# Homosexuality: Is It a Sin
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [October 30, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786 "2009-10-30T23:23:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/61 "2009-10-31T02:14:34Z")
> [@emacknight](#):
>
> **Curtis LeMay** , have you ever noticed that God seems to hate all the same people you do? I wonder why that is.
Has anyone ever seen God and Curtis in the same room?
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/62 "2009-10-31T02:51:36Z")
It seems you’ll need to bring a new argument Curtis. It is not even remotely clear that arsenokoitai means homosexual.
(not that I care if it’s considered a sin by christians, you’re welcome to believe whatever you like)
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/63 "2009-10-31T02:54:29Z")
> [@FloatyGimpy](#):
>
> “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death.”
>
> Children still exist. Do you still think we should stone them to death if they misbehave?
That was from Levisticus and Mosaic Law.
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### Author:  [@FloatyGimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FloatyGimpy)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/64 "2009-10-31T03:06:16Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> That was from Levisticus and Mosaic Law.
So you obviously don’t adhere to the 10 commandments right?
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/65 "2009-10-31T03:08:57Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> Is homosexuality a sin?
>
> I think in Christianity homosexuality is a sin as evidenced by Corinthians I 6:9-10 (NIV):
You claim to believe in god. Who made the gays? For crying out loud they are born that way. It is who they are. Are you questioning gods work? There have always been gays. Why is that.?
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/66 "2009-10-31T03:24:26Z")
> [@Grumman](#):
>
> Has anyone ever seen God and Curtis in the same room?
Well, come to think of it, no. On the other hand, I’ve never seen Miley Cyrus and Curtis in the same room, either.
From God, to Hannah Montana, to Curtis…
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### Author:  [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/67 "2009-10-31T03:31:05Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> Does homosexuality or sex outside marriage still exist? Then the rules still apply since slavery has been abolished at least in the US.
So if we abolished marriage we wouldn’t have these problems? I note that you only addressed one of my points whilst quoting the whole section. Women still exist, why should they be silent in church, obey their husbands, submit etc? Do you believe that too?
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/68 "2009-10-31T03:50:37Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> “Kill”, “Go After”? I favour neither against any group of sinners, but I will try to stop them from sinning or at least recognize it’s sin.
And how do you plan on doing that? Particularly “stop them from sinning”? :dubious:
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/69 "2009-10-31T04:24:58Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> For your last question that is because I wish to turn people away from sinning.
You will have a damn hard time convincing me that my sexuality is a sin (whatever the hell that word means), and an even harder time turning me away from it. Don’t even try.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/70 "2009-10-31T05:33:06Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> For your last question that is because I wish to turn people away from sinning.
Start with Pride/Hubris first, work your way up to the more complex sins later.
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/71 "2009-10-31T07:54:25Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> Apparently, it’s a sin on par with reverence of images, desire for wealth, and tendency to alcoholic stupor.
In which case I’m doomed, doooooomed I tells ya
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/72 "2009-10-31T09:08:47Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> The word “effeminate” is a euphemism for homosexual and thus would mean that even without the later phrase “homosexual offender” or “abusers of themselves” homosexuals not just male prostitutes are condemned.
Interesting that the homosexual offender translation does not seem to be correct, as the way you determine definition of an archaic word is contextual, and apparently a cleric writing _in period_ wrote it with the contextual meaning of anal sex, within the bounds of heterosexual sex…
> [@](#):
>
> Arsenokoites is used in a handful of other Greek texts from the first few centuries after Christ, and none of them really give enough context to determine what the word means. The Penitential attributed to John the Faster mentions arsenokoitia in the context of opposite-sex relationships:
>
> ```
> In fact, many men even commit the sin of arsenokoitia with their wives.
>
> ```
>
> This important quotation shows that arsenokoites cannot be translated by “homosexuals” or any similar word. Please look at all of the texts that use arsenokoites and related words. They are all available on the Internet . When the context gives any clue to the meaning of the word, none of these texts require that arsenokoites means “homosexual” or anything similar, and some, like the Penitential quoted above, show that it cannot have this meaning.
And legally in the US sin has NO basis for law. Keep your religion out of my pants, thanks.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/73 "2009-10-31T09:10:08Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> For your last question that is because I wish to turn people away from sinning.
Then don’t preach, do it by example. The more you preach, the tighter ears are closed.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/74 "2009-10-31T09:16:11Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> That was from Levisticus and Mosaic Law.
I seem to vaguely remember Jesus as saying I come not to replace the law … and nowhere did I ever read in the new testament that he recommended chucking all the mosaic laws…he considered himself a jewish rabbi … never did he state he was there to do anything more than offer himself.
Thank the various apostles and authors of different books for making christian law.
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### Author:  [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/75 "2009-10-31T11:04:33Z")
Mathew 5:17 - “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
What that means exactly is unclear.
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### Author:  [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/76 "2009-10-31T13:12:37Z")
> [@Polycarp](#):
>
> Actually, the best understanding of _malakoi_ seems to imply, not effeminacy or moral weakness, but lack of steadfastness: the _Malakoi_ were weak in not standing on their principles, as a good Greek citizen would, but bending with every flight of opinion they heard.
>
> _Arsenokoitai_ (sometimes rendered _arsenokaites_) appears to be Paul’s own coinage, thought by many to echo Leviticus 18:22. But that it means “homosexual” or “homosexual offender” in the modern sense is highly debatable – the Leviticus passage addressed “abominable practices of the Canaanites, which you [the Israelites] shall refrain from” – and the best evidence for 18:22’s “lying with a man the lyings as with a woman” seem to reference Canaanite fertility rites, in which male and female alike would copulate with the priests of Ba’al or Astarte in an effort to induce bumper crops.
>
> In short, general, it appears someone shot down your B-29.
Jerome translates arsenokoitai as _concubitores masculorum_, a term with considerably less ambiguity. It almost certainly does not mean homosexual but male prostitute.
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### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/77 "2009-10-31T13:32:49Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> Well many people can’t help but desire to steal or rob out of greed. Also it’s no the though of lusting that’s sinful it’s the though of wanting to lust that’s sinful or lusting but thinking it’s all right; if you know it’s wrong and recognize it’s alright if you have ocacaisonal thought of lust you can’t help with.
The problem remains; you’re asking people to deny a part of who they are, a part that for most people is accepted to differing standards. A straight person can fulfil their sexual desires to some extent without being sinful. A gay or bi person cannot fulfil those desires at all, without being sinful. Moreover, that for a gay or bi person, romatic love is an impossibility and must be shunned. Love is, so far as I can tell, quite important in the Bible and in Christianity as a whole. To have a group of people essentially entirely cut off from one form of that greatest of ideals, to say to them in fact that love is good but not for _you_, seems mercilessly cruel.
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### Author:  [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/78 "2009-10-31T14:09:02Z")
In some Christian sects, homosexuality is a sin. In some sects, it’s not. The bible can be and has been used to support just about anything. One interpretation is pretty much as good as another.
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/79 "2009-10-31T17:23:55Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#):
>
> I wish to turn people away from sinning.
Why?
I mean some “sinning” is really pleasant.
Especially the whorin’ and the drinkin’ and the swearin’ and and …
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### Author:  [@Blut\_Aus\_Nord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blut_Aus_Nord)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuality-is-it-a-sin/515786/80 "2009-10-31T17:45:40Z")
> [@gonzomax](#):
>
> You claim to believe in god. Who made the gays? For crying out loud they are born that way. It is who they are. Are you questioning gods work? There have always been gays. Why is that.?
I’m curious as to the answer as well.
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