A Scriptural Defense for Homosexuality?

            I recently read an article, posted on Facebook, attempting to defend homosexuality from a Scriptural perspective.  If you care to read it, click on this link: http://www.upworthy.com/there-are-6-scriptures-about-homosexuality-in-the-bible-heres-what-they-really-say?g=3  The arguments used in this article are nothing new.  So let’s take a quick look at them.

            First, the author suggests that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but gang rape.  One problem with this view is that, when Lot offered his daughters to the men, they didn’t want them.  They specifically wanted the men.  So we see that their desire was clearly homosexual in nature.

While it’s true that the people of the town sought to rape the guests in Lot’s home (who were really angels), Scripture specifically defines for us their sin.  In Jude 7 we’re told that they gave themselves over to sexual immorality and unnatural desire.  So it wasn’t gang rape that was the issue (even though I’d agree it too was wrong).  It was their unnatural desire.  It was their homosexual desire.

The author then dismissed the other Old Testament commands against homosexuality based on the fact that they’re Old Testament laws.  She says that Christ did away with the Law and classes this law together with those relating to shellfish and other ceremonial regulations.

This, however, is not a ceremonial law for Israel.  It’s a moral law, like those found in the Ten Commandments.  And we see it reflected also in the New Testament.

The New Testament makes it clear that laws regulating foods, cleanness, days for worship, etc. are a thing of the past.  It doesn’t, however, do this with homosexuality.  Instead, the commands are repeated, telling us that they are still in force.

The author next attempts to dismiss Paul’s mention of homosexuality in Romans 1.  She does so by trying to frame it in a cultural context.  The problem, she says, is with non-committed homosexual relationships. 

This, however, ignores the plain reading of the text.  We’re specifically told that these relationships (two women or two men) are unnatural.  They are referred to as dishonorable and shameless.

Last of all, she tells us that the Greek words used in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:10 are difficult to translate.  She refers us to Vine’s, where it’s said that the concept of sexual orientation didn’t even exist. 

This is far from the case.  Scripture makes it clear over and over that it’s wrong for a man to lie with a man as with a woman.  As we’ve seen, it refers to the relationships of two men or two women as unnatural.  This reveals that they were very familiar with this concept.

The words themselves are also not hard to translate.  All the common and scholarly lexicons translate them as one who practices same sex activity , or a sodomite. 

Once again, it’s said that the Bible was referring to non-committed homosexual relationships (for which no evidence is offered). 

Homosexuality clearly violates the will of God, as found in Scripture.  These are nothing more than attempts to legitimize it in the eyes of the Church.  The objections of the author clearly use poor scholarship in order to push an agenda.

That being said, God clearly loves the homosexual.  However, just as God does not accept the other sins mentioned in Scripture, neither does he accept theirs.  He, instead, calls us to repent and to receive the mercy that is found in Christ alone.