To quote from Sodom and Gomorrah: ” … So don’t be gay.”

 To quote from Sodom and Gomorrah: ” … So don’t be gay.”

November 9, 2011 By John Shore 

 

Is there some sort of resurgence happening around the idea that when it comes to proving that God condemns gay people, you just can’t beat the ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Because lately I’ve been hearing from fundy-type Christians who want me to read S&G, so that I’ll understand that that’s the message of that story.
So I just now went and reread the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
As far as I can tell, the Big Main Lesson of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is that if it ever happens that, for some inexplicable reason, every man in your town is suddenly seized by an overwhelming desire to gang-rape the angels who are sleeping over at your house, offer them your daughters to rape instead. But then worry not, because your guest angels will strike blind all the would-be rapists, who will then be unable to locate your front door, let alone your daughters. Also, if God later starts raining burning sulphur down upon your town, do not look back at that spectacle, no matter how far away from it you are at the time, because doing so will instantly transform you into a pillar of salt. And then that’s a drag for your family.
But maybe I just have a weird translation of the Bible. Maybe, in other translations, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah concludes in this way:

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. So don’t be gay.

That I have a bad Bible translation is most certainly the problem. Because I cannot think of any other reason for which any sane person would ever seriously suggest that the point of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is to prove that homosexuality is immoral.