Now that I’ve given a few introductory comments on the topic, I want to examine the Biblical passages one by one that supposedly condemn homosexuality. Upon closer inspection, I will show that those verses do not say what the conservative thinks they do. The passages in question are Genesis 2, Genesis 19, two verses from the Old Testament law, two verses from the Epistles, and of course Romans 1.
Many Christians feel that a sufficient condemnation of homosexuality already exists in Genesis 2, even though there is no explicit mention of homosexuality here. This is where God creates only two genders (“she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” 2:23), and then ordains marriage by saying that “they shall become one flesh” (2:24). The idea that this passage delivers a knock-out blow to homosexuality and gay marriage is deep-rooted. In the eighties, conservative Christians were fond of the witty saying, “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Likewise, only two days before the referendum on the definition of marriage in 2004, my pastor suddenly deviated from his current series of sermons to talk about the “one man, one woman” marriage principle from Genesis 2. Although it was never said, the implicit message was clear: “Same-gendered marriage is morally wrong and should be voted against!”
The thinking here is that since God created only two genders and ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman, and since any deviation from God’s plan is sin, then homosexuality is sin. But is it true that any deviation from God’s plan is sin? It certainly is a widely held belief, even among great Christians. For example, in John 9 the disciples encountered a blind man and asked Jesus a question about him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus responded to their question by rejecting their implication altogether (as he often did) that blindness was a punishment for something.
Blindness is certainly a deviation from the purpose for eyes (what else are eyes for but to see?), and homosexuality is also a deviation from the purpose for gender (as a brief anatomical investigation will make clear). But no one thinks anymore (as the disciples did) that blindness is the result of a moral failure. What is true is that blindness is not God’s ideal for the eyes. Similarly, the only thing implied by Genesis 2 is that homosexuality is not God’s ideal for sexuality, but as the example of Jesus’ response to blindness makes clear, this does not at all make it sin. After all, we are also behaving as deviants when we step onto an airplane: “If God wanted people to fly, then God would have created people with wings!!!”
So there is no condemnation of homosexuality in Genesis 2. Maybe in Genesis 19, then, with those nasty Sodomites? Let’s look at that next week.
