GOD. YOU N BE GAY, THEY SAY, BUT YOU N NEVER ACT ON .THE NON-AFFIRMG CHRISTIANS WILL SAY THGS LIKE, “HATE THE S, NOT THE SNER,” AND “I DO LOVE, SUPPORT, AND ACCEPT GAY PEOPLE. I JT DON’T AGREE WH THEIR LIFTYLE.”THIS RHETORIL SISTEP REVEALS THAT THEY BELIEVE THERE’S SOMETHG HERENTLY WRONG WH THEIR LGBTQ+ SIBLGS.THAT’S NOT LOVE. OR SUPPORT. OR ACCEPTANCE.IT’S LIFE-DRAG CELTY.THE U OF HOMOPHOBIC THEOLOGY IS ATH
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• 15 BIBLE VERS AGAST HOMOSEXUALY, GAY AND LBIANISM
• THE BIBLE IS NOT ANTI-GAY
• IS THE BIBLE ANTI-GAY?
• WHY ‘GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN’ IS WRONG ABOUT THE BIBLE AND SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS
• IS THE BIBLE “ANTI-GAY”?

DISARMG A SACRED WEAPON: DEBUNKG ANTI-LGBTQ+ CLOBBER PASSAG USED BY THE CHURCHWHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT HOMOSEXUALY, SAME-SEX ATTRACTN, AND BEG TRANSGENR? GOD LOV LGBTQ+ PEOPLEJOEL NIHLEAN·FOLLOWPUBLISHED AN INJTICE!·11 M READ·JUL 12, 2022--5SHAREIMAGE BY JOEL NIHLEANTHE RIGHT THE UNED STAT IS ENGAGED AN ALL-OUT WAR ON CIVIL RIGHTS. AFTER THEIR RECENT VICTORI OVER REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS, ADVANC LGBTQ+ RIGHTS ARE THEIR SIGHTS. THEIR EXTREMISM IS RMED BY A FAH FUELED BY MISTRANSLATNS, IGNORANCE, AND WILFUL BIGOTRY.CONSERVATIV CE A LOT OF PASSAG THE BIBLE TO SUPPORT THEIR TOLERANCE. BUT THEIR EVINCE DON’T HOLD UP TO THE SCTY OF HISTORIL AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.THEY’RE SET ON SEEG HOMOSEXUALY AS A S, OFTEN SCRIBG AS A “LIFTYLE CHOICE.” EVEN THOSE THAT BELIEVE ISN’T A CHOICE SEE AS SOME KD OF TWISTED TT OM GOD. YOU N BE GAY, THEY SAY, BUT YOU N NEVER ACT ON .THE NON-AFFIRMG CHRISTIANS WILL SAY THGS LIKE, “HATE THE S, NOT THE SNER,” AND “I DO LOVE, SUPPORT, AND ACCEPT GAY PEOPLE. I JT DON’T AGREE WH THEIR LIFTYLE.”THIS RHETORIL SISTEP REVEALS THAT THEY BELIEVE THERE’S SOMETHG HERENTLY WRONG WH THEIR LGBTQ+ SIBLGS.THAT’S NOT LOVE. OR SUPPORT. OR ACCEPTANCE.IT’S LIFE-DRAG CELTY.THE U OF HOMOPHOBIC THEOLOGY IS ATH

Our Christian hearts, ns the (ually impassned) argument, pel to grant full moral and legal equaly to gay and lbian people; our Christian fah, the (ually impassned) rebuttal, pels to cleave, above all, to the word of God.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

All tak is readg those passag of the Bible where homosexualy is mentned wh the same re we would any other passage of the n tst God; we n tst that God is we n tst that we n -- and that we certaly should -- take God, this matter, as all thgs, at his there is no clearly stated directive the Bible to margalize and ostracize gay people, then Christians ntug to do so is morally fensible, and mt nnot be nied is that Christians have ed a great al of pa and sufferg to gay persons, by:Banng their participatn the church, th privg them of the forts and spirual us of the church;Banng their participatn the sacrament of marriage, th privg them of the forts and spirual us of marriage;Damagg the bonds between gays and their straight fay members, th weakeng the forts and spirual us of fay life for both gays and their fai; andUsg their posn wh society as spokpersons for God to proclaim that all homosexual relatns are disdaed by God, th knowgly ntributg to the cel persecutn of a mory populatn. They say that the Bible f all homosexual acts as sful, stcts them to exclu om full participatn the church all non-repentant sners (cludg gay people), and morally lls upon them to publicly (or at least rolutely) nounce homosexual acts. Whout an explic directive om God to exclu and nmn homosexuals, the Christian muny's treatment of gay persons is clear vlatn of what J and the New Ttament wrers potedly intified as the most important mandment om God: to love one's neighbor as one's gay muny has cried out for jtice to Christians, who have a biblilly mandated obligatn to be jt.

Heterosexual Christians are beg unbiblil by g the clobber passag as jtifitn for applyg absolute standards of moraly to homosexual "ss" that they themselv are not tempted to m, while at the same time acceptg for themselv a standard of relative moraly for those ss listed the clobber passag that they do routely m. ) The fact that homosexualy is so rarely mentned the Bible should be an ditn to of the gree of importance ascribed by the thors of the the Bible is nearly silent on homosexualy, a great al of s ntent is voted to how a Christian should behave. If heterosexual Christians are obligated to look to the Bible to terme the sfulns of homosexual acts, how much greater is their obligatn to look to the Bible to terme the sfulns of their behavr toward gay persons, pecially light of the gay muny's ll to them for jtice?

And so Christians accept as evable that any given Christian will, for stance, on ocsn drk too much, lt or tell a we've seen, the clobber passag Pl also nmns, along wh homosexualy, those three specific ss. Christians draw no moral distctn between the homosexual gang rape the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the i to which Pl refers his letter to the Romans, the wild sexual abandon Pl addrs 1 Corthians, and nsensual homosexual sex between lovg and mted homosexual partners.

15 BIBLE VERS AGAST HOMOSEXUALY, GAY AND LBIANISM

Heterosexual Christians are beg unfair and hypocril by g the clobber passag as jtifitn for applyg absolute standards of moraly (and an absolute penalty) to homosexual "ss" that they themselv are never tempted to m, while at the same time acceptg for themselv a standard of relative moraly (and applyg no real penalty) for those ss listed the clobber passag that they do routely there is no monstrable harm arisg om sex wh a mted homosexual relatnship, and there is signifint monstrable harm arisg om discrimatn and nmnatn agast gay persons, what possible biblil basis n there be for not regnizg the vast moral differential between sex acts done wh the ntext of a lovg mted relatnship, and sex acts of any other sort? We would be foolish to fail to unrstand that not everythg the Bible is a mandment, and that Christians nnot take any small sectn of the Bible out of s own ntext, and still hope to ga a clear unrstandg of s the four Old Ttament passag to nmn all homosexual acts is not keepg wh any directive om God, nor wh the practic of ntemporary Bible's first four mentns of homosexualy occur the Old ntug to be spirually spired and fluenced by the Old Ttament, Christians were specifilly stcted by Pl not to follow the law of the Old Ttament, such passag as:The former regulatn is set asi bee was weak and els (for the law ma nothg perfect), and a better hope is troduced, by which we draw near to God.

Therefore, the e of the four Old Ttament passag to nmn all homosexual acts is keepg wh neher any directive om God, nor wh the practic of ntemporary the clobber passag Pl nmns the ercive, excsive and predatory same-sex sexual activy practiced by the Romans -- and would have nmned the same acts had they been heterosexual nature. It's also why the Bible is no longer ed to jtify the cel stutn of slavery, or to ny women the right to as those thoughts and unrstandgs of the New Ttament changed and grew, so today is beg creasgly clear to Christians that the three New Ttament clobber passag (each of which was wrten by Pl letters to or about nascent distant church), when unrstood their historil ntext, do not nstute a directive om God agast LGBT people are the three mentns of homosexualy the New Ttament:Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not her the kgdom of God? --1 Corthians 6:9-10We also know that the law is ma not for the righteo but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sful, the unholy and irrelig, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murrers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicg homosexualy, for slave trars and liars and perjurers -- and for whatever else is ntrary to the sound doctre.

THE BIBLE IS NOT ANTI-GAY

--Romans 1:26-27In the tim durg which the New Ttament was wrten, the Roman nquerors of the regn equently and openly engaged homosexual acts between olr men and boys, and between men and their male slav. As a moral man, Pl was revolted by the acts -- as, certaly, he would have been by the same acts had they been heterosexual Bible's clobber passag were wrten about same-sex acts between heterosexual persons, and do not addrs the subject of homosexual acts between a mted gay uple, bee the ncept of a person beg a homosexual did not exist at the time the Bible was is also cril to our readg of the New Ttament's three clobber passag to unrstand that while of urse Pl knew about sex acts that took place between persons of the same genr, he had no ncept whatsoever of homosexual persons.

Pl had no ncept of an entire populatn of people who, as a fundamental, unalterable ndn of their existence, were sexually attracted to persons of the same genr, and not sexually attracted to persons of the oppose is the openg of the OCD's article on homosexualy:"No Greek or Lat word rrponds to the morn term 'homosexualy, ' and ancient Mederranean society did not practice treat homosexualy as a socially operatg tegory of personal or public life. Sexual relatns between persons of the same sex certaly did occur (they are wily attted ancient sourc), but they were not systematilly distguished or nceptualized as such, much ls were they thought to reprent a sgle, homogeneo phenomenon ntradistctn to sexual relatns between persons of different sex....

IS THE BIBLE ANTI-GAY?

Bee there was no ncept of gay marriage when the Bible was wrten, the Bible do not, and uld not, addrs the sfulns of homosexual acts done wh the ntext of gay Bible routely, clearly and strongly classifi all sex acts outsi of the bonds of marriage as sful. Christians therefore have no biblil basis for themselv nmng such fact, by nyg marriage equaly to gay people, Christians are pellg gay upl to s, bee their timacy mt happen outsi of marriage, and is therefore, by biblil fn, personally repelled by homosexual sex don't make homosexual sex a addn to the Bible, many Christians ce as addnal evince of the herent sfulns of homosexual acts their raw emotnal rponse to such acts. Taken altogether, the evince -- the social ntext which the Bible was wrten, the lack of the very ncept of gay people Pl's time, the abily of gay people to marry, the equy between how the clobber passag are applied between a majory and a mory populatn, the jtice of the punishment for a state of beg over which one has no choice beg excln om God's church on earth and human love generally -- shows that choosg to nmn and exclu gay people based on the Bible is the morally rrect choice.

And they’re more likely to end up the crimal jtice CDC and Trevor Project also found that even jt one supportive adult a queer kid’s life uld crease their risk of attemptg suici by unfound homophobic doctre has kept LGBTQ± Christians at arms-length om the church. Ever sce born-aga sger and orange juice pchwoman Ana Bryant helped kick off the ntemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-le elements of the relig right have been searchg for ways to monize gay people — or, at a mimum, to fd arguments that will prevent their normalizatn society.

WHY ‘GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN’ IS WRONG ABOUT THE BIBLE AND SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS

But addn to hawkg that myth, the legns of anti-gay activists who followed have add a panoply of others, rangg om the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientatn is a choice, to unalloyed li like the claims that gay men molt children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalizatn of btialy and necrophilia.

The fairy tal are important to the anti-gay right bee they form the basis of s claim that homosexualy is a social evil that mt be supprsed — an opn rejected by virtually all relevant medil and scientific thori. Depictg gay men as a threat to children may be the sgle most potent weapon for stokg public fears about homosexualy — and for wng electns and referenda, as Ana Bryant found out durg her succsful 1977 mpaign to overturn a Da County, Fla., ordance barrg discrimatn agast gay people. Others have ced a group lled the Amerin College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) to claim, as Tony Perks of the Fay Rearch Council did November 2010, that "the rearch is overwhelmg that homosexualy pos a [moltatn] danger to children.

IS THE BIBLE “ANTI-GAY”?

Gregory Herek, a profsor at the Universy of California, Davis, who is one of the natn's leadg rearchers on prejudice agast sexual mori, reviewed a seri of studi and found no evince that gay men molt children at higher rat than heterosexual men.

The Amerin Amy of Child & Adolcent Psychiatry affirmed 2013 that “[c]urrent rearch shows that children wh gay and lbian parents do not differ om children wh heterosexual parents their emotnal velopment or their relatnships wh peers and adults” and they are “not more likely than children of heterosexual parents to velop emotnal or behavral problems. The Amerin Amy of Pediatrics (AAP) a 2002 policy statement clared: "A growg body of scientific lerature monstrat that children who grow up wh one or two gay and/or lbian parents fare as well emotnal, gnive, social, and sexual functng as do children whose parents are heterosexual. ” Schumm, who has also argued that lbian relatnships are unstable, has ti to discreded psychologist and anti-LGBT fabulist Pl Cameron, the thor of numero pletely basels “studi” about the alleged evils of homosexualy.

The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn noted a 2000 fact sheet available on the Associatn of Gay and Lbian Psychiatrists, that alg wh gay, lbian and bisexual issu, that sexual abe do not appear to be any more prevalent among children who grow up and intify as gay, lbian or bisexual than children who grow up and intify as heterosexual. Siarly, the Natnal Organizatn on Male Sexual Victimizatn not on s webse that "experts the human sexualy field do not believe that premature sexual experienc play a signifint role late adolcent or adult sexual orientatn" and add that 's unlikely that anyone n make another person gay or heterosexual.