ROME, Italy — Opposition to gay sex is based on a misreading of the Bible, much as the sacred text was used for centuries to defend slavery, argues gay-rights activist Father James Martin in an article published this past week.
The biblical argument against sodomy is dubious, Father Martin contends, since “as many Old and New Testament scholars have pointed out, use of the so-called ‘clobber passages’ in the Bible is highly problematic since the readings were meant for an entirely different context (similar to biblical passages on slavery).”
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Moreover, he continues, “there are many other biblical injunctions and instructions (like stoning women for adultery) that we no longer follow,” suggesting that precepts against sodomy may be likewise dispensable.
“Use of the ‘clobber passages’ is almost always highly selective and almost always used against LGBTQ people, instead of what are called ‘texts of welcome,’” the Jesuit priest asserts.
The “clobber passages” Father Martin refers to include Old Testament injunctions against sodomy, such as Leviticus 18:22, which states, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”
Another “clobber passage,” this time from the New Testament, is Saint Paul’s assertion that “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” and “neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality.”
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“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions,” Paul similarly wrote in his letter to the Romans. “For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Then, of course, there is the eponymous sin of the men of Sodom itself, from whose name the act of male homosexuality takes its name.
As Robert A. J. Gagnon writes in The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, the foremost scholarly work on the subject, despite the limited number of texts in the Bible that speak directly to the question of same-sex intercourse, “there is very little likelihood that any writer of Scripture, or Jesus, would have supported homosexual behavior of any sort.”
In his essay, Father Martin lists five reasons why many Catholics oppose “LGBTQ issues,” including the belief that such issues are ideological, that they are Western, or they are a form of “neo-colonialism.”
Curiously, the reason he does not include in his list is the belief that it is wrong to self-identify by one’s sinful behavior or inclinations just as it is wrong to take “pride” in them or celebrate them.
As Gagnon writes in his book on the topic, far from being an unloving act, “a sensitive refusal to condone homosexual conduct is the responsible and loving thing to do. The church deceives the homosexual by affirming a lifestyle that God deems to be sin.”
This is what Father Martin appears unable to accept, and the real reason many oppose his supposedly “Catholic” outreach.
Nonetheless, Father Martin’s comparison of gay sex to slavery does gain some traction considering Jesus’ memorable saying: “Anyone who commits sin is a slave” (Jn 8:34).
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