I DON'T WANT to turn the topic of the Sodom and Gomorrah into a series such as the scores of posts I've done on the absolutely proven fact that eugenics, including the genocidal eugenics of the Nazis was a direct result of the theory of natural selection, a result which Charles Darwin, himself, approved at the beginning and as it developed during the rest of his life. Though it seems those who take issue with what I pointed out about the story - that if the ambiguous references to the intentions of the mob of men of Sodom intended to gang rape the Angels that Lot was putting up for the night, the most remarkable thing about the use of the story to assert "eternal laws" against consensual sexual relations between adult men, especially in a faithful marriage is that the sexual conduct of Lot, offering up his two young daughters to be gang raped and, at the end of his story, him having sex with them and having children with them is never, ever mentioned and condemned. Nor is the fact that God isn't presented as punishing his serious sins, certainly more serious than his poor wife looking back at what happened for which the story teller turns her to a pillar of salt. Perhaps I'll be turned into one for looking back at what the story actually says, though it hasn't happened as of about 10:00 EST this morning.
The account in Genesis certainly doesn't present his sexual immorality NOT TO MENTION THE FAR GREATER SIN OF IMMORAL PARENTING as having the condemnation of God, Lot isn't turned to a pillar of salt (or shit, as I'd have thought would be appropriate) as requiring God's destruction of him. The two angels, supposedly sent by God to punish the sexual immorality of the Cities of the Planes don't say, Hey, Lot you jerk, that's no way for a father to act!
The fact is that the story is, from start to finish, an atrocious folk story to be trying to derive moral commandments from. Especially, as you want to assert, eternal and unchanging Laws of God. A. the rape mobs of the MEN of Sodom and the later one I mention in Judges' retelling of the folk tale are exactly to faithful gay marriage or even just consensual sex between consenting, responsible adult men as it is to straight marriage. That's implied in Genesis as Lot clearly expects the men's lust will be satisfied by raping his little girls as it will be by raping the angels and explicitly laid out in Judges as the asshole Levite throws his poor concubine to them to be HETEROSEXUALLY RAPED TO DEATH by that rape mob.
I have never, once, in more than sixty years of reading the thinking of queer-bashers on those two passages of Scripture ever once seen them address those issues, issues which make their use of those stories to promote their bigotry, hatred and violent intentions obviously illegitimate and by the "by their fruits you will know them rule," false teaching.
For example, look at this use of it in 2021 by Brad Miner, a right-wing Catholic gay-basher and reactionary straight sex crank
What Is Man? is a new book – new anyway in English, having been published at the end of 2019 in Italian as Che cosa è l’uomo? – from the Pontifical Biblical Commission. As such, it has no identified author or authors. (The English version was prepared by Fathers Fearghus O’Fearghail and Adrian Graffy.) It carries the subtitle, A Journey through Biblical Anthropology and is a defense of the Biblical roots of Catholicism’s view of human beings and our relationship to God.
When first published, there was a flurry of rumors in the press claiming that the book (either subtly or explicitly) suggested homosexuality should be considered normative. Fr. James Martin, for one, asserted that What Is Man? explains one of the Bible’s key condemnations of homosexual acts, the story of the destruction of Sodom in Genesis, as not really about sexual transgression at all but, rather, a lack of hospitality among the Sodomites. And there is a passage in What Is Man? that confirms the sins of the Sodomites were not exclusively, well, sodomy. But it’s also clear that the “men of Sodom” sought to “know” Lot and his angelic visitors, and that “to know” in the context “is a euphemism for sexual relations.”
As I pointed out, the sins of Lot, uncommented on, offering his little girls to be raped, probably raped to death as happens to the Levite's concubine (sex slave) in Judges, and his incestuous tendencies that grow into full blown rape of them, fathering children with them, are never, ever mentioned by these cherry pickers.
And, as you can see, I have to raise the question about how these "angels" who are a. not human beings, b. not male human beings, c. almost certainly not in the original Hebrew conception of them anything like Earthly creatures, came to be understood as having the same status as human males who are the opposite of all three of those. Certainly the question of how a mob wanting to rape "angels" can tell you anything about two human men in an adult, consensual relationship, especially in a faithful, committed, loving marriage, has figured far too little in the millennia of commentary on that bit of what I must call Scripture but wish some ancient Hebrew scribes had chosen to leave on the cutting room floor.
And it works even worse as telling us anything about moral, just, egalitarian relationships between men and women. That difference in how females are treated in these stories, their use by men, them being considered fungible - "I'll trade you two angels for two little girls" - makes using that in an argument for the exclusivity of hetero-sexual marriage revealingly problematic. I don't think anything in the Bible from that time until near the end of it presents hetero-sexual marriage as anything that should be considered a model for moral marriages - of any kind- today. Though, perhaps, it is just one of the passages of Scripture that contributed heavily to the sin of the subjugation of Women. It's certainly revelatory in regard to the patriarchal use of women and, especially, daughters in that period, even in places not showered with fire and brimstone.
Considering the fact that Lot clearly values the angels who I would bet were never conceived of as anything but males as having more value than his own daughters, the way his wife is treated in the story (it's even more clear that the story teller thinks women are of no value), Miner's call for the typical use of another passage from Genesis is blatantly hypocritical and entirely anachronistic.
But back to What Is Man? and Chapter 3, which begins:
God said: “It is not good that ’ādām should be alone (Gen 2:18). That the Creator wished that ‘in the beginning’ humanity should be constituted by man and woman (Gen 1:27; 2:21-23) invites us to consider carefully this fundamental human difference and to explore its meaning.”
The text goes on to emphasize the equal dignity and complementarity of man and woman, or as it specifically has it, “the two sexes.” The authors also stress that it’s love that should govern us and cautions that the union of the sexes is not without difficulties, almost seeming to quote Shakespeare’s Lysander: “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
Because What Is Man? is a book by Bible scholars acting as anthropologists, there is some interesting commentary on Creation, more likely to start debate rather than settle it, especially with regard to the literal interpretation of Adam, Eve, and the Fall. I’ll have to leave that to more capable debaters.
I’m concerned with what seems beyond debate, especially in terms of those rumors that the book opens the door to a new Catholic view of homosexuality.
The traditional use of this passage to promote hatred and inequality for LGBTQ People - as it has often been used - has a number of its own problems for the queer-bashers. I read it and it looks like a perfect example OF WHY MARRIAGE EQUALITY IS HIGHLY MORAL, but not because it tells us anything accurate about "Adam and Eve".
First, the best evidence is that the story of the creation of Women is an absurd folk tale, not how the human sexes were created. Anyone who asserts the story is true deserves to be laughed out of the argument for any serious purpose. Certainly as Catholics are not biblical fundamentalists, that's especially the case with him. Second, taken more usefully as an allegory to teach moral lessons apart from the actual plot, the motive of God doing it was that he saw it was not good for Adam to be alone GOD SAYS THAT IN THE STORY. Clearly loneliness is an evil that God observed in the life of Adam and it is what God created a companion for Adam to end the evil of aloneness - I will point out that the story as it is often observed doesn't seem to think they had sex in the Garden of Eden, though that's certainly not clear in the telling. God doesn't say, "It's unhealthy for men to not have sex," so putting it solely in terms of sex as the traditional use of it to bash LGBTQ folk is unwarranted. In the folk-tales Eve doesn't seem to have become pregnant in Eden but only after the expulsion. So it's unclear that the issue of sex has anything to do with that passage.
The use of the story as an assertion that loneliness is an evil is far clearer, far less problematic and far more charitable than the typical orthodox use of it to bash others.
It is certainly as much of an evil for gay men and Lesbians to be alone as for the asexual Adam. To imagine him as heterosexual before there was a woman seems to be kind of bizarre. What was he sexual about before then? Loneliness is an experienced evil of life that many, I would say virtually all LGBTQ+ people know far more directly than that they should pay serious obedience to the glorious mess that is the Book of Genesis (or Judges) and it is certainly part of what must instruct our moral conscience in these matters.
Of course, it's easy for straight guys and gals to brush that experience of Gay and Lesbian loneliness, lovelessness, etc. aside. It's like Mark Twain's observation that sexual continence is something that's far easier for old moralists who have had theirs to command for the young living at the height of sexual desire. Only more so. I especially love to be preached chastity by guys and gals who never restrained their own sexual conduct, I don't know anything about Miner's sexual history and don't want to (I don't enjoy thinking about the sex lives of other people as such "moralist" voyeurs seem to) but there are myriads of adulterous, lecherous and even in the closet covert gay men on Miners team, many of them in the Catholic clergy.
I'm not going through this to knock some sense into those who hate marriage equality, I'm afraid that no matter how much I point out the problematic use of that old and pretty putrid folk-tale of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah and him raping his daughters and having children by them as a means of promoting hatred of Gay Men, Lesbians, etc. that the haters won't stop it. Though they should never, ever be able to do it without having these problems with the story as a tale of sexual morality being thrown in their faces.
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