Genesis 19 focuses on the city of Sodom, whose residents were of course Sodomities, which is where we get out word sodomy, which is a euphemism for homosexual male sex. So why exactly do we define sodomy as gay sex? Genesis 19 gives us the most detail we ever get about the city of Sodom. As the story goes, Lot takes in two visitors (angels). Upon learning that Lot had guests, the men of the city come to rape them. Later in the chapter Sodom was destroyed along with Gomorrah because God had heard “the outcry against its people” (v. 13). Over time, homosexual male sex was labeled as “sodomy,” apparently in order to serve as a reminder of the moral lesson we were supposed to draw from the judgment of that city.
But did we get the correct lesson? What was it exactly that angered God to the point of destroying the city? In Genesis 19, there is no description of the offending sin or sins (remember the text just describes an ‘outcry against its people’), so we had to wait for the prophet Ezekiel to name the sins in detail:
“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it” (Ez. 16:48-50).
The specific causes of Sodom’s condemnation mentioned are 1) pride, 2) excess of food and 3) prosperous ease, combined with 4) an unwillingness to aid the poor and needy. Whatever else was wrong with Sodom didn’t even specifically make the list. I don’t know if it’s possible to overstate the implications of this prophesy. Genesis 19 implies that gang rape was a normal, hoe-hum cultural activity for the Sodomites. But what really made God angry was that they would not spread the wealth. So we have missed spectacularly in defining sodomy as homosexual male sex. Here is my proposed amendment to the dictionary:
sod.om.y n. 1. Pride. 2. Excess of food, wealth. 3. Apathy, esp. in respect to the poor and needy. v. (to sodomize) 1. To pass over the poor in an unconcerned manner. 2. To have an excess. Antonyms – see “thanksgiving”
