The Old Testament book of Leviticus prohibits gay sex for a very different reason than modern evangelical Chicken Littles usually imagine. Understand gay sex from the Ancient Near East to see that it makes no prohibition against gay sex or same-sex marriage as we understand them today.

But before we get to the scholarly critique of Leviticus that makes this argument, let’s warm up with the conclusion of our critique of an article titled, “How gay marriage harms people.”

7. “Children long for and tend to be healthier when raised by their biological mother and father.”

And children tend to be healthier in a two-parent rather than single-parent household. So if a divorced lesbian is a single mother with a child and wants to marry another woman, step out of the way. (Or is the health of children just another smokescreen?)

It’d be great if every marriage were strong, divorce was unnecessary, and every family lived in a safe and nurturing neighborhood and had no financial worries. But it’s an imaginary world where every family is perfect, and some children grow up without their biological parents. We need to get out of the way of institutions that could help, and the newly expanded definition of marriage is one way to do that.

8. “It should not be surprising that, once gay marriage is declared legal, those who oppose it are seen as enemies of the law.”

How? Because no longer can you write an anti-gay article without risk of prison? I think you’ve just falsified that fear.

If you want to speak out against same-sex marriage, I will support your right to do so, even as I write articles to show how hateful, agenda-driven, and thoughtless your arguments are. If you don’t like the fact that the public square is a challenging place for those with flawed arguments, then stay away.

But if your complaint is about the Kim Davises of the world unable to impose their religious views on other people or Christian bakers punished for telling same-sex couples “We don’t serve your kind here” when asked to bake a wedding cake, then I have no sympathy. Christians don’t get an exemption from the law.

9. As Acts 5:29 says, “We must obey God rather than men.”

Do what you have to do. But know that in the real world, the secular Constitution is the foundation of the laws in the U.S. Violate those laws, and you’re punished, even if you’re a Christian. Remember that being a Christian and being able to share your moral opinions are legal in the U.S. thanks to the Constitution, not God.

See also: Does the Bible Reveal Objective Truth About Homosexuality?

If the prohibition in Leviticus is so important, we should understand what it meant

The article that explains gay sex from an Ancient Near Eastern perspective is “When a Man Lies with a Man as with a Woman” by Stephen J. Patterson (published in The Fourth R, May – June 2012). Dr. Patterson is a professor of Religious and Ethical Studies at Willamette University.

This article outlines three meanings of male-male sex in the Ancient Near East. The first meaning was domination during wartime, as seen today in rape in prison. This was violence, not gay sex.

The second meaning was sexual pleasure, something a man might do with a slave or servant in the absence of a female partner. A man wasn’t debased by this activity as long as he acted as a man, not a woman—that is, that he was the actor, not the recipient.

This activity was sometimes considered exploitative, however, both because the servant might not be able to refuse and because it demeaned him to be the recipient in homosexual activity.

When gay sex is a religious ritual

The third meaning was religious. In the Ancient Near East, where a successful harvest was uncertain, fertility rituals were common. Priests were the gods’ agents on earth, and fertility was ensured by planting one’s seed in a priest, who was imagined to be androgynous like the god he represented.

In none of these cases of male-male sex from biblical times was homosexuality a factor. Indeed, the opposite was assumed. In the case of rape during wartime, the actor was taking the role of male, humiliating his opponent by forcing him into the feminine role. In the case of recreation, the man is acting as a man, with the servant assuming the role of the woman. And in the case of the fertility ritual, the man is planting his seed in an (imagined) female. While gay sex as we understand it today—sex between two men who identify as homosexual—was likely practiced, it isn’t part of these three meanings and isn’t discussed in the surviving literature.

Given this background, let’s apply it to the prohibition “don’t lie with a man as one does a woman” in Leviticus. Patterson says that most scholars think that this kind of homosexuality is in the third category, the fertility rite, because of the word used to condemn it, “abomination.” This is the word used for religious offense. Judaism had no fertility rite like this, and a rite that called on other gods, as this one did, would obviously be offensive to Yahweh.

What about the issue at hand, using the Bible to criticize homosexual relationships as we understand them today? Patterson says that while we can’t be certain that we understand the original meaning of the relevant passages in Leviticus,

We can say very clearly what the Levitical prohibition does not mean. It does not forbid falling in love with another man and having intimate sexual relations with him. Male-male sex just did not have that connotation in the Ancient Near East. . . . Male-male sex in the Ancient Near East does not mean “I love you.” It means “I own you.” Today, of course, it is different. Male-male sex can mean “I love you.” To such a thing Leviticus offers no comment.

Not only have Christians themselves dispensed with the Levitical ritual laws, but even if they were still in force, they say nothing to inform the Christian of the correct response to modern homosexuality or same-sex marriage.

Christian fundamentalism:
the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful,
infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity
that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.
— Andrew Lias

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 2017-8-2.)

Who knew? Same-sex marriage not only makes baby Jesus cry, it’s actually harmful!

Luckily, we have “How gay marriage harms people” to set us straight. Each argument is numbered below, followed by a rebuttal.

1. Marriage is part of God’s creation plan

“The Bible says that marriage is rooted in God’s creation of mankind (Matthew 19:4–8).”

The Bible also says that marriage should be avoided. Paul said, “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry” (1 Corinthians 7:8–9). This is one more example where the Bible is a sock puppet that can be made to say just about anything.

Marriage as one of God’s sacred gifts to mankind is a new idea. Marriage wasn’t a Christian sacrament until 1215, and that was only to give the church the power to annul marriages that made political alliances it didn’t like. For this and other reasons, biblical marriage is not a pretty picture.

2. Marriage is one man and one woman

“Throughout Scripture, it is clear that marriage is a lifelong, exclusive covenantal union of two people—a husband and a wife.”

Wrong. God gives polygamy two thumbs up. He said to David, “I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.” (2 Samuel 12:8). This is God making clear that he had no problem with polygamy.

One Christian response is that God was simply working with the imperfect customs of the time, and that’s why God didn’t prohibit slavery or polygamy. But it’s ridiculous to imagine the perfect plan of an omnipotent god hobbled by the primitive morality of an Iron Age people. He didn’t have any problem putting the Ten Commandments into action immediately, and God imposed the death penalty for violating most of the Commandments. If polygamy were bad, God could’ve said so.

Second, if “God was bound by the customs of the time” doesn’t constrain you from rejecting slavery and polygamy today, then you’re not constrained to abide by other nutty Old Testament rules like prohibitions against homosexuality. You can’t have it both ways—God’s clear preferences in the Old Testament either bind you or they don’t.

 If you are honestly concerned about attacks on marriage (rather than being a moral busybody, which is what it looks like), same-sex marriage is the good guy in this story. It is trying to expand and support marriage, not attack it.

3. Because of the children

“The production of children requires both a man and a woman. So there cannot be any such thing as gay marriage, because marriage requires husband and wife.”

Well, that was a leap. Children do require a man and a woman, but they don’t have to be married. And how are children relevant? Reread the Christian marriage vows—there’s nothing about making babies.

And if marriage = babies, why focus on the tangential issue of same-sex marriage? Far more straight couples have a fertility problem than there are potential homosexual couples, and many straight couples simply don’t want children. Why not complain that they are the ones who don’t understand what marriage is about? Or if you’re fine with childless straight couples, why not be consistent and accept childless gay couples?

The answer for those keeping score at home: they reject only gay childless couples because the “marriage is all about the babies” argument is just a smokescreen.

Here again, the Bible is no friend to the Christian bigot. Paul says, “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” (1 Cor. 7:1). So much for the celebrated role of procreation.

The Bible also uses marriage as a metaphor for the relationship of Jesus to the church. Is making babies the point of the Jesus/church marriage as well, or can marriage be about something more?

See also: 20 Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage, Rebutted

4. Homosexuality is harmful

“Homosexual activity is harmful and destructive to oneself and others.”

Why? How? This statement is supported by no argument, so it doesn’t need an argument to be dismissed.

5. You can’t just redefine marriage!

“If we abandon the Bible’s teaching on marriage and just make up new definitions as we go, then why couldn’t marriage be redefined in other ways?”

Someone’s not paying attention. Marriage has been redefined, and in your lifetime. Mixed-race marriage is now legal. Divorce has become no-fault. Marital rape is illegal.

Different states even have different rules defining marriage—whether you can marry your first cousin, whether a blood test is required, waiting period, residency requirements, rules for divorced persons, and so on. No, the definition of “marriage” isn’t fixed, so don’t get your knickers in a bunch because marriage has changed yet again.

6. You’ll make broken homes

“The more we move away from the biblical teaching on marriage, the more we’ll have broken homes, because other arrangements simply do not work as well as God’s design.”

In the United States, the Constitution is completely secular, and aligning laws with “God’s design” isn’t a thing. The First Amendment prohibits your impression of God’s wishes from being the basis of any law. This is fortunate since the more religious a Western country is, the worse its social conditions tend to be.

Another problem with your desire to guide America with biblical principles is that the Bible’s punishment for homosexuality is death. There is no crime without a punishment, so your hypocrisy is showing if you tell us that homosexuality is bad because God says so without also demanding God’s punishment.

Finally, and despite your best efforts, same-sex marriage doesn’t affect you at all. If you don’t like gay marriage, then don’t get gay married. If you are honestly concerned about attacks on marriage (rather than being a moral busybody, which is what it looks like), same-sex marriage is the good guy in this story. It is trying to expand and support marriage, not attack it.

You want a problem? Divorce is a problem. Focus on why marriages fail if you want to help them.

The final three arguments plus a surprising interpretation of the Bible’s anti-gay verses in the next post.

Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things.
One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in Hell.
The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on Earth
and you should save it for someone you love. 
— Butch Hancock