THE EX-GAY MINISTRIES
All too often antagonists of the gay experience claim that homosexuals are inherently miserable, and that their lifestyle is everything nefarious and lewd - people living lives of quiet desperation and sexual irresponsibility. While this may be true at times, this is not because it is inherent, but rather that the social environment that gays are forced to live in makes them this way. When practically an entire society is against you and desires you usually have had all your life, it is no wonder that negative self-esteem, self-hate, and promiscuity is the end result. There would be less of this negative behavior if there were more support in society, and more people who understood and cared without being close-minded and self-righteous bigots.
Coming out often begins a period of hardship for the gay man or woman, because society tries to outcast them, and this often results in deep seated depression. The response by the church is often "mystical bandages to real-life emotional hemorrhages" (Cahill). People who are hurting and trying to cope with all this are exhorted to stop the behavior and "be saved", without regards to the human being that was engaging in the behavior in the first place.
Ex-gay ministries delight in showing off "success" stories - people who changed to straight from gay, or who settled down into asexuality. These same groups try to cover up and hide the human tragedies that they are responsible for, the countless number of suicides (especially among youth) that result from the realization that one cannot mold their orientation into that spirituality that they are told is the only thing that can get them into Heaven.
Now, more than ever, more and more evidence that homosexuality is actually biologically and genetically encoded into our genes at birth is coming to light. As more and more studies are completed, it is almost a certainty now that genes do in fact play a major role, perhaps the most important role, in our sexual orientation. Even Jesus himself says in the book of Matthew that some men cannot get married because they were "born that way", others out of choice, and still others because they have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The word used in the Bible, "eunoukos" did not just mean testicle-less men, but rather anyone who was incapable of cohabitation with females. Not all keepers of hareems in that day were castrated males, but many were known homosexuals. Could Jesus have been saying to his disciples that some men could not marry and have children because they were not orientationally forced to do so? Most Christians use the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to prove the majority of their points about homosexuality. They would be surprised to know that their arguments are no more reliable than a house built on a bed of shifting quicksand. While it is a given that the men of Sodom did in fact intend on sexually violation of the male strangers that Lot was boarding for the night, and in this case this would have been an act of forced anal intercourse in a gang rape situation. Middle Eastern people of the day used this very practice to totally humiliate any male that they wished to subjugate whether it was slaves, prisoners of war, or strangers. This was a wanton act of inhospitality, and combined with Sodom's reluctance to give to the poor or share its wealth with its neighbors shows just how inhospitable this city was. Now, if you hold that this one single verse in the Bible demonstrates that every male in Sodom was a homosexual as the term is used today is a very big stretch of the imagination. There is absolutely no evidence at all to suggest that the reason Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed was because of rampant homosexuality. No mention is made of lesbianism among females living there, and what about the children, were they all gay too? Was child molestation common in this city where everyone seemed to be portrayed in popular culture as being totally sexually depraved? It is interesting to note that Lot offered his daughters to the men of Sodom, which hardly would have made an impact on males who were homosexually oriented, but would have significance to a mob bent on rape. Why a man would willingly offer his daughter as a sacrifice to rapists is anybody's guess. It happens once again later in the Bible, when a man offers his concubine to rapists, who kill her in the gang rape. That would surely have happened to Lot's daughters here if that had happened. I don't think that Lot would have been spared the wrath of God either if he had allowed his daughters to the rapists. Its like murder. And its certainly not righteous no matter what the extenuating circumstances are in any case. Anyway, Ezekiel tells us what the true sin of Sodom was: "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned, they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." (EZE 16:49, 50) Furthermore, Ezekiel claims that what the Jews were doing at the time were more detestable than what the Sodomites did, but no one has ever claimed or found proof that all the Jews at this time were actively homosexual. It is obvious that universal homosexuality was not the sin of Sodom at all. "Sodomy" therefore is not a legitimate English word to describe the sin of Sodom as equivalent to homosexuality. Next stop : The book of Leviticus and its law code. Mistranslation will be the first problem here, as the Bible was not written to be easily translated into English at the time it was written. Words change meaning from Hebrew to English and the mistranslation of words has misled many. The first two words easily misinterpreted are the Hebrew words "toevah" and "kadesh". In Leviticus 18:22, the King James Version reads "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." The New International Version reads as "detestable." The problem here is that "toevah" does not usually mean anything intrinsically evil, like rape, murder, or theft, but rather that which is ritually unclean for Jews, involving ethnic contamination or idol worship. In Lev. 20:13, the rules against "man lying with a man as one lies with a woman" on the surface appear to be a blanket condemnation of homosexuality, until one views the verse in full context, not only of the fact that it was Jewish ritual law code, but that the cultural environment the Hebrews lived in as well. God called the Jews out of the indigenous population of Canaanite peoples, who worshipped other gods and rituals. In Deuteronomy 23:18, we read, "Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God." If you read this and think "what does a dog have to do with anything", you must not have heard that the Biblical term dog also meant a bitch (male prostitute). "The price of a dog", taken from "keleb", a root meaning to attack a dog, hence, a male prostitute. In 1 Kings 15:12, we read, "And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made." The Hebrew word that the translators incorrectly ascribed as sodomites is "qadesh", a quasi sacred person, or technically a "male devotee through prostitution to licentious idolatry". Among the Canaanites, it was a common practice to perform temple prostitution, both males and females, as part of ectstatic worship. It is difficult to imagine sexual intercourse as part of ritual worship, but for many many centuries, religion stressed the importance of "seed" transmission through fertility magic. The Greek fertility cults were just one example of many. Not surprisingly, the Hebrew were appalled at this, and especially appalled at male prostitution, and with good reason, but there is no blanket condemnation of homosexuality even here in these passages. They are specific and directly targeted at Jews to distinguish them from the Gentiles, not only with prostitution but also in the rituals in the temples. The main reason is that temple prostitution always occurred in conjunction with idol worship. This happened in Sodom and Gomorrah as well. They were known to frequently worship idols. These verses are just ways that people have of condoning the persecution of a group of people, in this case, homosexuals. Other verses in the Bible are misused and misinterpreted to promote racism and to degrade women. Back in the Biblical days, there was a lack of cultural stigma against male to male sexual behavior in non-ritualistic sense. The mores of the times prove this. The Greeks openly accepted homosexuality, and thought of homosexuals as being more creative and noble than heterosexuals, in fact. Even the hero of Islam, Gilgamesh, is said to have boy sex slaves and his deep friendship with Enkidu has been compared to that between David and Jonathan in the Bible. David and Jonathan's love for one another has been said to surpass the love of a woman (2 Samuel 1:26). Most hard core religionists dispute claims that David would have had a homosexual affair because it was a "cardinal sin" to the Jews. This it was, based on what God told the Jews not to do in the laws of Leviticus, but David sinned before, and even after being king, and God still revered him greatly, so why is it an impossibility that this could not have happened? And if we consider that most societies of the day did not consider male to male non-ritualistic sexual eroticism as a sin, then it is more possible and understandable. The fact of the matter is that the story told in the books of Samuel tells a great love story between two men who both felt that the love that the other showed towards them surpassed that of any woman. The same can be said of Enkidu and Gilgamesh in the Gilgamesh Epic. Saul was even jealous of the closeness the two (David and Jonathan) had, and ordered Jonathan to stay away from David, which Jonathan tearfully submitted to, but spared David's life many times. They said a tearful goodbye and kissed, and as the story progressed it ended tragically, with Jonathan and Saul killed in battle. The moving eulogy that David gives of his friends is one of the most famous in the Bible. It was obvious that at the very least, David and Jonathan deeply loved each other, in fact, David says the love is more than even a woman could provide. Jesus is remarkably silent on the issue of homosexuality. A number of wild theories have circulated about the founder of Christianity, among them are the unsubstantiated notions that Jesus was himself a homosexual, and another theory claims he took multiple wives. I will not comment on any of those theories here, as I do not entertain the theories as anything more than the ramblings of men who want to evoke contraversy. But the New Testament itself is not entirely silent on the issue. The Apostle Paul is the one who pronounces most of the views here. Refined temple prostitution was occurring in Greece at the time of Paul. Only now, it had taken on an even more detestable form - a self-mutilation aspect. During the course of the rituals, temple prostitutes would have intercourse with worshippers during a drunken orgiastic church service taken to the extreme, and often involved self emasculation, that is, self castration (think Heavens Gate cult here, all except more brutal). The Temple of Diana at Ephesus was the most notorious for such inhumane and pagan practices and Paul, first as a Pharisee of the Pharisees and then as Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ to the gentile world, spent a lot of time in Ephesus and Corinth, another city that served as a center of Grecian temple worship, and noticeably was appalled at the awful ritual practices of the pagan people there. Secondly, the Hellenistic society (that is, Greek society) practiced the institution of male mentorship of older men to younger proteges. This included anal intercourse of the older male upon the boy until he reached puberty. It was not unusual for the relationship to continue further, but it was considered unacceptable to have sex with a male past his puberty. It seems only children under the (average) age of 13 was allowed and accepted. Most leaders of Athens vigorously opposed having sex with boys over the age of 13, as they felt it impeded on the young man being able to progress into proper manhood. This same practice is still carried out among some Melanesian people and the Sambian tribe of New Guinea, where it is believed that only by ingesting male semen can a boy progress to manhood. In Greece, this practice was called "paiderastes", from which we derive the word "pederasty" identifying anal intercourse, losing its identification with children, except in the terms "pederast" or "pedophile". The men of Greece even employed child molestation into their church rituals, beginning with the festival known as Mardi Gras, a symbolic ritual where priests would chase a young nude boy through the woods in a hunting exercise. It is probably from these early encounters with ritualistic child molestation that today's society stereotypes all homosexuals as being pedophiles, though this is untrue. Paul most certainly would not have approved of this practice, since there were serious problems with adult/child inequities. However, Paul does not voice any of this in his letters. He does mention, however, "malakoi" and "arsenokoitai", two words which were enigmatic even for the church of the day. "Malakoi", meaning soft morality, and is not quite clear as to its actual meaning. Morally lax or sexually impure are possible meanings here, but its anyone's guess. "Arsenokoitai" is a compound word of "arsen" (man) and "koitai" (marriage bed), where the English word "coitus" is derived from. Since "paiderastes" would have been a better word to use to mean blanket homosexuality as it existed at the time in Greece, Paul must have meant something else. Considering how he felt about temple prostitution, that may be one meaning of the word. Or it has been said to mean "male sexual beds", a coined word meaning a promiscuous heterosexual male, as the word has no direct homosexual context at all. Reference back to 1 Kings now, it has been reported that the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, translated the word "quadesh" into "arsenokoitai". This could very well mean that what "arsenokoitai" means then is temple ritual prostitution, not only of homosexual males, but also of heterosexual females as well. No one knows for certain, but the word certainly never meant "homosexuals", though many modern Bible translations have forced "arsenokoitai" to mean that, when nothing of the kind was ever implied by Paul himself. This is not scripture twisting, as some will most certainly claim. This is simply translating the Bible using the original language and the original words, therefore, the original meanings, which have been distorted and taken out of context in later English versions of the Bible. Also, Paul admonishes further "so were some of you". Since he says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the "some" is not an exclusionary term. He gives examples, and the malakoi and arsenokoitai are placed in the same line as thieves, murderers, and rapist. Since he was so precise, why would he strain to condemn a rather insignificant portion of the population and ignore the more populous heterosexually promiscuous people altogether? In Paul's letter to the Roman churches, it must be understood that Paul's Bible included the Septuagint, which included the Apocrypha, and he was familiar with the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon as well, these books contain writings similiar to Romans. Paul's basic understanding at this point is that the human condition is one of idolatry, and human morality is judged mainly on the standards of worship. Here he is not writing about human beings rebelling and wickedly and willingly converting themselves from heterosexual (sometimes married) men to homosexuals; rather, he is talking about idolatrous ritual worship practices in the temples that he knew all too well. As Reverend Gomes, the author of The Good Book: Reading The Bible With Mind And Heart", says, Paul was not talking about men suddenly "going gay", but rather he is describing heterosexuals performing homosexual acts in a temple environment. In the eighth chapter of Matthew, Jesus is called upon to help a Roman Centurion of faith. The Centurion informs Jesus that his servant (usually "doulos", but "pais" is used here, meaning "beloved boy" - not son, which would be "uios", but "pais", a word more closely aligned with "young lover") lies paralyzed and asks for Jesus's help. Many have interpreted this to mean the boy was a younger male lover of the Centurion. Evangelicals revulse at such a thought, as Jesus would never condone a homosexual relationship, and certainly would not cure a disease probably caused by promiscuous homosexual behavior. Jesus, however, never uttered a word against homosexuals or of homosexuality in any clearly defined way. Anyway, he healed the boy and blessed the Centurion. Jesus came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. The law never provided righteousness, it only pointed the way. The atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the Christ was what saved us. We are absolved from transgressing the Law, which we cannot help but doing, as we are only human. Each and every one of us, man and woman, black and white, Jew and Gentile, gay and straight - we all fail to make the perfect standard, and we even willfully miss that mark. God does not demand perfection. Paul tells us that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is the lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So many Evangelicals try to waste all their time and energy to find ways to exclude people from the church, despite the fact that Jesus himself hung out and suppered with lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes (we can assume some were male as well), and Samaritans. He had kind words to say of men who could not marry women or father children as well. The church will not likely retrain their mentality from "us vs. them" to "us for him" and intolerance and hatred will likely continue. Some even cannot bring themselves to divorce the notion of "hating the sin" from the sinner. They openly proclaim their hatred of all things not of their theology, and say "if you lie down with the dogs, you will pick up fleas" - forgetting to note that Jesus made his life revolve around friendship with sinners. Meanwhile, thousands of gay men and women are rushing headlong into an eternity without any knowledge of a Saviour, because the church has turned them away and not only made them hate themselves but also God. These lost souls turn to atheism, and detest the church. In the end, who knows who will be proven more righteous - the sinner who turned from the church, or the church who hatefully turned the sinner away. I think you and I both know who loses in this situation.
Return to Top of the Page.
GENETIC EVIDENCE
SODOM & GOMORRAH
DAVID & JONATHAN
THE NEW TESTAMENT
MORE ON PAUL
THE CENTURION
JESUS DIED FOR OUR SINS
For further information I suggest reading Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God series of books, a refreshing take on life without all the doomsday prophecies and condemnations. Rather there is love and acceptance taught on these pages.
Return to The Church and Homosexuality.