What the Bible says about LGBTQ people

(This is lifted from a response I wrote to someone on Quora.)

Genesis 19:4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

Yes, pretty bad. This is, however, a story about gang rape, which I would say is bad regardless of the gender of the victims. Do you think gang rape is only bad when the victims are male? Then you must approve of the gang rape in Judges 19, right?

Judges 19:22 While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” 23 The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this outrageous thing. 24 Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don't do such an outrageous thing.” 25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.

Totally acceptable behavior, right? Oh, but Ezekiel says:

Ezekiel 16:49 “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.”

like being inhospitable to me; but then what's more inhospitable than gang rape? Let's move on to Leviticus, shall we?

Leviticus 18:22 “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”

There's that “detestable” again, or, as whatever source you're using says, “abomination”. Do you know what else is an “abomination” (same Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה)?

• Egyptians eating at the same table as Jews (Genesis 43:32)
• Jews making a sacrifice in view of Egyptians (Exodus 8:26)
• Eating pork or shellfish (Deuteronomy 14:3)
• Remarriage to your ex-wife (Deuteronomy 24:4)
• Having different size weights in your house (Deuteronomy 25:16)

Wow. Nonetheless, I do think this verse is describing something very serious, due to a different Hebrew word. The word translated “man” here is not the Hebrew word for man (אִישׁ) but another word (זָכָר), that is sometimes translated “young male". A lot of translations older than the KJV, particularly in other languages, translate this word to be “boy”, making this verse about pederasty. The fact that pedophilia is a terrible thing, but the Bible addresses it nowhere (else) seems very odd. The rest of the sexual sins listed in Leviticus 18 have reasons why they are wrong, but this one doesn't. If it's about pedophilia, does it really need an explanation?

Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds andnimals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual 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 shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

This is the whole of the Romans passage, to give context. As you can see from verse 23, it’s about idolatry. This is about why idolatry is wrong, and what idolatry does to a person who practices it. While verse 27 is clearly about men having sex with men, verse 26 is actually not about women having sex with women; people just think that because of the proximity to verse 27, but if you look, it's not there. “Natural sexual relations” is a euphemism for procreative sex; these women are probably practicing anal and oral sex with men as temple prostitutes. So what about verse 27? While it’s men having sex with men, these are clearly heterosexual men who have become perverted because it says they “abandoned natural relations with women” and “God gave them over to shameful lusts…and received in themselves the due penalty”. This doesn't sound like homosexuals, because gay men didn't leave women and then feel penalized for having sex with men; they like having sex with men! These are apparently heterosexual men that got perverted sexually because they perverted worship, and they aren't actually enjoying themselves. As you can see from the last few verses, they also developed a lot of other problems besides sexual ones.

1 Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 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.

Here's 1 Corinthians 6:9 with context from the NIV. The phrase “men who have sex with men” in many other translations is rendered “homosexuals”, but it’s a translation of two Greek words, μαλακοι and αρσενοκοιται. Now, μαλακοι is a word we know the meaning of, it essentially means “soft" and was a word that 1st century Jews used as a pejorative for clean-shaven gentiles; what that would have to do with sex is unclear. The other word, αρσενοκοιται, is a word that, despite what your source claims, nobody knows what Paul meant by it, because this is the first place the word ever appeared in Greek literature: Paul made it up. If It’s supposed to mean “homosexuals”, it’s a bit odd, because 5th century church father John the Faster wrote a letter to a fellow pastor expressing concern that some of the men in his congregation might have committed “αρσενοκοιτια” (English supposedly “homosexuality”) with their wives. How does a man commit homosexuality with his wife? The word likely is a sexual sin as it includes a root meaning “bed", but the nature of the sexual sin is unknown. (When Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, he translated αρσενοκοιται as “boy molester”, whatever that is worth.) The thing is, no Bible in any language translated this word into “homosexuals” before the 1946 Revised Standard Version, of which the head of the translation team later admitted that it was a poor choice. It was fixed in the NRSV, but in the meantime, scores of translators followed the RSV’s lead and made the same translation choice.

So now, millions of Christians, many of whom were already homophobic most likely, got confirmation from badly translated Bible verses that “homosexuals” were bad people, this despite verse 11, which says that whatever all of the sins that are listed in verses 9-10 are, they're things you can put behind you when you are saved. Meanwhile, thousands of young gay and transgender Christian kids are praying fervently for God to fix them, and that prayer never gets answered. Is God unable to fix those “sins", like God has limited power on what sins he can set someone free from? Of course not! God can fix any sin, don't you agree? Modern science has taught us that sexual orientation and gender are things that we are born with, however. In other words, God makes LGBTQIA children. And God doesn't make mistakes!

The Bible never condemns homosexuality, and it never says anything at all about transgender people.