Tag: bible

As this month is pride month, I thought I’d put out a related post. So like a dummy I decided to cover Christianity’s views on gay people. Because that’s not controversial at all. But seriously guys, it was a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. I subjected myself to hours of looking through super Christian anti-gay rhetoric. And then I had to read every bible verse people considered went against homosexuality. And then I went over the Greek translations. By the end of my ‘research’ I wanted to jump out of a window. It was absolutely draining, but I came up with good evidence. So here it is guys my post on why the bible doesn’t shit on homosexuality.

First off, I think we all know that people like to use bible verses as proof of homosexuality is a sin. While I think the bible is silly, many people see it as truth. So where did this truth come from? Currently, the bibles we have today have been translated many times over. The Old Testament was originally in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek [1]. Now any translation can be shitty, as word for word translations tend to make no sense (see the NASB) and others conform more loosely but ultimately lose the nuances of the original text. So basically translations suck whichever way you do them. Now for people who look at your bible written and english and think ‘this is exactly what God meant’, I’m sorry to break it to you, but it’s not. Not only has it lost many of the nuances, some of the words have been changed to fit the writer’s agendas. -le gasp- Yeah, big statement. However, there is serious speculation as to whether the new translations are correct. Truthfully, whether you look at the English Standard Version (ESV), King James Version (KJV), or other modern translation, you will always find it ‘male’. 

There was an article put out by Ed Oxford, a researcher, where he used a team of translators to analyze non-English versions of the text [2]. In analyzing one of his German bibles from the 1800s, they found that that verse (above) roughly translates to “Man shall not lie with young boys as he does with a woman, for it is an abomination.” There are other instances where the translation changes the meaning of the verse: Leviticus 20:13 and most notably 1 Corinthians. Leviticus 20:13 also uses the translation ‘young boy’ instead of man. And 1 Corinthians? Oh boy this shit is wild. As Greek was the original text, they wanted to see how the Greek word arsenokoitai was translated. The text uses the word knabenschander. Knaben is boy, schander is molester. So, according to this translation, 1 Corinthians 6:9, it is not referring to homosexuals but rather boy molesters. It is also used in 1 Timothy 1:10. So instead of saying that homosexuals are among the lawless, it means boy molesters (pedophiles) belong to that group. Now that we know what the original translations are, we are faced with a question. How did the scriptures get so twisted? Anti-gay propaganda. No, seriously. The term homosexuality wasn’t added into the bible until the 1952 when the RSV version was published[3]. German translations didn’t change until the revision in 1983 which was funded by Biblica, an American company [4]. With all this new information, you might start thinking that it was people who started the anti-gay rhetoric and not God. Which is true because God’s not a dick.

There are other verses used to defend this hate of homosexuality. One story that almost always comes up is the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. I personally read it multiple times but never found where it explicitly stated their sins were homosexuality. It never even truly hinted at it. Sodom and Gomorrah were introduced in Genesis 18:20 when God tells Abraham that their sins were great and he needed to see for himself if what he heard was true. Nowhere in this are the sins described so at this point we just know the people are ‘wicked’. Now the story gets interesting in the next verse. So two angels are chilling in Abraham’s nephew’s house. Lot, the nephew, is called out by a crowd of seemingly all the men in the town. They asked to see his visitors and when he refused tried to break into the house. The angels took Lot back into the house and blinded everyone who stood on the other side as punishment. Then God destroys the cities. That’s basically a summary of what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. Now why do people use this story to denounce homosexuality? Well there is one line that many critics use to ‘prove’ homosexuality is a sin: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them” (Genesis 19:5). Many people interpret this as ‘carnal desire’ and declare that homosexuality is why the towns were destroyed. I mean that line is worded kind of weird, but that’s a stretch.

Sodom and Gomorrah are referenced again in Jude. They are said to have engaged in ‘sexual immorality’ and pursued ‘unnatural desire.’ And people look at these phrases and go ‘yes this must mean gay sex!’ but it’s not always true. Sexual immorality is anything not conforming to God’s laws of sexuality (which I have yet to see) and includes things like sex outside of marriage and anything not for making babies[5]. By this logic, unmarried people having sex using condoms is hella immoral. So maybe it’s talking about that? And unnatural desire or unnatural lust depending on what version you’re reading, refers to non-reproductive sex[6]. So handjobs, blowjobs, anal sex, using condoms and other birth control and a shit ton of other stuff is ‘unnatural’. Bestiality and other kinky stuff too. I’d personally add having sex with underage people, forcing yourself onto someone, and nonconsensual somnophilia but that’s just my picks. So out of literally all these things, what are they referring to? Sodom and Gomorrah could have been doing anything, yet people are like ‘nah they gay’. Other mentions of the two cities are scattered and either comment on how they got destroyed or threaten with a ‘you’re gonna wish you were those cities’. So in conclusion, this story could refer to homosexuality, but it could also refer to bestiality, old people doing it (non-reproductive), and masturbating. So yeah. Not a clear case for homosexuality.

There was a sort of retelling of the story in Judges 19 that was more ‘clear cut’: The man, Lot 2.0., says to “Violate [his daughter and concubine] and do with them what seems good to you, but against this man do not do this outrageous thing.” (Judges 19:24) Personally I think this is pretty telling. That man is an asshole. But seriously though, this is obviously a Sodom and Gomorrah knock off. Except this time they made it so the ‘gay’ was more apparent. Like, ‘hey angry mob violate the women in my house but not these godly dudes’. Although this was from the New Testament, and made to replace the old version of the story, I’d still give this one little  credence. They rewrote this story just to say ‘these men would rape dudes’.It’s kinda dumb. Also, people use a few quotes from 1 Kings, but they all refer to male prostitutes. It’s possible they might be gay but I think they’re more angry with the prostitute part. Also the people in question were worshipping ‘false idols’ so that probably pissed them off too. Romans 1 also comments on homosexuality and is actually more explicit. God was pissed that they had been worshipping ‘false gods’ and basically said screw them. He left them and suddenly “their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another”(Romans 1:26-27). So people without God are gay? Like them having ‘unnatural’ gay sex isn’t like a terrible thing. I mean he also filled them with negative emotions and evil intentions but I think that was mostly for worshipping animal creatures instead of him.

So in my honest opinion, there isn’t a real verse in the bible that says homosexuality is evil and everyone should die. I mean there might be, but I haven’t seen one. So if the bible, something Christians and Catholics praise as the word of God doesn’t implicitly state that gay people are evil, why do people still think this? If no one is above God, why are you putting words in his mouth? If God created us in His own image, why would he make gay people if they were so evil? And if God loves all of his creations, why would he condemn gay people to hell just for who they love? A person once said that  gay Christian was an oxymoron, that the two couldn’t actually coexist. Which is bullshit. If homosexuality is a sin (it’s not) and gay people are sinners (they’re not) then they could still be Christian. Divorce is a sin. Lying is sin. Cheating is sin. Yet you still see liars, cheaters, and divorcees being Christians. And Christianity is all about redemption. So get your head out of your ass and realize that literally everyone is a sinner* and welcomed into Christianity.

*I’m not saying homosexuality is a sin. Like that’s antithetical to my whole post. 

*I chose the ESV bible as it exhibited ‘formal equivalence’ (good translation) and was easy to read.