What to Say to Your Friends about the Bible and Homosexuality

So often we're in situations where someone says something that puts down a family member or a friend, but we're not sure how to go about dealing with it.  Here are some suggested replies that must be said with a smile on your face and love in your heart.  

The response of consistency
"Although you may believe that the Bible condemns homosexuals, it also condemns many things which we accept today.  These include eating pork, growing hybrid crops, working on Saturday, and women wearing pants.  How can it be proper to cling to this one prohibition and dismiss the others?"

Explanation: Most people want to be consistent, or are a little embarrassed when an inconsistency is pointed out.  The burden is now on them to try to explain how this case is an exception.  They will fail.


The response of more light
"The Bible also approves of many things we condemn today, including polygamy, slavery, levirate marriage, subordination of women, and genocide.  Your disapproval of these things (that the Bible approves) indicates that you don't believe that just because the Bible once considered them proper that they are necessarily right for us today.  We learn more and we move ahead."

Explanation: Levirate marriage (as an example) is the Mosaic Law that mandated that the brother-in-law to a recently widowed woman must have sexual intercourse with her so she will have children, even though her husband is dead.  Not only do we not approve of this, we condemn it.


The response of proper motivation
"I've looked at the Bible verses that seem to condemn homosexuality.  Most of them have nothing to do with homosexuality.  The most that can be said is that certain same-sex acts were condemned because the people were turning sex into an idol and acting out of lust.  All opposite-sex acts stemming from the same reasons were condemned also.  It isn't the kind of sex that's wrong, just the motivations for doing it."

Explanation: Forcing a wife to have sex is rape; only if mutually agreed to is sex proper, even between married couples.  Things are often right or wrong depending upon the reasons for doing them.


The response of "Aha!"
"Did you know there is no word in Hebrew or Greek (the languages of the Bible) for homosexual?   How can the Bible be said to condemn what it doesn't know exists?"

Explanation: The word homosexual was coined in the 19th century.  The word sodomy (Latin, sodomia)   was coined 1000 years after the Bible was written.  Semantisists tell us that if there is no word, there is no idea behind it.


The response of love
"I'm not a scholar, so I can't say I have studied the issues completely, but I can say that what Jesus expects from us is very simple: We are to love one another.  What we must be about is removing the barriers between people, not helping to maintain them in their rigid place."

Explanation: It's the Golden Rule.  BTW, the Golden Rule is PROactive in that we are to DO to others, not merely NOT DOing the bad.


The response of Pro-life
"When Jesus violated the Sabbath by feeding himself and his disciples, he taught us that laws are to serve humans, not stand in their way.  Even the Sabbath law, the violation of which meant being stoned to death, could be set aside for the sake of human compassion.  Jesus would say that laws or beliefs that serve to dehumanize anyone, including homosexuals, need to be discarded."

Explanation: There is no higher morality than upholding the dignity of a human.  Any religious notion that tells you it's OK to denigrate, dehumanize or otherwise withhold good to another is wrong on the face of it.  It is even evil to do so.

Here's what one athlete does to help his team and many others to understand human dignity:




TOMORROW:  What to say to your friends who oppose same-sex marriage