
When kids are little, we expect them to obey their parents without question, because mommy and daddy know best. But as they grow older, it really helps to explain the reason for the rules.
“No, you can’t play in the street; you could get hit by a car.”
“No you can’t eat 10 cookies. You’ll feel really sick, and other people will miss out.”
“Don’t touch the hot stove; it will burn your hand.”
Rules have reasons behind them. A good parent never makes up a rule just for the sake of making up a rule. Of course, young children cannot comprehend the reasoning behind the rule, but over time, they will come to understand, if the rule is fair and has sound logic behind it.
I remember distinctly one day hearing my 2-year-old son screaming. Turns out he had put his hand on the hot wood stove, and it burned his whole palm! I held him as he cried inconsolably, trying to put an ice pack on his palm as he resisted, because it hurt to touch it. But once he realized that the ice made it feel better, he stopped resisting, and as the pain subsided, he calmed down. Thankfully, the burn was very superficial, and he has no scaring. We had of course told him not to touch the stove, but he hadn’t understood before what a burn was, until that day. He never touched it again, to be sure!
The rules that God has given us are likewise given for a reason, not just because God wants to make life hard for us. They are rules that reflect reality. Think about the Decalogue (I don’t like calling it the Ten Commandments for reasons I will not spell out here). God says not to worship other gods, and that makes sense if He is the only true God. He says not to murder, which also makes sense, since we don’t want anyone else to murder us either. Coveting leads to discontent and ultimately stealing, both of which are negatives.
Even the Sabbath makes sense. Sabbath comes from a root word meaning “to rest.” 1 God knew that man would wear out quickly if not given the opportunity to rest, and therefore He gave us the Sabbath as a day of rest. It was a gift to mankind, not an arbitrary rule to be kept in order to avoid hellfire. See Mark 2:23–28. The Sabbath was supposed to be a blessing to man, not a burden.
When it all comes down to it, the rules that God gave fall into two basic categories: They are designed to help us express our love for God, or they are for the benefit of humanity. Love to God and love to man are the two greatest commandments in the law, according to Jesus (see Matthew 22:35–40). They are the hooks, if you will, upon which the whole law hangs. Even God keeps them. Think about it. Jesus said His Father loved Him, demonstrating that one member of the Godhead loves Another (John 17:24); and God loves humanity (John 3:16). He does everything for the benefit of others, just as He wants us to do.
Unfortunately, man has often created laws that do not make logical sense. For example, in the county where I live, it is illegal to walk backwards while eating a doughnut, and Hood River, Oregon requires jugglers to get a license before practicing their craft. 2 Man has also imposed laws without doing a good job of explaining them. For example, there have been those in history who imposed celibacy on all Christians. Tradition says that the Apostle Thomas was one of them. 3 Whether this is true or not, it does illustrate the problem with manmade rules. The Apostle Paul said that he would rather people be celibate, but allowed marriage in the case that a person could not endure lifelong celibacy (see 1 Corinthians 7).
A much more balanced approach is the stance of most Christian churches that a person should abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage. And this makes sense. Even though the Bible does not come right out and say in so many words that sex outside of marriage is always wrong, there are principles that can be applied. For example, Paul says,
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 1 Corinthians 6:18, NIV
Sexual immorality is translated fornication in many older translations, such as the King James Version, and is understood to mean sex outside of marriage. It comes from the Greek word porneia, which includes the idea of prostitution and other illicit sexual behavior. Paul clearly spells out that if a person can’t stay sexually pure as a single person, they should get married (see 1 Corinthians 7:36–38). This strongly implies the rule that the modern church has so clearly spelled out.
Some people think it’s an arbitrary rule, but there are some good reasons for it. They include emotional distress, the breakdown of other aspects of the relationship, risk of STDs and unplanned pregnancy, and many other issues. Sexual intimacy actually bonds two people together, and if they are not otherwise compatible, that can lead to a more difficult breakup later. Having multiple sexual partners can also create an appetite for novelty that will be impossible to fulfill lawfully once married to one person. 4 And even worse, premarital sex seems to predict divorce for many couples (although the reasons are unknown). 5 When all these thing are taken together, you can see that there are very good reasons for the prohibition on premarital sex.
So what about most churches’ prohibitions against gay marriage? What is the logic behind it? Is there a good reason why they believe God would forbid gay sex across the board, even within a monogamous, covenant relationship? Let’s take a closer look at this.
In the beginning, God brought the first man and the first woman together for a purpose. One purpose of course was to populate the earth (see Genesis 1:27–28). But there was another purpose given in the next chapter:
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him. —Genesis 2:18–20, NLT
Procreation is never mentioned in Genesis 2. The reason given for the creation of woman in this chapter is that the man was lonely. He had all the animals, and he even had God, but they were not enough. So God made a woman with whom he could have an intimate bond, someone who was perfectly matched for him.
This means there are two reasons given in the creation account for marriage: procreation and companionship.
Most Christians point to this account of male and female, and take it as prescriptive. Marriage is between one man and one woman, they say. And back then, it was. It would be impossible to procreate with any other gender combination. And throughout the Old Testament, we see procreation as a so important, it was used to excuse polygamy (such as Samuel’s mother being one of two wives of his father in 1 Samuel 1:1–2), with the woman who had children feeling superior to the one who did not (see 1 Samuel 1:6 and Genesis 16:4), and the woman who had no children feeling that she was somehow less-than (see 1 Samuel 1:10). We read that children are a blessing, and the man who has a lot of them is happy (see Psalm 127:3–5).
However, when we reach the New Testament, we see that things have changed. Jesus never married, and He even recognized that not everyone would be able to or want to marry (see Matthew 19:10–12). Paul took it a step further and declared that it was his opinion that celibacy was better than marriage for those who were able to sustain it, as we have already mentioned. Having children was no longer the primary way of growing the kingdom; now it was grown by conversion, and family was to be found within the church (see 1 Timothy 5:1–2).
To take this a step further, marriage was a very different thing in Bible times. Back then, marriage was more often functional than it was about love. Sure, marriages for love did exist—the classic example is Jacob and Rachel—but marriage also served other purposes. It was for the purpose of creating offspring to carry on the family name, or for political purposes, as in the marriages of kings with women of other nations. It could be for love, but it could also be purely functional and not have any romance at all.
Women were weak and vulnerable, and a marriage provided them with protection and provision. This is one of the reasons Moses permitted divorce, as long as a divorce decree was issued, because it would allow a woman to remarry. It may also be why Jesus forbade divorce, because at that time, it would leave a woman vulnerable and make it harder for her to find a good husband. Think of the story of the woman at the well. She was living with a man she wasn’t married to, because she couldn’t function in society as a single person; and apparently she was so damaged no one wanted her anymore as a wife.
There are other reasons the church has interpreted the Bible as forbidding same-sex relations. Through much of Christian history, sex was viewed as a necessary evil. Certain Christians divided body and spirit; they believed that the body was evil and the spirit was holy, and therefore anything physical urge that did not prolong life was bad. They would allow for sex for the purpose of procreation, but not simply for pleasure. Today, we do not hold to this view. We believe that sex within marriage is extremely important, and even Paul agrees that it is not sinful (see 1 Corinthians 7:3–5 and Hebrews 13:4). Regular sexual relations are one aspect of a healthy marriage. And procreation is optional.
In a healthy sexual relationship, each partner will seek to please the other. If a woman cannot achieve orgasm with vaginal stimulation, for example, a good husband will find a way to help her achieve it. And she will likewise want to contribute to his pleasure as much as she is able, including sometimes when coitus isn’t practical. This is an illustration of how other-centered love can be manifest not just within a marriage, but even in the sexual relationship. Sex then becomes not just about one’s own pleasure, but about the pleasure of the other person as well. In fact, if each of them is more concerned about the other’s pleasure than about their own, odds are they will both experience plenty of pleasure!
With this in mind, let us circle back to the question of gay marriage. Why would God forbid it? Or did He?
In a previous series of blog posts, I took a good look at the sin of Sodom, and showed that it was not homosexuality. The men of Sodom wanted to have sex with the angels, and since those angels appeared to be male humans, which has led many Christians to believe that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality. However, they did not want to marry these strangers; they wanted to gang rape them. In no instance is gang rape ever acceptable, regardless of the gender of the victim.
I will eventually deal with the other verses that talk about homoerotic behavior, but for now, I will merely summarize my current understanding of the possible reasons behind the various verses:
- Temple prostitution—aka, pagan idol worship rites
- Lust-driven affairs between men
- Sexual exploitation
- Domination and humiliation of other men
- Pederasty—the mentorship and sexual victimization of teenage boys by older men
If you look at this list, and in the first four change the gender of one of the parties to female, everyone would agree that it was sinful. Prostitution in service of a pagan deity is wrong for a follower of the God of heaven, regardless of the gender of the customer or the prostitute. A lust-driven affair between a man and a woman is wrong. Sexual exploitation is wrong regardless of who it is perpetrated against, as is using sex to dominate and humiliate another person.
Every instance of homoerotic behavior mentioned in the Bible has a negative context, as I understand it. 6 I know not everyone will agree with me, and space does not permit me to delve into the reasons. But no one would ever read Leviticus 18:6–20, which prohibit sexual relations with all kinds of women, and assume that God means sex is bad always in every context. It would be so much easier if we knew for sure the context of the verses that do speak of it, but that may not be possible. The best we can do is to make educated guesses.
Some might say that Leviticus 18:22 is clear, but that is only partly true. It is clear in English in most translations, but it is not quite so clear in the Hebrew. There appears to be a context. My personal view at this time (I am still studying the topic and allow that I might be wrong) is that the fact that it is sandwiched between prohibitions against pagan worship rites (verse 21 forbids letting one’s children pass through the fire, and verse 23 forbids bestiality, which was a common pagan worship ritual) indicates that God was forbidding some kind of pagan worship rite. Indeed, there were male temple prostitutes mentioned in the Bible, and they didn’t just serve women. They are called qedesh in Hebrew.
And while we’re in Leviticus, notice that verse 23 explicitly forbids both men and women from having sex with animals, while women having sex with women is never mentioned. In fact, it is not mentioned anywhere in Scripture, with the possible exception of Romans 1 (although I am inclined to believe that Paul had in mind the cultural understanding of “against nature” in mind, and that it had nothing to do with same-sex relations between women). Why would God forbid men from having sex together, and both men and women from having sex with animals, and men from having sex with all these forbidden women like sisters and neighbors wives and daughters, and somehow fail to mention that women shouldn’t lie with each other as they would with a man?
Which brings us back to the point of this article. God’s rules make sense. It makes sense that He would forbid homoerotic behavior, if the only examples of it in the times of Moses were pagan worship rites. It makes sense that He would be against pederasty and lust-driven affairs and sexual exploitation (some of the possible explanations for the various instances of homoerotic behavior referenced by Paul).
But what does any of that have to do with a covenant marriage? If marriage is a place where two people can learn to love in a self-sacrificial way, why would God say that only people of opposite genders can have one? If marriage is to be a place where two people suited for each other can experience companionship and deep knowing, symbolized by the vulnerability and intimacy of sexual intercourse, how can it be wrong for two people of the same sex to be able to have that kind of bond? Marriage also serves many practical purposes in modern society, such as the ability for a married couple to save money on taxes, to be allowed to make decisions for the other in case of an emergency, to be able to inherit shared property, and also protections in case of divorce—to name just a few. What good reason is there for restricting gay people from participating in any of these benefits of marriage?
I’ll be honest: I have not found a good reason. “Because God said so” is a weak argument. First, it holds no weight with non-Christians. And for Christians, it is a heavy burden. Oh, people will put forward all kinds of reasons to explain the prohibition, but they tend to fall flat. One I’ve heard is the plumbing argument. Men and women fit together, and same-sex partners don’t. But more than half of women are not able to achieve orgasm through vaginal stimulation alone, and even heterosexual couples often experiment with many forms of sex, not just strict coitus. And what about a person who appears to be one gender above the belt, but has ambiguous genitalia? Should they not get married? What about someone whose genitalia has been damaged after they were married; should they now get a divorce because they don’t “fit together” anymore?
Truth be told, sex is a very miniscule part of marriage overall. It tends to become less frequent with age, and some couples eventually stop having it altogether while still having a good relationship. Marriage includes attraction and romance and companionship and emotional intimacy and self-sacrificing love for one’s partner, all of which can be part of a same-sex relationship. Indeed, many people would not experience all of these with an opposite sex partner, and that can be tragic.
Not everyone is capable of being celibate for life, either. Some people have a very high sex drive, and as Paul says, “It’s better to marry than to burn with lust” (1 Corinthians 7:9, NLT). And the reality of a high sex drive is as true of gay people as it is of straight people. Refusing to allow gay people to marry has pushed many of them into extramarital affairs when they couldn’t contain their urges, and had no hope of marriage.
In short, it makes sense that God would forbid same-sex marriages in cultures where homoerotic behavior was exploitative or practiced in the context of idolatry. It does not make sense that He would expect two men or two women who truly love each other, and who are not attracted to the opposite sex, to be celibate for life, especially if they are not able to contain. The “plumbing” argument falls flat when extrapolated to straight marriages; the legal benefits of marriage should not be restricted, and didn’t even exist in Bible times anyway; “Because God said so” is a weak argument if there is no logic behind it.
For this reason, I have chosen to study deeper to understand what God really meant. I will continue to study the Bible verses that speak of homoerotic behavior and share what I learn in these blog posts over the next few months.
For study further, I would recommend this video by James Brownson on marriage for further study: https://youtu.be/yt-a0BiAEVs?si=ejFKL4LD1sQA4tGL
- https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h7673/kjv/wlc/0-1/ ↩︎
- https://pedemontelaw.com/2024/10/14/strange-laws-in-oregon-that-still-exist/#:~:text=Juggling%20requires%20a%20license%20in,are%20all%20against%20the%20law. ↩︎
- https://ntscholarship.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/the-thomas-of-the-acts-of-thomas-part-ii-the-first-missionary-theologian-to-the-east/ ↩︎
- https://marriagehelper.com/does-sex-before-marriage-affect-the-relationship/ ↩︎
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10989935/ ↩︎
- I will admit that interpretations vary. There are verses that are more ambiguous. What I do feel comfortable saying is that I do not see that they conclusively forbid all same-sex acts in all situations in all times. Until I have seen good exegesis to prove that the Bible actually condemns same-sex marriage, as opposed to some perversion of lust-driven sex between men, I will stand my by conclusions. ↩︎
Lisa Reynoso is a mental health coach who helps people through one-on-one coaching. If this post brought up a lot of feelings, or as you were reading, you thought, “I would love to talk to someone about this,” please use the “Schedule Now” link at the top of this page to schedule a free session.