Final Speech

“Homosexuality is a sin.”
“Being gay is an abomination in the eyes of God.”
“The Bible says that that homosexuals should be killed.”
When I first came out my parents the summer before my freshman year of high school, the first thing they did was look me in the eyes and they asked me if it was something they did wrong. And of course, I said no. They stopped for a second and then my dad said to me, “I wish you’d told us earlier that you were feeling this way. That way, we could’ve helped you earlier.” And I just sat there. The next morning, I had an appointment with a psychologist. And then later in the afternoon, with a religious counselor. The day after, with another. That’s how my summer went. All in an effort to cure me. And always it came back to, “God doesn’t approve of that lifestyle” and “you’re a girl, God meant for you to like boys.”
But I never really understood that. Why would God say something like that? I'd always been told God loved his children unconditionally. That’s what I’d always believed.
The Bible says this and the Bible says that. Throughout history, the Bible has been used to discriminate against African Americans, women, and now, homosexuals.
The most common passage used to argue against homosexuality is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities that sat along the Jordan River. These cities were extremely wealthy and were well off. At this time, if someone were to come to your house, you would, without questioning it, welcome them and make them feel at home. However, Sodom and Gomorrah essentially “cancelled” these laws in their land. They felt that this wasn’t necessary, they wanted to keep their wealth to themselves. The case was, though, that two angels had appeared to Abraham. Abraham had then led the angels to Lot’s house in Sodom. Once they were at the door, Lot insisted that they come in. Townsmen arrived at Lot’s house and insisted that they “bring [the guests] out unto [them], so that we may know them” or as put in other translations of the Bible “so that we can have sex with them.” (Genesis 19:5)
In the previous chapter, Genesis 18, God says that because the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are so “exceedingly wicked”, that they will be destroyed. So even before the two angels showed up to Lot’s house in the form of man alongside Abraham in Genesis 19:1, the cities were doomed. This comes to show that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is not homosexuality but rather inhospitality to strangers and visitors.
In the documentary, For The Bible Tells Me So, several people who study the Bible take a closer look at this story and explain the common misconception that most people have about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Some say that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because there was homosexuality among them, after Genesis 19:5. However, when taken into context, this specific verse is not referring to homosexuality. In this verse, the townsmen are wanting to gang rape Lot and his guests as an act of humiliation for breaking the law of Sodom.
It is the same way with other Bible verses, that when taken out of context certain verses in the Bible can be easily misunderstood. Let’s take a look at yet another Bible verse that is commonly misinterpreted: Romans 1:26-27. “God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way men also abandoned natural relationship with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.” In Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve to go “be fruitful and multiply” and at this time, nations were still trying to grow, procreation was essential. In Genesis 38, God strikes Onan dead because he ejaculated outside of his partner as to not impregnate her. It was “unnatural” for two men or two women to be together, for their purpose was to procreate. So in this verse from Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul exclaims that these same-sex relations are “unnatural” , or in other words not customary, and are worthy of death. Paul declares this as evidence that the Romans are worshipping the wrong god.
It is easy to go through and read the Bible or even snippets of it. The difficult part often comes along when we try to understand what the Bible is actually saying.