First I am homosexual and I am Christian. I have had a partner of nearly three years. Our relationship has had its ups and downs, but is based around love and as much as I can make it around God. Being gay has been difficult enough, but being gay and Christian has been infinitely more difficult as I am rejected by most gay people and by most Christians. I thank God for the strength he has given me to deal with all of this and I would like to pose some questions, arguments and information to this debate.
First we will address biblical reference. In these forums it is very popular to quote the following things from the bible.
Lev 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.
Lev 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
I will address these first.
I think it is first important to take a close look at the wording, it is very odd really.
"You shall not lie with male as you would a woman" and "If a man lies with a male as with a woman."
Ok, so first if you are a homosexual male. You wouldn't lie with a woman at all. The very thought is likely as unpleasant to that individual as homosexual intercourse would be to a straight individual. It is odd that God or whoever chose to put it this way, when simply saying Man should not have intercourse with another man would have been completely more effective. Why say "as you would a woman" If one were to take this literally homosexuals would not be committing any sort of abomination because they would in fact not go to bed with a woman. Is it possible that this is just saying that men should not flip between the two or go against what is natural for them as an individual. I do think it is possible.
Also I think it is folly to take one passage of the bible and look at it literally without looking at the surrounding passages. They add to the context of what the passage is talking about. Certainly if we were to just pull from the bible one passage at a time we could probably get it to say anything we liked.
So let's delve deeper into the surrounding passages in Leviticus and see if they help offer any context for these particular passages.
Upon close examination of these passages it is obvious that Moses is listing various rules and guidelines for those ancient people's to follow. It may be important to note that Moses is addressing his people at that time, and he may not have intended for all of these rules to be followed throughout the course of history. To prove this point let me point out several rules in these passages that almost NO ONE follows and yet it is not considered any sin to not follow them by nearly any Christian based faith.
leviticus 19:9And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.
10And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.
This doctrine is no longer followed by most farmers as they have either adopted crop rotation or simply replant their farms every year. Are those farmers that do not follow this doctrine hated by God? Also, sense when have you seen free grapes for the poor?
Leviticus 19:19Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
This rule is completely nuts by todays standards, as almost EVERYONE in the world enjoys wearing clothing of mixed fibers, does God hate them for it? Also directly following this doctrine is another set of rules which I won't quote because they are very long, but they basically tell you that if you commit a certain sin you must make up for it by sacrificing a ram in a very specific way. This surely NEVER happens these days.
Leviticus 19:27Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.
28Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
I'll end my examples of leviticus with this. First I think it is rather difficult to determine what style of haircutting it is God is supposed to be speaking of here, but apparently there is some sort of strict shaving guideline going on. Also if any of you like tattoos, those are CLEARLY unholy.
Now not all of Leviticus is crazy stuff, some of it is very reasonable and logical. There are still several more passages I could quote that would seem crazy by todays standards. Still if you insist that because of these passages gay people are abomination I would insist you follow the rest of them as well. God is Logical, he has a reason for things and I believe that at the time that Leviticus was written there were good reasons for many of these things, though i still don't understand about the sacrificing of the Ram. I think the bible is meant to show every person as an individual what God wants for them, it was not meant to be a rule book for EVERYONE, otherwise God would have made everyone the same, so we could all live exactly the same way, but he made EVERYONE different so we could each do God's will differently and following the design God made for each of us.
Finally there is the passage in Romans, I'm going to copy a lot of it because the CONTEXT of the other passages is what is so important with this one.
romans 1:21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
The most commonly quoted passages about homosexuality are in italics. First it is important to know that Paul is speaking about ROME and the ROMANS. He is speaking of a particular people ONLY. He is talking about their Sins and how THEY are and not about anyone else besides them or in the future. He is talking only of the romans and how they have become. He is talking about how God punished them for not believing in him and how they get what they deserve. This passage has nothing to do with anyone at this current point in time. It is only a look back into history and into the Roman empire. It is not even a commandment or a rule but just an observation about the people at the time. Trying to put this into current events would be like saying every gay person is a murderous, wicked, lyeing, hateful, person that chose not to believe in God. This evidently can not be true because I myself absolutely believe in God.
I have many more observations to bring up, both scientifically and biblically, but I will see how this is taken first and give anyone who is interested a chance to look this over. I do not want to overwhelm anyone with all of this info.
Later to come I will address; Homosexuality in nature, and Homosexuality in evolution, also Homosexuality in Genetics. With these examples I will attempt to prove that God himself designed homosexuality in both humans and nature and that it is a natural part of evolution.
