Traditionalists often argue that homosexuality is supposedly condemned by the Bible, and that’s that.
But it seems to me that, if the literal words of Scripture held the once-and-for-all answers to all moral questions, then we would still be stoning rebellious sons at the town gates, as commanded by Deut. 21:18-21.
(I mentioned the stoning business to my mother on the phone not long ago. No doubt remembering my adolescence, she laughed and responded, "so?")
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Moreover, some traditionalists can be selective in their reading of Scriptural rules —
- They believe that the Bible prohibits homosexual acts as "detestable," (e.g., e.g., Lev. 15:18, 18:22.
- But they seem to have no problem with eating shrimp or crabs, which are likewise "detestable" because they have neither fins nor scales (see, e.g., Lev. 11:12).
- One wonders whether the men among them always refrain from sex during a woman’s menstrual period, which is one of the prohibited "detestable things" in a laundry list of sexual misconduct (see Lev. 18:19, 26).
- And let’s not forget that the same book of the Bible explicitly permitted God’s people to enslave foreigners (see Lev. 25:44-46), just as it prohibited punishing a slave-owner for beating his slave if the slave recovered in a day or two, "since the slave is his property" (see Ex. 21:20-21).
Some traditionalists argue that, for example, "the civil and ceremonial laws of the Old Testament were set aside by Jesus Christ" (emphasis added), but the moral laws of the Hebrew Scriptures supposedly remain unchanged. I find that argument wholly unpersuasive. Jews consider the dietary laws which Jesus set aside to be moral laws, as explained for example by this commentator: "the dietary laws occupy a central position in that system of moral discipline which is the basis of all Jewish laws." Moreover, how can traditionalists possibly say with a straight face that Leviticus’s explicit condoning of human slavery, quoted above, was merely a "civil" or "ceremonial" law? Their argument is an outrage.
Traditionalists are certainly entitled to argue that homosexuality is a bad thing. For all I know, they may be right. But they don’t help their case when they selectively quote scriptural rules out of historical- and cultural context.
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