Homosexuality and Christianity

When we think about groups of people that stereotypically condemn homosexuality, conservative Christians are usually the first to come to mind. When confronted, many of them use the Bible as a defense, saying that homosexuality is banned in this holy book of God.

But does the Bible really say that?

Some of the most commonly used verses to support the condemnation of homosexuality are the following:

Leviticus 18 - “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

To really understand the context of these verses, we must consider that the Bible has been translated from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek and into over 1000 languages over the years. On top of that, it has been changed and altered several times in the past 2000 years. For the New Testament alone, contemporary scholars believe that there are between 300,000 to 400,000 different versions. With this, words of the Bible may no longer hold the same meaning now as of thousands of years ago. From Leviticus 18, we can infer that the verse does not dispprove all homosexual behavior, only prostitution connected to pagan temples. “Malakoi” is a term that relates to homosexuality, originally used in the Greek translation of the Bible. Translated, it means “soft ones”. When used in classical literature, it is used to describe feminine and mostly young men. Therefore, a lot of these man-to-man relationships seen in the Bible are likely talking about man-to-boy, addressing paedophaelia instead of the modern definition of homosexuality.

Since there is no way that we can decipher the real meaning of homosexuality in the Bible, we cannot be sure of what Christianity wants to convey about this matter. Even if it turns out to denounce homosexuality, we must note that the Bible was written at different times between 1200 BC and the first century AD. Naturally, the Bible shows the tradition and beliefs of that time. It was written based on a patriarchal culture where men were the dominant gender and women were simply subject to them. If we were to live our lives according to everything in the Bible, then we would encourage slavery too. King David was married to seven teen girls, and just because it is in the Bible, it does not mean that it is right in the world we live in now.

Love, compassion, and acceptance are undoubtedly the foundation and main preachings of Christianity. “Love your neighbor as yourself”, accept those whose sexualities do not conform to traditional norms. There is nothing more to love than two people promising to love each other forever, regardless of gender.