Why I Don't Believe Being Gay Is a Sin

Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning."

"No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."

But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.

Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

"Get out of our way," they replied. "This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We'll treat you worse than them." They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.

The men of the city aren't seeking relationships. They aren't expressing love. They aren't asking for companionship. They're demanding access to the visitors so they can violate them.

The entire scene is violent from beginning to end. The intent isn't affection. The intent is domination.

In the ancient world, sexual violence was often used as a way to establish power, humiliate someone, and strip them of dignity. The men surrounding Lot's house aren't interested in intimacy. They're interested in control.

That becomes even more obvious when Lot offers his daughters instead. As disturbing as that is, it reveals that the crowd isn't choosing men because they're attracted to men. They're choosing the visitors because they want to overpower them.

What I see in this story is violence, humiliation, and people using sex as a weapon. The entire scene revolves around power and control, not love or intimacy.

Even if someone believes this story is condemning the actions of the men in Sodom, I struggle to see how it can reasonably be compared to two adults in a loving, committed relationship.

There is no love here. No mutual consent. No covenant. No relationship.

What we see is an angry mob attempting to sexually assault strangers.

Something else caught my attention as I studied. Later biblical writers refer back to Sodom, but they don't always focus on sexuality. In Ezekiel, Sodom is described as being arrogant, prosperous, and unconcerned with the poor and needy. That doesn't automatically settle the debate, but it did make me stop and ask whether I had been taught to see this story through too narrow a lens.

The more I studied, the more I found themes of violence, abuse, injustice, and the mistreatment of vulnerable people woven throughout the story.

For me, this passage was the first crack in the foundation.

Not because it answered all my questions.

Because it made me realize that one of the passages I had always been told was clearly about homosexuality didn't seem to be describing a loving same-sex relationship at all.

"Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman;

"Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman;

Instead, they raised questions.

The question for me became whether they were saying what I had always been told they were saying.

One of the first things that caught my attention was the context. These verses appear in a section of Leviticus filled with laws given to ancient Israel. Many of those laws were intended to distinguish Israel from the surrounding nations and establish what it meant to be a people set apart.

As I read through the chapter, I noticed that much of it focused on family boundaries, sexual misconduct, and practices associated with the cultures around Israel. That made me wonder if I was looking at a universal statement for all people in all times, or a command given within a very specific historical and cultural setting.

Then there was the word often translated as "abomination" or "detestable."

Growing up, that word carried a lot of weight. It sounded like something uniquely offensive to God. But the more I studied, the more I learned that the Hebrew word is used in a variety of ways throughout the Old Testament, often connected to practices that set Israel apart from neighboring cultures.

Again, that didn't automatically answer the question.

But it made me realize the conversation was more complex than I had been led to believe.

The deeper I dug, the more I noticed something else.

Even if I accepted that these verses prohibited a particular act between men, I still couldn't find a discussion about the things we debate today.

I didn't see sexual orientation.

I didn't see same-sex marriage.

I didn't see two people who loved one another, committed themselves to one another, and built a life together.

What I saw was an ancient law written to an ancient people living in a very different world.

That doesn't mean everyone has to agree with my conclusion. But it does mean I stopped seeing these verses as the clear and simple answer I had always been told they were.

And once again, I found myself asking the same question that had surfaced with Sodom:

Where is the discussion about a loving, committed same-sex relationship?

The more I studied, the harder it became for me to find it.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Most discussions about homosexuality stop at the end of Romans 1. But Paul doesn't stop there. Romans 2 begins with a warning to the people who have been nodding along with his argument:

*"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else..."*

That made me wonder if I had been reading the passage backwards.

What if Paul's goal wasn't simply to condemn a group of people?

What if he was exposing something in the people doing the condemning?

The more I studied, the more I realized that Romans 1 is describing a very specific world. It is a world of idol worship, excess, exploitation, lust, and people turning away from God. Everything in the chapter is tied to that larger discussion.

Then there was the phrase "against nature."

Growing up, I was taught that this meant "against God's design," and therefore the issue was settled.

But the more I studied, the more I discovered that not everyone understands the phrase that way. Some scholars point out that in the ancient world, "against nature" was often used to describe things that were considered non-procreative rather than inherently immoral.

What caught my attention was that Paul later uses the same phrase in Romans 11 when describing God grafting Gentiles into the family of faith. He calls that action "contrary to nature." Clearly, Paul isn't suggesting that God is doing something sinful.

That doesn't automatically answer the question. But it did make me realize that "against nature" might not be as simple as I had always assumed.

What struck me even more was this: if Paul's concern is lust, excess, exploitation, or sexual behavior disconnected from love and commitment, then those concerns aren't unique to LGBTQ people.

Straight people are capable of those things too.

A heterosexual relationship can be driven by lust. A heterosexual person can exploit another person. A heterosexual couple can engage in sexual behavior that isn't rooted in love, commitment, or mutual respect.

If those are the things Paul is condemning, then his words apply far more broadly than we often admit.

And once again, I found myself coming back to the same question.

Where is the discussion about two people who love one another, commit themselves to one another, and build a life together?

Because that still isn't what I see Paul describing here.

What I see is idolatry. Excess. Lust. People using one another. And then, immediately afterward, a warning about judging others.

For years I was told Romans 1 was the strongest biblical argument against homosexuality.

Today, I see it differently.

Not because I've stopped taking Scripture seriously.

But because the more I studied it, the less convinced I became that Paul was talking about the kind of relationship people are debating today.

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men [a] nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers - and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine

It was what I discovered about how they've been translated.

For most of my life, I assumed the word "homosexual" had always been in the Bible. I had no reason to think otherwise.

Then I learned that the word itself didn't even exist until the late 1800s. Paul couldn't have used the word because the modern concept of sexual orientation didn't exist in the first century.

Then I discovered something else.

The word "homosexual" did not appear in an English Bible until the 1946 edition of the Revised Standard Version (RSV). That was nearly two thousand years after Paul wrote these letters.

That alone caught my attention.

Not because it proved anything.

But because it raised a question.

If this issue has always been as clear as I was told it was, why did it take nearly two thousand years for the word "homosexual" to appear in an English Bible?

That question eventually led me to watch the documentary *1946*, which explores the history behind that translation decision and the impact it had on generations of Christians. Whether someone agrees with the film's conclusions or not, I think it's worth watching simply because it asks an important question:

Have we always understood these verses correctly, or have we just assumed we did?

The more I studied, the more I realized that much of the debate centers around a couple of Greek words that scholars are still discussing today.

And honestly, that surprised me.

Not because I expected everyone to agree.

But because I had always been told there was nothing to discuss.

As I dug deeper, I also noticed something else. Paul was writing to churches surrounded by prostitution, exploitation, abuse of power, idol worship, and sexual practices that often treated people as objects rather than equals.

That sounds very different from two people who love one another and are trying to build a life together.

Again, that doesn't automatically settle the debate. But it brought me back to the same question I'd been asking throughout this entire journey.

The Bible clearly condemns rape.

It clearly condemns exploitation.

It clearly condemns prostitution.

It clearly condemns abuse of power.

It clearly condemns people using others for their own desires.

What I still haven't found is a clear condemnation of two people who love one another, commit themselves to one another, and build a life together.

By the time I reached the end of these passages, I realized something important.

I wasn't questioning Scripture.

I was questioning whether I had been taught to understand these passages the way they were originally intended to be understood.

After all, we're reading words that have been translated, interpreted, debated, and retranslated hundreds of times over thousands of years.

The more I studied, the less certain I became that these passages were saying what I had always been told they were saying.