Brennan Breed, “Bringing the Case before the LORD” II. SEXUAL ORIENTATION

II. SEXUAL ORIENTATION

The first facet of human sexuality is usually called ―sexual orientation.‖ Sexual orientation attempts to classify people based on their feelings and attractions: to what gender is one attracted—to one, the other, or both? The concept of sexual orientation, it is important to remember, is not present in biblical literature. There is no word for ―a gay man‖ or ―a bisexual woman‖ in the ancient Near East. What biblical and other ancient Near Eastern authors do describe are particular actions that we today might classify as ―homosexual‖ in orientation, but the biblical authors seem only see these as actions — not as predispositions. In the story of the Levite‘s concubine (Judg 19:22 -26), the rapists do not seem to care about the gender of their victim — they simply want to exert sexual violence. They wish to rape the male traveler, but instead rape and murder a woman who was a concubine. 

Sexual orientation is not at issue in this text; these particular rapists in Judges 19, like those in the related story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, are simply not homosexual in the sense used in the modern West because they were ambivalent about the gender of their victim. Thus, I do not believe that these stories teach a lesson about sexual orientation. It is important in this regard that the biblical prophets discuss the story of Sodom quite a bit –and they never once mention the gendered aspect of the desired sexual acts of these men. Instead, they mention its lack of hospitality and justice.

As Ezekiel 16:49 says: ―This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.‖The same chapter describes Jerusalem‘s sexual impropriety, but does not focus on Sodom‘s.

Orientation is not at issue here–the disgusting aspect of Sodom is its propensity to inflict sexual violence instead of offer hospitality, its acts of aggression and lack of care for its marginalized inhabitants. And in the texts discussing same-gender sexual acts in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, the law discusses particular actions, not desires or thoughts or tendencies or lifelong partnerships. From this data, it appears to me that sexual orientation—something we take for granted in my North American context—has little to no correlation with anything in the ancient Near Eastern context. If we want to discuss the topic of sexual orientation, the Old Testament, at least, has little to say to us on the matter.