Queer and Christian without contradiction

The follies of condemning homosexuality through the Bible

Chuck Wright

In high school, I was involved in a church youth group where I found a community of friends unlike anywhere else. For me, along with many of my friends, we found a safe haven in contrast to the frightful high school environment. “Youth group” was a place to be ourselves, to share our struggles and to participate in meaningful activities together.

However, after my friends and I moved onto our various post-high-school adventures, I was made aware that our church was a safe haven reserved for only certain people. One of my closest friends, who had been a part of the church for several years, had come “out of the closet” and had his church membership revoked.

I can only imagine the pain and anger my friend and his family must have experienced: to be rejected by a community they had come to identify as their own. And for what? What is the so-called “Christian” basis for this holy indictment?

In typical Christian fashion, many people revert to selectively isolating biblical texts that build a case for whatever “flavour of the month” issue they’re passionate about. In the case of homosexuality, it is a topic that occurs surprisingly infrequently within the Christian Bible relative to the amount of energy and attention homosexuality and same-sex marriage has received from the Christian establishment. Nonetheless, the biblical arguments demand attention as it serves to justify homophobia, whether explicitly in the form of discrimination and violence or implicitly in the form of accepting the “sinner” but not the “sin.”

To begin with, the sinful activities and destruction of the city of Sodom (Genesis 19) are somewhat ambiguous. In this story, a male mob aggressively approaches Lot’s house (one of the only remaining “righteous” men in the city) to have sex with his male guests, but are struck blind by the angelic visitors when they attempt to invade the house. In context, this passage seems to condemn and the violation of the sacred rules of hospitality rather than homosexuality per se. The moral lesson is further distorted by Lot’s initial response to the angry mob, which is to offer his two virgin daughters as concession “to do what you like with them!”

Later texts in the Bible do not give any consistent explanation of the sin of Sodom: Ezekiel 16:49 suggests that the sin was their failure to show compassion toward the poor and needy and 2 Peter 2:7 only refers to the “filthy lives of lawless men” in references to the destruction of Sodom.

It is only twice in the Hebrew Bible where we find explicit condemnation of homosexual behaviour, both occurring in Leviticus. Leviticus 18:22 states: “You shall not have sexual intercourse with another man, for such is abominable behaviour.” Again, at Leviticus 20:13, we read a similar remark: “Two men who have sexual intercourse with each other have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death and fault is theirs alone.” However, this text says nothing about what form of sexual intercourse is abominable and is specifically directed towards men. Furthermore, I don’t think anyone in their right mind would consider murder a just response to homosexual behaviour.

Further, in its context, the rules within Leviticus are not legislating for ordinary human affairs; the authors of Leviticus are primarily concerned with temple ritual. There are other obviously cultural codes present in Leviticus which most Western Christians deem irrelevant, such as the prohibition against eating shellfish and wearing fabrics of blended fibres. It is in this manner that using Leviticus as an argument against homosexuality approaches the absurd, as it indicates the selectiveness, inconsistency, and lack of context by which the verses are being used.

Alas, we are left scrambling among biblical passages in the New Testament for scriptural crumbs hardly resembling a sound argument (and Jesus apparently has nothing to say on the subject of homosexuality). In Romans 1:24-28, it states that God gave a group of men and women over to shameful lusts, “exchanging natural relations for unnatural ones,” where men were “inflamed with lust for one another.” This passage concludes that “since they did not think it worthwhile to retain knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done.” However, the author could simply be condemning heterosexuals engaging in promiscuous homosexual behaviour, and again, the type of behaviour is left vague. It also begs the question: can we assume we hold the same understanding of “unnatural” as the author of Romans held? Can homosexuality even be defined as “unnatural” if it is obviously common, or at least occurring, within the period of these biblical texts?

Another passage, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, states that the “wicked,” including “homosexual offenders,” will not inherit the kingdom of God. However, exactly what is a “homosexual offence” is left up to the interpretation of the reader.

For those people unexposed to this sort of discussion it must seem absurd. After all, who really cares what an ancient document says about sexual behaviour? Do we not live in the 21st century? Unfortunately, this rationale sometimes evades those who believe the Bible is the literal “Word of God,” and as such, it is important to challenge the cultural assumptions a person brings to the biblical text as well as the manner it is used, such as a comprehensive prescription for moral behaviour.

I hope this discussion points out the absurdity of biblical arguments against consensual, same-sex relationships. This “textual violence,” as author Robert Goss describes, “has murdered the souls of many queer Christians and provided legitimacy for anti-queer violence” as it potentially had for my close high school friend. It is commendable that some churches have chosen to become LGBTQ-friendly, and I plead that Christians of all stripes recognize their prejudices and move forward in the spirit of Christ, both in humility and inclusiveness, to welcome and embrace sexual diversity.

Chuck Wright is the local coordinator of the Student Christian Movement, a student-led grassroots social justice movement.