Contrary to popular misconception, Scripture’s lesson from Sodom & Gomorrah’s destruction in Genesis 19 has nothing to do with God condemning “homosexual intercourse”. To the extent sexual misconduct prompted its divine destruction Jude verse 7 tells us this was an attempted “heterosexual” offence - men trying to rape beings of a different type – angels. But the text of Genesis 19 itself shows us the immediate offence of the town’s mob was not so much against sexual standards but against near Eastern hospitality standards - attempting to harm guests under the protection of their host’s roof. 

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However, it’s Ezekiel 16 which gives us the real explanation of the sins that led to their destruction, and again it had nothing to do with homosexual intercourse : “… this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. They were haughty and committed abomination before me; Therefore I took them away as I saw fit.” (NKJV).

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The “abomination” seems to be explained by Jude 7 as the attempted rape of angels – beings of a higher order. This links with their sin of arrogant pride highlighted by Ezekiel - an attitude of I can do whatever I want to whomever I want and even God and his angels can’t stop me.

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Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 make it a capital offence for a man to “have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman” and describes this as “detestable" (toevah). This banned only one very particular same-sex sexual activity  - male-only anal intercourse. Nowhere else in the Old Testament or the additional regulations of the Talmud banned any other male same-sex erotic acts, even as minor offences. Yet such acts must have happened. Furthermore, neither the Old Testament nor the Talmud banned any form of lesbian sex. Yet the Talmud acknowledged they happened. It even noted that most rabbis accepted such acts did not harm a woman’s purity so as to prevent her marrying a priest.

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The same Hebrew word toveah is used in the Laws of Moses to describe the eating of "abominable” banned animals like pig or shellfish (Deuteronomy 14:3). So describing male-only intercourse as toveah (an abomination) no more marks this out as some all-time wicked offence than eating a pork chop or a prawn cocktail!

 

The following appear to be the reasons why in Leviticus the Lord strictly banned male-only anal intercourse whilst tolerating all other homoerotic acts:

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1. It violated boundaries separating Israel from the surrounding nations’ idolatrous religious practices. Promiscuous, ritual male-only intercourse was a central feature of the dangerous competing idolatrous Canaanite religion. This threatened to draw Israel away from God and into all sorts of wickedness, including sacrificing their own children. This is why child sacrifice to Molech is included in the same Levitical passages as the sexual offences.

2. In that patriarchal society there was a need to separate the roles of men and women, so that men sexually ruled over their wives, as per Eve’s curse (Genesis 3:16). It violated  the man’s role for a man to submit to another man by being sexually penetrated like a woman or to make another man do so.

3. Male-only intercourse clearly breached Mosaic ritual purity codes against mixing kinds. These codes separated things into “kinds” which should not be mixed, e.g. different types of cloths. A man “lying with a man as with a woman” involved one man acting sexually as if he were a woman and therefore outside his kind/category. 

4. It breached other Mosaic purity codes which required special care be taken over life-fluids – an animal’s blood, a woman’s menstrual flow and a man’s semen, which should be contained within their proper vessels. Male-only sexual intercourse would make both participants ritually unclean, because a discharge of a man’s seed went into another man’s body rather than the proper place of a woman’s body. 

5. It compromised the production of male heirs to fulfil Abraham’s promise (Genesis 22: 17-18) and to hold the promised land. All-male intercourse was particularly wasteful as it potentially involved two men wasting their seed. 

6. The health risks. In an age before condoms anal intercourse between two men (by definition outside of marriage) would have been a more risky form of sex than other regular forms of human sex, due to the rectum’s thin lining .

 

None of these reasons for the Levitical ban on male-only intercourse apply today.

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It is true the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 still required Christians to follow all the Levitical “sexual immorality” laws which included the ban on male-only intercourse. But their ruling was a temporary pragmatic compromise - to relieve Gentiles from having to be circumcised, whilst appeasing some Jewish Christians by still requiring the church to follow certain rules they felt most strongly about. As well as the Levitical sex laws, this included continuing bans on eating meat of strangled animals or with blood in it and food sacrificed to idols. Later, the application of that ruling was watered down. For example, in Colossians 2 Paul expressly says “do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink”, i.e. you may now eat bloody meat, etc.

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If we’re no longer required to follow the Council’s ruling about what we eat or drink, equally we may no longer be expected to follow to the letter the sexual immorality rules of Leviticus. Most Christian men have long since ignored the Levitical ban on period sex with their wives, as required by the Council’s ruling. It would therefore be inconsistent and hypocritical to use the same ruling as a reason to still ban male-only intercourse.

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The only same-sex act Scripture condemns is all-male anal intercourse taking place within abusive, promiscuous, lustful relationships. In the Old Testament these were part of idolatrous Canaanite religious practices. In the New Testament these were part of exploitative relationships involving older/more powerful men preying upon younger/weaker men and boys. Homosexual sex within faithful, loving, relationships were unheard of, so the Bible neither condemns nor condones such activities. But perhaps there are more general ethical and spiritual principles in Scripture which rule out or rule in all same-sex sexual activities within such relationships? That’s what we’ll look at next.