A Gay Man's Struggle: Leviticus Said "Man Shall Not Lie With Man"
In High School I went to a church that rallied students to stand in front of abortion clinics with red tape covering their mouth and black marker written on the tape displaying one simple word. “Life.” I never personally went on these escapades, but there was already a contradiction building between my personal life and my religious life, my God and my homosexuality, my religion and my passion for civil liberties.
Beginning from before I was able to read, before I was old enough to understand what homosexuality was, before I began to have an attraction to any type of sex, I knew one thing…being gay was wrong. And I knew this single fact because of my up bringing in the church. The bible verse that is most frequently used against homosexuals in the church is in the Torah, in the book of Leviticus “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination”(Lev. 18:22).
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MAN
Now times the last ten lines by one hundred and you will understand how many times I heard my pastor and his raspy Baptist voice speak this line. I was brainwashed. As a little kid I was taught to think being gay was wrong. And I didn’t have a problem with that for quite a while, until I realized and came to accept that I had some homosexual tendencies myself. 🙂
It is funny how this bible verse is repeated so often, yet the bible verse a couple chapters later that tells “God’s People” not to eat shellfish is often ignored at the very same Baptist Church Friday night-fish-fry.
The other frequently used bible reference that is used to quickly give evidence to all homo-phobs that homosexuality is wrong, is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In this story God “supposedly” destroys a city of gay people, because…well…when I was a kid in church, I was taught that God destroyed the city because the people were gay. I encourage everyone not to just listen to these traditional and bigoted pastors about what the bible says, but listen to the theologians that give the other side to this argument.
Youtube wins again…check out the first gay man to be the head of a Episcopal Church.