Hi Wayne,<div><br></div><div>Thanks for posting one of the best biblical analyses of the issue I've read. For those who have not seen it, I repost my column on the topic and attached the full version with endnotes. While on sabbatical at the University of Queensland in 1995, a queer scholar in religious studies led me to the point that in the ancient middle east the top male had the presumptive and sometimes legal right to penetrate any human below him on the pecking order.</div>
<div><br></div><div>For those who don't have time to read what is below here are my concluding paragraphs:</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:26px">The God of the Bible appears to have, as liberation theologians have said, a “preferential option” for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, and those who are different. The word “sodomite” should be reserved, if we should use it at all, for those who use sex to dominate, humiliate, and terrorize others.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:26px">We should preserve and dignify the word “homosexual” for people who love others of their own sex, and our liberal democracy should protect their right to do so with the same tenacity that we do with any other fundamental human right.</p>
</div><div><br></div><div>Yours for equality marriage,</div><div><br></div><div>Nick</div><div><b style="font-size:18pt;text-align:justify"><br></b></div><div><b style="font-size:18pt;text-align:justify">The
Real Meaning of Sodomy</b></div><div><div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:2.0in"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> By
Nick Gier</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">“Sodomy” and
“sodomite” are some of the ugliest words in the English language. They of course are derived from the Canaanite
city of Sodom,
whose destruction along with Gomorrah
is related in Genesis 19. Most people
assume that homosexuality was the grounds for divine retribution and that this is
the reason that gay men have been branded “sodomites.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">Interestingly
enough, Jesus did not interpret the story in this way. First, Jesus says
nothing specific about the sin of homosexuality anywhere in the Gospels. He does of course speak of sexual sins, but
all of us, regardless of our sexual orientation, commit a few of these. Second, when Jesus instructs his disciples to
preach in the towns of Israel,
Jesus warns that those who do not receive them peacefully will be judged more
harshly than the people of Sodom
and Gomorrah
(Matt. 10: 5-15). </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">Jesus joins other
ancient authorities in viewing the sins of the Sodomites as the abuse of
strangers, neglecting the poor and needy, and the stigmatizing of outsiders.
For example, Ezekiel says that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah “had pride, surfeit of food, and
prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy” (16:49-50); and the Wisdom of Solomon says that
they “refused to receive strangers when they came to them” (19.14). </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">The narrow sexual interpretation
known today comes from an ancient minority report from thinkers such as Philo
of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo.
The former condemned the Sodomites for “forbidden forms of intercourse”
and the latter for “lewdness between males.”
The odd point about this charge is that the object of Sodomitic lust is
not male humans but sexless angels!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">Today’s
conservatives appear to follow Augustine’s untenable position, struck down in
the recent Supreme Court decision, that only sexual acts between people of the
same sex count as sodomy. The Texas law was
particularly insidious because in 1973 the legislature legalized heterosexual
anal and oral sex (even including bestiality), but criminalized homosexuals who
performed the same acts. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">Thomas Aquinas ranked
sodomy as the worst crime second only to murder itself, because it essentially
amounted to wanton destruction of a potential person. As the only proper place for the male seed is
the female womb, those who masturbate, engage in oral sex, and, yes, even those
who use contraceptives are all sodomites. If the sin of sodomy is the practice
of nonprocreative sex, then every sexually active human being is a sodomite!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"> Protestant theologians generally joined
Catholics in making sodomy a unique and unredeemable sin. It is interesting, however, to note that John
Calvin, in his commentary on Genesis, does not define the Sodomites’ sin as
homosexual acts. Instead he prefers the social meaning of sodomy, reminding his
readers that the Sodomites were “in the habit of vexing strangers,” whereas Lot had offered them shelter and a meal.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">The men of Sodom come to Lot’s house and demand that the two visitors be handed
over to them. The Sodomites’ intentions
were overtly sexual (“so that we may know them”), but these men were no more
homosexuals than are the bullies in our prisons who rape newcomers and weaker
prisoners on a daily basis. Although
sexual in nature, these attacks are essentially acts of aggression against the
“other,” those who are weaker and those who are different. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">Prison rapists are
carrying on an ancient patriarchal tradition where the dominant male has the
right to penetrate anyone subordinate to him--women, lower men, boys, and
slaves. Arno Schmitt states that in the ancient world it was “the right of men
to penetrate and their duty to lie on top” and that the raping “of one’s slaves
. . . was not only sanctioned by public opinion, but by some jurists as
well.” Needless to say, medieval
Christians were compelled to declare that the “woman superior” sexual position
was also, incredible though it sounds, a form of sodomy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">The point of these
stories, however, goes beyond the destructive hierarchy of “top males.” The message for our time is that those who
embrace those different from themselves, such as Abraham and Lot,
are blessed, while those who discriminate against them, such as the Sodomites
and Gibeans, should be despised. I will
let readers apply this biblical doctrine to contemporary America and
discover to which group they belong.</p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">The God of the
Bible appears to have, as liberation theologians have said, a “preferential
option” for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, and those who are different. The
word “sodomite” should be reserved, if we should use it at all, for those who
use sex to dominate, humiliate, and terrorize others. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">We should preserve
and dignify the word “homosexual” for people who love others of their own sex,
and our liberal democracy should protect their right to do so with the same
tenacity that we do with any other fundamental human right.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">For thirty-one years
Nick Gier taught philosophy and religion at the University of Idaho. An expanded and fully documented version of
this column can be found at <a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/sodom.htm">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/sodom.htm</a>.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Art Deco <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><h1><a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/15/my-take-what-the-bible-really-says-about-homosexuality/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link:My Take: What the Bible really says about homosexuality" target="_blank">My Take: What the Bible really says about homosexuality</a></h1>
<p><img style="margin-left:10px;margin-right:10px" alt="" height="122" width="214"><em><strong>Editor's note</strong>:<a href="http://www.visionsofdaniel.net/" target="_blank"> Daniel A. Helminiak</a>, who was ordained a priest in Rome, is a theologian, psychotherapist and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/What-Bible-Really-about-Homosexuality/dp/188636009X" target="_blank">“What the Bible <em>Really</em> Says about homosexuality"</a> and books on contemporary spirituality. He is a professor of psychology at the University of West Georgia.</em></p>
<p>By <strong>Daniel A. Helminiak</strong>, Special to CNN</p>
<p>President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage, like blood in
the water, has conservative sharks circling for a kill. In a nation that
touts separation of religion and government, religious-based arguments
command this battle. Lurking beneath anti-gay forays, you inevitably
find religion and, above all, the Bible.</p>
<p>We now face religious jingoism, the imposition of personal beliefs on
the whole pluralistic society. Worse still, these beliefs are
irrational, just a fiction of blind conviction. Nowhere does the Bible
actually oppose homosexuality.</p>
<p><span></span>In the past 60 years, we have learned
more about sex, by far, than in preceding millennia. Is it likely that
an ancient people, who thought the male was the basic biological model
and the world flat, understood homosexuality as we do today? Could they
have even addressed the questions about homosexuality that we grapple
with today? Of course not.</p>
<p><a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/" target="_blank">CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories</a></p>
<p>Hard evidence supports this commonsensical expectation. Taken on its
own terms, read in the original languages, placed back into its
historical context, the Bible is ho-hum on homosexuality, unless – as
with heterosexuality – injustice and abuse are involved.</p>
<p>That, in fact, was the case among the Sodomites (Genesis 19), whose
experience is frequently cited by modern anti-gay critics. The Sodomites
wanted to rape the visitors whom Lot, the one just man in the city,
welcomed in hospitality for the night.</p>
<p>The Bible itself is lucid on the sin of Sodom: pride, lack of concern
for the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:48-49); hatred of strangers and
cruelty to guests (Wisdom 19:13); arrogance (Sirach/Ecclesiaticus 16:8);
evildoing, injustice, oppression of the widow and orphan (Isaiah 1:17);
adultery (in those days, the use of another man’s property), and lying
(Jeremiah 23:12).</p>
<p>But nowhere are same-sex acts named as the sin of Sodom. That
intended gang rape only expressed the greater sin, condemned in the
Bible from cover to cover: hatred, injustice, cruelty, lack of concern
for others. Hence, Jesus says “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew
19:19; Mark 12:31); and “By this will they know you are my disciples”
(John 13:35).</p>
<p>How inverted these values have become! In the name of Jesus,
evangelicals and Catholic bishops make sex the Christian litmus test and
are willing to sacrifice the social safety net in return.</p>
<p>The longest biblical passage on male-male sex is Romans 1:26-27:
"Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the
same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were
consumed with passion for one another."</p>
<p>The Greek term <em>para physin</em> has been translated <em>unnatural</em>; it<em> </em>should read <em>atypical</em> or <em>unusual</em>. In the technical sense, yes, the Stoic philosophers did use <em>para physin</em>
to mean unnatural, but this term also had a widespread popular meaning.
It is this latter meaning that informs Paul's writing. It carries no
ethical condemnation.</p>
<p>Compare the passage on male-male sex to Romans 11:24. There, Paul applies the term <em>para physin</em>
to God. God grafted the Gentiles into the Jewish people, a wild branch
into a cultivated vine. Not your standard practice! An unusual thing to
do — atypical, nothing more. The anti-gay "unnatural" hullabaloo rests
on a mistranslation.</p>
<p>Besides, Paul used two other words to describe male-male sex: <em>dishonorable</em> (1:24, 26) and <em>unseemly</em> (1:27). But for Paul, neither carried ethical weight. In 2 Corinthians 6:8 and 11:21, Paul says that even he was held in <em>dishonor </em>— for preaching Christ. Clearly, these words merely indicate social disrepute, not truly unethical behavior.</p>
<p>In this passage Paul is referring to the ancient Jewish Law:
Leviticus 18:22, the “abomination” of a man’s lying with another man.
Paul sees male-male sex as an impurity, a taboo, uncleanness — in other
words, “abomination.” Introducing this discussion in 1:24, he says so
outright: "God gave them up … to impurity."</p>
<p>But Jesus taught lucidly that Jewish requirements for purity — varied
cultural traditions — do not matter before God. What matters is purity
of heart.</p>
<p>“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is
what comes out of the mouth that defiles,” reads Matthew 15. “What comes
out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For
out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication,
theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to
eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”</p>
<p>Or again, Jesus taught, “Everyone who looks at a women with lust has
already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Jesus
rejected the purity requirements of the Jewish Law.</p>
<p>In calling it unclean, Paul was not condemning male-male sex. He had
terms to express condemnation. Before and after his section on sex, he
used truly condemnatory terms: godless, evil, wicked or unjust, not to
be done. But he never used ethical terms around that issue of sex.</p>
<p>As for marriage, again, the Bible is more liberal than we hear today.
The Jewish patriarchs had many wives and concubines. David and
Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, and Daniel and the palace master were probably
lovers.</p>
<p>The Bible’s <em>Song of Songs</em> is a paean to romantic love with
no mention of children or a married couple. Jesus never mentioned
same-sex behaviors, although he did heal the “servant” — <em>pais</em>, a Greek term for male lover — of the Roman Centurion.</p>
<p><a href="http://twitter.com/cnnbelief" target="_blank">Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter</a></p>
<p>Paul discouraged marriage because he believed the world would soon
end. Still, he encouraged people with sexual needs to marry, and he
never linked sex and procreation.</p>
<p>Were God-given reason to prevail, rather than knee-jerk religion, we
would not be having a heated debate over gay marriage. “Liberty and
justice for all,” marvel at the diversity of creation, welcome for one
another: these, alas, are true biblical values.</p>
<p><em>The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Daniel A. Helminiak.</em></p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>
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