Most would quote Leviticus 18:22 18:22 You shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

The Bible I got when I was 12 informs me that for a man to sleep with man is an abomination (In Leviticus). If I were a Christian there would be a very easy solution - don't do anything gay. I don't recall a verse that says "And by the way, do everything you can to make sure that no gay people get social recognition."

Leviticus 18:22 'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.' Leviticus 20:13 'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.' ^ It's interesting that most of the support for some kind of hatred against homosexuality is in Leviticus - the same book which says that adulterers (both the man and women) should both be put to death, has a whole host of stupid issues with hygiene (seriously, it's weird), and more. And "oh snap!" it's in the Old Testament - the rules which the Christians say don't count any more, because there's the NEW Testament... F***ing hypocritical bigots, all of them. I hope they live in shame. And now I wait for the trolling : ) You're more than welcome to rate me down, but unless you post an intelligent comment, it'll be meaningless to me ; )

In fact what Leviticus 18:22 says in Hebrew is: ' You shall not lie with a man in the lieings of a woman, it is a ritual uncleanness.'

I pretty well covered this in answer to another question (http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/11046). Note that the verses don't just come from the Old Testament. Most of the verses I cite come from the New Testament. The Bible is quite consistent on this subject. Everywhere homosexuality is mentioned in the Bible it is condemned.

The verses are pretty well covered in the answer to this question (http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/11046).

I am a Christian, and I believe there needs to be something first and for most that is established. The fact that all sins are equal in God's eyes. There is no such thing as something as a "more serious" sin or a "less serious" sin. Whether homosexuality is considered to be a sin is I believe, at this moment, not true. To bring together the conservative and liberal views on this subject matter I bring up a good reference here: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm i'm not sure if it is completely unbiased or not, but it seems fairly objective. ---------- I will go into specific bible verses later, but first I must address another issue. Jesus and being the rebel back in the day. If you want to skip to the main issue, go down the the next dotted line XD. lol. I just tore apart the first half of Mark at a retreat and we see that the religious rulers at that time, aka the Pharisees, confront Jesus because he is a threat to their authority. If you will, Pharisees always being the antagonist in many people's eyes, are not evil. They uphold the law of that time, laws that were made originally by God, to have them stay clean and etc. And for a time, it worked. But eventually, since man is fallible, religious law began to become distorted in the sense that it became a burden rather than a blessing for people to understand the love of God. The Pharisees were so caught up in their system, that they failed to see the true meaning of the laws they were adhering to. The commandments from God became a law to control the people and benefit the Pharisees. A good example of this is the abuse of Corban, but i wont go into that. Jesus came to try to help the Pharisees see the that the condition of their hearts had become hardened, and he still has much compassion for them (Mark 3:5). "he GRIEVED". you don't grieve unless you lose something of great value. And Jesus being our all loving God, still loves the Pharisees as their children, but is saddened and disappointed that they no longer understand what it means to be a follower of God's law. So Jesus breaks the rules that of the Pharisees society for a reason. Jesus is not breaking the laws of God, he is breaking the rules of that CULTURE. Old testament laws were made for a reason for that time, and spiritual cleansing would come if you followed these laws. However, since the coming of Jesus and the opening of the heavens, the Kingdom of God has allowed us to follow God in a new era. Following rules were fine back then, for they still held much value in the spiritual sense. As time progressed however, the laws became distorted, and the people no longer understood the meaning behind it. "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Mark 2:27 is significant because it states that at that time, Sabbath was no longer a day of "delight, [the] holy day of the Lord honorable, and [we] shall honor him, not doing [our] own ways." Isaiah 58:13-14. (Isaiah 58 is pretty good for capturing the essence of what tradition used to uphold, or should uphold). Instead, Sabbath had become a time not of rest but of personal burden, a day that detracted people from glorifying God and his blessings. This is what Jesus came to show about the traditions of the past, and to show us how to truly get to the heart of what God wants us to do. We don't and shouldn't live for ourselves, or to be in control, for how selfish is that? We give up that control to God and God alone, not the church or the organization behind the church or the laws of the land, we give it up to God, and we receive the Holy Spirit in return, and we understand what it is we are here to do. There comes a feeling when one comes to understand why God's love is so big, and we feel obligated to do things, even things out of our comfort zones and maybe out of state or national law comfort zones as well if you know what I mean. To expand the Kingdom of God, is to spread a message of love and forgiveness first and foremost. Even if you are living the good life, if you understand God, you understand the brokenness of the world, and you will be compelled to give it all up for that purpose. If you aren't broken, you will still understand that others are, and even if you aren't a Christian, you can't ignore the genocide and oppression, the sadness and pain. It resonates in us and we don't know why. If we really believe in self gain, then we shouldn't feel sorry or sad. It is because God loves us just as he loves and understands those in pain and suffering, and we can feel a part of that. Okay i kinda rambled I'll answer the question in the next response. =P

This is to support the fact that the orientation of homosexuality is misconceived to be a sin. First and foremost, the Bible has been translated God knows how many times. The only way to REALLY know what the heck is happening was the live in those times, speak that language fluently, and receive the word in that time period. At this point, in our position 2000+ years after, we can only go with the translations that we have in front of us and our hearts guided by Christ to define what it all means Okay to answer let's start in Genesis. Genesis 1 (just read it i'm not gonna quote it) states that He created men and women. And he told them to be fruitful and multiply, or increase in number whatever. Already there is ambiguity, what exactly does it mean to be fruitful? yes multiply and increase in number is pretty self explanatory, but fruitful, does that mean in relationships? or to be productive? Who knows? And the fact that he kinda needed to make a population in the first place, he can't take a man and a man and make babies. Its physically impossible. So this most likely is applying to just the two people he created in that instance, for what else is he going to say? This doesn't mean that all descendants of Adam and Eve HAVE to be all heterosexual, i mean its a good thing most of them were, but I'm sure a gay person at this point would have been fine. Genesis 18 and Genesis 19 oh joy, the part about sodom. This is where a large amount of controversy will occur. 18:20 is the first instance where Sodom is mentioned, and it states that their sin is very grave, or they are doing all kinds of evil things, etc etc. So we know they are NOT good people, probably raping, murdering, committing adultery, etc, basically, i believe sin is ignoring the call that God has given us to love in the spiritual sense, not the physical. So the angels are sent into Sodom, which is basically a city full of horny gay men. The angels come and they are taken in by Lot, and all these gay horny men gather at his house, because they want to have sex with them. (note, if your translation says "know" that meant to get it on back in the day, so yes they wanted to have sex with them). Eventually, even though Lot urges them to calm down, and even though he offers his daughters for the protection of these angels, the men burst through and forced themselves upon the household. What is sad to me is that there are probably just a bunch of homophobes that can't take their eyes of the words "man" and "sex". What they fail to recognize is that this is a form of LUST the men are exhibiting. Their sins are many, but the state of BEING GAY was never stated to be that sin. Think about it, if the angels had been women and the whole population still descended on the house as a bunch of horny straight men, im pretty sure God would have destroyed that city all the same. They ignore the call to love and be compassionate, and all they can think about is themselves. That is the true sin about the city of Sodom. It is even backed up in Ezekiel 16:48-50 "She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me." The real sin was their ignorance, not the homosexuals. Lets move on to the hard one, leviticus. Leviticus 18:22. "V’et zachar lo tishkav mishk’vey eeshah toeyvah hee." Quite literally, it means "and with a male you shall not lay lyings of a woman." In the context of the chapter, before this he talks about sex with your neighbors wife, and after he says sex with an animal. The most logical and obvious juncture would be that he commanded moses to say that man cannot have sex with another man. There are various other interpretations, but the obvious answers are there, and probably meant to be understood that way. Leviticus 20:13 "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." This one is even more obvious than the last, so you must be thinking. Wow those Christians are done for, they really are a bunch of hypocritical bigots. But I refer to my other answer, which is in the cleansing power of Jesus' teachings and his sacrifice to humankind. No longer are we bound by laws of spiritual cleaning, the outward actions that define wether or not we are unclean. What really is happening here is again the idea of lust. Having sex with someone else's wife or your brother's wife has to have some sense of lust involved. In the same way in those days, getting it on with a man probably meant you had some lust issues at that point. The truth is, a caring and compassionate relationship that wasn't based upon sex would have probably been seen as outwardly sinful, but would have ultimately been spiritually cleansing. When the coming of Jesus allows us to truly focus on this spiritual aspect, then we can say that homosexuality is not the sin, it is the lust of sexual activity that is the sin. In general, Leviticus is known as bunch of strange rules for being a "clean" person in terms of the Mosaic law. I also just realized I may have contradicted myself in terms of Sodom, but I still believe the sins that God focused on at that point was the cities in ability to show compassion based on their ignorance of the needs of others. I'm not going to even touch Kings and Judges because they are probably based on Leviticus. For the New Testament, after Jesus came and ascended into heaven, we examine the passages 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. In both passages, english translations of the bible commonly refer to the sinful term "arsenokoitai" as homosexuality. HOWEVER, we must look at what this word really means. At first glance, the two words that make it up, arseno meaning "man", and koitai meaning "bed" makes it feel like it is talking about homosexual relations between only men (which is interesting that it does not include women, which may indicate this is not about sexual orientation) http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/1998-October/002084.html This is an interesting observation on the work possibly referring to the act of homosexuality in a domineering and rapist form, not one of love. These are just my interpretations. But I uphold these interpretations with my faith. And I have a faith that doesn't need physical proof. ;D

In the New Testament Jesus said: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" He did not say this about a gay person, but it still applies.

As I just read, Leviticus 18:22 "You shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination" Being a homosexual isn't a sin, it's homosexual activity that is. You could have a gay relationship, but no sex. Or at least that's what I learned. I'm not well educated on this stuff.