Culture Of Life 101 . . . “What Does The Bible Say About Homosexuality?”
By BRIAN CLOWES
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For the complete culture of life series on homosexuality [with footnotes], e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)
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“The explicit root-and-branch rejection of morality by gays has been real, pervasive, and baleful in its effect on both the quality of life that we create for ourselves within the [gay] community, and our P.R. [public relations] with straights. . . . There’s a simpler, darker reason why many gays choose to live without morality: As ideologies go, amorality is damned convenient. And the mortal enemy of that convenience is the value judgment. . . . Without morality, there can be no compelling basis for responsibility to others”
— Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball.
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A thick fog of confusion obscures the debate about homosexuality. This is by design; one of the fundamental strategies of the Culture of Death is to generate uncertainty and misunderstanding so that people will be intimidated into remaining silent.
Nowhere does this principle apply more than to what Scripture says about homosexuality.
“Gay-friendly” clergy tend to use the terms “love” and “acceptance” interchangeably, claiming that we must love everyone, because we are all children of God.
It is certainly true that Jesus commanded us to love everyone, but it is not true that we are all “children of God.” And it certainly is not true that we must tolerate and accept evil behavior.
Scripture repeatedly refers to “children of the Devil”:
“No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.
“By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:9-10).
“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:43-44).
The homophile will always focus on “loving our neighbor,” so we must ask: What is true love — turning a blind eye while our brother treads the easy and comfortable road to Hell, or warning him of the horrible fate that awaits him? What is true love — wanting to spend eternity in Paradise with someone, or not caring if he burns in Hell for that same eternity?
What Does Scripture Really Say? The mind’s greatest power is its ability to deceive itself. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pitiful spectacle of radical feminists, abortionists, corrupt politicians, and homosexual activists masquerading as Christians, proclaiming that they are “devout Catholics,” and denying that the Bible condemns homosexual behavior.
After hearing such self-justifications, many pro-family Christians wonder what “bible” the homophiles are getting their information from.
Believe it or not, there is an actual “Gay Bible.” The “Queen James Version” alters the eight verses in the 1769 King James Version that deal with homosexuality “in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible.”
A person may disagree with the Bible on what it says about homosexuality, but it is just flat dishonest to produce a new version and then pretend that it is genuine. Perhaps this is why the editors of the “Queen James Bible” have wisely chosen to remain anonymous.
In reality, few sins are condemned by the Bible as explicitly as sodomy. Both the Old and New Testaments contain passages stating quite plainly that people who engage in homosexual activity will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
In fact, the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah have become the standard by which the sins of other cities and countries were judged in many Scripture passages.
The Case of Sodom: Homophiles boast about being great propagandists. Their specialty is the classic half-truth — deliberately telling only that part of the story that supports their allegations.
For example, they are fond of saying that Sodom was destroyed by God — not because the townspeople were homosexuals, but instead because they weren’t hospitable to travelers. Dissenter Fr. John J. McNeill advances this flimsy argument in his book The Church and the Homosexual, and it is repeated ad nauseam on many homophile websites.
What the homophiles intentionally omit from this account is Gen. 19:4-8:
“But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.’
“Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, ‘I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof’.”
It is glaringly obvious to any person with even the slightest knowledge of the Bible that to “know” someone in this context is to have sexual intercourse with them.
This is certainly not the only case of deliberate misinterpretation of the Bible that homophiles are guilty of. We all know Matt. 8:5-13 as the edifying story of the Centurion who had so much faith in Jesus that he said to Him: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed,” the words we repeat at every Holy Mass. Yet some homophiles say that this passage proved that the Centurion was a homosexual and that his servant was his lover!
The Old Testament: Obviously, those who claim that Scripture does not condemn homosexuality are either ignorant or deceptive. Some of the more explicit condemnations of homosexual behavior in the Bible are Lev. 18:22 (“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination”), Lev. 20:13, and Jude 7.
Homophiles often dismiss the Old Testament condemnations of homosexuality on the grounds that there are many laws it describes that we do not follow now. These include not eating fish that have no fins or scales (Lev. 11:9-12), and the breaking of an earthen vessel if a gecko or chameleon falls into it (Lev. 11:29-33).
But our Lord said that He brought us a new covenant and a new law, and that those who follow Him no longer live by the Old Testament, but by the new. This fundamental fact is completely ignored by homophiles.
The New Testament: Perhaps the most eloquent and pointed condemnation of homosexuality in particular and a permissive society in general is contained in Romans 1. Every Christian activist should be familiar with this chapter, because it describes our Western culture with a terrifying clarity:
“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error….Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.”
The prophetic Romans 1 shows us that homosexuality and other perversions of nature and society are as old as civilization itself — and as current as the headlines in today’s newspapers. If a homophile objects to Old Testament prohibitions on homosexuality, find out what he has to say about the first chapter of Romans and 1 Cor. 6:9,10, which plainly states that homosexuals will not enter the Kingdom of God.
At the end of the day, however, all of this discussion and argumentation over what the Bible does and does not say about homosexuality is a mere distraction used by the homophiles. If the Bible clearly condemned homosexual activity dozens of times, are we really expected to believe that active homosexuals would give up their lifestyle?
