Where in the Bible does it say people can't be gay?

Question

I'm serious. I'm not trying to get people to agree with me, I want an honest answer. Does it say in the Bible that people can't be gay? Because I've never read or heard about an actual passage in the Bible where it talks about homosexuality. I also have never seen where it says that people can't have sex out of wedlock. I know that people say that a woman was a whore, but in the Bible it never said that she was specifically a whore, just that she was a sinner. I don't know my Bible that well, but I'm trying to learn what's right and wrong just according to the Bible. So can someone please help?

Answer 1

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The Bible makes very few mentions of homosexuality - lesbianism isn't mentioned at all in the Old Testament - and as the examples below show, interpretations of the verses that do exist differ hugely.

Following each of the verses below is a brief illustration of what a hardline pro- and anti-gay position might be. (Most Christians hold views somewhere in between these two stances.)

An illustration of the division can be seen by what either side might say about the friendship in the Old Testament between David and Jonathan. One verse reads: "I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; dear and delightful you were to me; your love for me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women."

PRO-GAY
A pro-gay position might be that this is a clear indication that King David had a gay relationship, and to pretend otherwise is naive. ANTI-GAY
An anti-gay opinion might be that the friendship between the two men was exactly that - a very close and loyal allegiance.


Similarly, the tale of Sodom is often debated. In it, Lot has two angels staying in his house. The men of Sodom surrounded the house. "They called to Lot and asked him where the men were who had entered his house that night. 'Bring them out,' they shouted, 'so that we might have intercourse with them.'"

To protect his visitors from an act which Lot describes as "wicked", he offers the crowd his two virgin daughters instead. The crowd are not satisfied and break the door down - the angels then make the intruders blind and Sodom is eventually destroyed by "fire and brimstone".

ANTI-GAY
An anti-gay argument might say this story demonstrates the immorality of homosexuality, as has been accepted for generations, hence the term sodomy. Elsewhere in Genesis, God says of the men: "Their sin is very grave." It's an example of behaviour degenerating.
PRO-GAY
Of course the men's behaviour was wicked, but it was wicked because it's a tale of sexual assault and rape. When Jesus mentions Sodom, hundreds of years later, it appears to be in a context of a discussion of hospitality, rather than one of sexual morality.


There are several verses in the Bible which are similarly contested - there are however a much smaller number of seemingly clear statements. The most famous of them is probably from Leviticus: "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination."

ANTI-GAY
An anti-gay position would be that this line is unambiguous. It is also repeated elsewhere in the book. The speaker of the words is God, so this is an explicit indication that homosexuality is wrong in God's eyes. It was one of the sins that justified God in giving the land of Canaan to the Israelites
PRO-GAY
A pro-gay argument might say that other verses in the same book forbid a wide range of sexual activities, including having sex with a woman who is having her period. This is an indication that the passage embodies specific cultural values rather than God's law.


There is some debate about how relevant rules in the Old Testament are to Christians. Some would say they are binding, since Jesus said he did not come to abolish the old laws. Others would say that Jesus set Christians free from the old laws, highlighting instead that people should love God and their neighbour.

Jesus himself says nothing explicitly about homosexuality. There are though two statements by him which have been interpreted as having a bearing on the subject.

"[A] man shall leave his father and mother, and be made one with his wife; and the two shall become one flesh."

ANTI-GAY
This indicates Jesus saw heterosexual relations as the proper way of behaving.
PRO-GAY
Jesus is actually talking about the sanctity of heterosexual marriage


Later in the same conversation, after Jesus has spoken about divorce, the disciples say to him it is better not to marry at all. Jesus says: "That is something which not everyone can accept, but only those for whom God has appointed it. For while some are incapable of marriage because they were born so, or made so by men, there are others who have themselves renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. Let those accept it who can."

PRO-GAY
This shows that Jesus is more concerned with people looking after their own relationship with God, than with enforcement of rules. The reference to being "born so" indicates that heterosexual marriage is fine for those who are heterosexual, but it's OK to be different. Again and again Jesus reaches out to those on the margins of society, like prostitutes and tax collectors, to include them.
ANTI-GAY
Jesus here is actually talking about people who were born incapable of having children, or people who were castrated - not about gays. He is actually saying that marriage and chastity are both within God's purpose. Jesus does appeal to the sinners, but once he has called them, he tells them to go and sin no more.


The letters of St Paul provide the other traditional support for the position that homosexuality is sinful. He writes: "God has given [people who worship false gods] up to shameful passions. Their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and their men in turn, giving up natural relations with women burn with lust for one another; males behave indecently with males and paid in their own persons the fitting wage of such perversion."

Paul later writes: "Make no mistake: no fornicator or idolator, none who are guilty either of adultery or of homosexual perversion, no thieves or grabbers of drunkards of slanderers or swindlers, will possess the kingdom of God."

PRO-GAY
A pro-gay position might be that the word Paul uses for homosexual here could alternatively be translated as "male prostitute". In any case, Paul's writings are clearly of his time, and there are plenty of other verses which people have no difficulty in ignoring - for instance: "a woman brings shame on her head if she prays or prophesies bare-headed; it is as bad as if her head were shaved." This should be viewed like that.
ANTI-GAY
Anti-gay argument might say this line is crystal clear in establishing that Christianity and homosexuality are incompatible. Paul is actually quite clearly referring to homosexual behaviour, and includes lesbianism. You can't just pretend that St Paul, who did so much to influence our understanding of Jesus, didn't know what he was talking about. He's clear that homosexuality is an offence against God and against people's own bodies.


Part of the reason the views diverge so much is because Christians think of the Bible differently. Some see it as literally the word of God, divine inspiration which humans should not question. Others see it rather as a book which is a witness to God's message, but one which was written by humans and thus has flaws.

Answer 2

The Bible says that if you are a man who lies with man meaning homosexual or gay that you will not make it into God's Kingdom. Some of the early Christians were that way, but they repented from it and gave it up to become Christians.

The woman you were speaking was told by Jesus to go home and sin no more.

What I would suggest that you do is to go to the web site below and they have an online form you can fill out and someone will come to your home and give you a weekly Bible study. I had many things against the people who run the site, but I learned that they spoke the truth and Jesus said that you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, so I would suggest that you fill out the online form or call the number in your phone book for Jehovah's Witnesses. They will answer all your questions right from your Bible.

You can can also fill in the online form there and someone will get back with you and help you to learn for nothing; not a charge ever, and if you ever go to their meetings, no collection plate is ever passed and you don't have to tithe your money to them either.

I studied with them for over 26 years, and I learned a lot of things too numerous to go into here plus you will be able to use your Bible just as well as you look up things in the dictionary. The studies are very thorough and they never try to make you become a Witness. Those who do decide that is because they want to; not because they have to.

you will find an online Bible there plus you will see many of your questions answered in various articles.

I wish you success in all you do.

Answer 3

Didn't we answer this one already? OK, just off the top of my head:

There are several places in the OT (such as, but not limited to, the passages from the Law of Moses that states that a man who defiles a virgin MUST marry her (Exodus 22:16-17; Det. 22:13-21); that it is an abomination for a man to like with a man like he would lie with a woman (Lev. 18:22); and that cross-dressing is a sin (Det. 22:5)), but lets start with the NT.

In Matthew 19, some rabbis ask Jesus a question about no fault divorce, and Jesus goes off on a tangent and explains why God invented sex in the first place. Jesus said that God intended for sex (literally become one flesh) to be between a male and a female who were married -- the only godly alternative was to become a eunuch (someone who cannot have sex).

An express condemnation of men lusting after men, and woman "abandoning natural relations with men" to lust after women instead, is found in Romans chapter 1. Also try 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

Hebrews 13:4 (NIV translation)
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Answer 4

It says something like, Man shall not lay with man. This is an abomination unto the lord thy god. Not sure which book, but it is in the Old Testement. It's in the part where the Hebrews or Jews as we now know them get all their Laws. It also states in this very same section that a woman when bleeding or after child birth is unclean. A woman cannot be touched or even be around a man for 2 weeks after she has stopped bleeding. Nor can she prepare food or cleanse the dead. After child birth she is not even allowed to touch her baby for something like 6 months. Again because she is UNCLEAN.
I have always thought of it this way. God did not write the Bible, men did. Back in those days men did not have a clue as to why a woman bled, or gave birth other than the procreational aspect. So they came up with all these rules for women in order to make them feel like they must have done something wrong for god to make them like this! Same thing with being gay, they did not understand it, so God must be punishing them for something really bad and if they acted on it it was going against god!
Remember, original sin was to have had sex, and a baby when it was born must be cleansed( Christened or Baptized ) for the sin that their parents commited. I believe in God, I do not believe in the Bible. It has been changed and reformated 1000's of times over the centuries to fit the whims of man. Most of the stories told in the Bible had already been told centuries before by many many other people from all over the world. Before there was even a thought of the One True God. The men who wrote it and have rewrote it just made those stories suit their ideas and beliefs. Find god in yourself, he is there. If you have questions ask him, he will find a way to help you, but only if you are willing to help yourself.

Answer 5

Actually about the Sodom and Gomorrah thing, I read a book that claimed the popular concept about the homosexuality is misleading. Apparently the original Hebrew text used "know" not in the Biblical sense, but as in "getting to know that guy over there." Anyway, it says that God had decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins before the angels even got there. That was why they came downto Earth, to destroy it. They only entered the city in the first place to get a true believer of God out in time. If homosexuality occured in Sodom and Gomorrah it was incidental, one of many varied sins.

Answer 6

Through out chapter 18 it is explaining that the people should not be like the Egyptians and Canaanites. Refering to men.

Leviticus 18:22
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is an abomination.

Romans 1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one towards another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and recieving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Also the Ten Commandments talks about sex out of wedlock.

Answer 7

1 Timothy 1:8-11 "8. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10. for adulterers and perverts*, for slave traders and liars and perjurers - and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11. that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me." *It is assumed that the word perverts could refer to homosexuals.

Leviticus 18:22 "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." This verse comes from a passage of scripture listing all Unlawful Sexual relations.

Romans 1:18-32, specifically 26 to 27 "26. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolators nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homesexual offenders 10. nor theives nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Taken from Life Application Study Bible, New International Version

Answer 8

Regardless of what the Bible says, I think that homosexuality and lesbianism is nature's way of thinning out the population.

There were times in History when almost all men were homosexuals, Popes have had their concubines, Alexander the Great traveled with scores of juvenile lovers, Leonardo DaVinci had a life-long male compnion, the fierce Trojan soldiers were trained to please their commanders, before they could go into battle.Do you suppose any of them cared what the Bible had to say about it?

The point is, how are you ever going to be happy if you're always worried about what the Bible has to say about your activties?

Answer 9

The references to mankind seeking after their own kind in lustily affections - is referencing homosexuality, which is earlier referenced as an abomination to God. Sex out of wedlock is referred to in scripture as fornication. Hopefully knowing these terms used, it will guide you as you reference passages. A good source of referencing these words in any given passage is www.biblegateway.com.

Answer 10

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Answer 11

1 Cor 6:18-19
8 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
NIV
1 Cor 5:11
11 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
NIV

Col 3:5
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry
NIV

Ex 20:14
14 "You shall not commit adultery.
NIV

Deut 22:23-24
3 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death--the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
NIV

1 Cor 6:18-19
8 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
NIV

1 Cor 6:9-11
9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
NIV