Christianity and Homosexuality

The Biblical passages most often used to condemn homosexuality are:

Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."

Leviticus 20:13: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

Romans 1:26-32: "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And 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. And 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; ... without natural affection, ... who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."

Corinthians 6:9-10: "Neither ... effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, ... shall inherit the kingdom of God."
(You can find the detaile discussion on the same issue on www.wordiq.com.)

Christian theologians who do not believe homosexuality to be a sin argue that the traditionalists have misinterpreted the pertinent Bible passages or quoted them selectively. They consider the original Hebrew in Leviticus to be ambiguous as to whether "male" means adult man or little boy. They also point out that Leviticus also condemns many other things that modern Christians do, including getting haircuts, eating shellfish, wearing fabrics made from two different fibers (e.g., wool/cotton blends), and planting two crops in a single field. (A humorous piece titled "An Open Letter to Dr. Laura," in which an anonymous writer thanks her for her stance against homosexuality and asks her how to kill people who get haircuts, has made the rounds on the Internet for several years.) Some apologists make a distinction between "moral" codes and "purity" (or "ritual") codes in Leviticus and say that the purity codes no longer apply but that the moral codes (including the prohibition against homosexuality) remain binding.

Other traditionalists accept that homosexual orientation is not a choice, but argue that acting on that orientation is nevertheless sinful. In these cases, most Christians who condemn homosexual behaviour would not condemn homosexual orientation, but would advocate a life of celibacy for those who have that orientation. However, the Catholic Church has been moving towards a policy of prohibiting homosexuals from being priests, even if they are celibate. This position has been put forward by some Catholic leaders as a possible way of clearing up the sex abuse scandal that has scarred the reputation of the Church in recent decades.

Liberal Christians also argue that Jesus explicitly condemned divorce—equating it with adultery in the Sermon on the Mount—but never explicitly forbade homosexuality; so they call it hypocritical to criticize homosexuality much more vocally than divorce. Also, rather than interpreting the term "adultery" in the Ten Commandments to mean any sex outside of marriage, they interpret it to mean sexual betrayal of a spouse, which would make the prohibition irrelevant to sex between unmarried persons, including unmarried homosexuals.