What is the sin of Sodom that cries to heaven for vengeance?

ut Alt! Sodomy cries to hea­ven for vengeance!” I am told this by some­one who seems to think I am a defend­er of gay sex, an LGBT apol­o­gist. This is utter­ly bizarre, for any­one who might both­er to check an archive. [Links: one; two; three; four; five; six; sev­en; eight; nine; ten; eleven; twelve].

But in spite of this my clear track record, peo­ple have called me all sorts of things this week. I am a “homophile” and a “homo­splain­er,” accord­ing to my stalk­er Dea­con Jim “Sea Lion” Rus­sell. (JSLR’s foul emis­sion, which he actu­al­ly opened up a brand new blog to poi­son the plan­et with, does not mer­it the dig­ni­ty of a link.) I am part of the vile “Laven­der Mafia.” I am a “wannabe Catholic.” I am “a liar with an agen­da.” But it seems there are many peo­ple who don’t both­er to search an archive, who pre­fer read­ing into (as opposed to read­ing). To say that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and sex­u­al assault are sep­a­rate issues does not mean I think gay sex is good, or that gen­der is “flu­id.” (Some weird per­son accused me of that too.) It means I think they are sep­a­rate issues.

Any­way, by “sodomy,” I have to assume that my inter­locu­tor meant “gay sex.” Gay sex cries to heav­en for vengeance. But the Cat­e­chism does not say “sodomy” cries. Look for your­self: CCC 1867 says “the sin of the Sodomites” does.

“But Alt! You’re split­ting hairs! That’s the same thing! Why do you think it’s called sodomy? The sin of the Sodomites is sodomy, hel­lo!”

But bear with me, now. In a foot­note, the CCC cites Gen. 18:20 and Gen. 19:13.

Gen. 18:20. “And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomor­rah is great, and because their sin is very griev­ous…”

Gen. 19:13. “For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is wax­en great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.”

The foot­notes are meant to estab­lish no more than that this par­tic­u­lar sin cries out for vengeance, since the phrase “cries out” is in the bib­li­cal text. But the cry is against Sodom, the place, and those who live there. Near as I can tell, “Sodomites” in the Cate­chism means “peo­ple of Sodom.” It has no larg­er mean­ing than that.

“But Alt! The sin of the peo­ple of Sodom was sodomy! It was gay sex! You’re try­ing to split hairs!”

Well, let’s look at that. But before we look at that, I want to make a few points clear.

—

I. First, Sex between two men or two women is a sin. End stop. This is true even of con­sen­su­al sex. We know this quite apart from any dis­cus­sion of Sodom and Gomor­rah in par­tic­u­lar.

 

A. Lev. 18:22. “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abom­i­na­tion.”

This text is part of a long pas­sage of stric­tures against sex with cer­tain per­sons. You must not have sex with your moth­er, your sis­ter, your grand­daugh­ter, your aunt, your sis­ter-in-law, an ani­mal, two peo­ple at once. And don’t have sex with an­other man, or anoth­er woman.

 

B. Rom. 1:26–27. “For this rea­son God gave them up to dis­hon­or­able pas­sions. For their women exchanged nat­ur­al rela­tions for those that are con­trary to nature; and the men like­wise gave up nat­ur­al rela­tions with women and were con­sumed with pas­sion for one anoth­er, men com­mit­ting shame­less acts with men and receiv­ing in them­selves the due penal­ty for their error.”

Some LGBT apol­o­gists, like Matthew Vines, have argued that St. Paul is sim­ply speak­ing about cul­tur­al norms in this pas­sage—norms that applied in his day, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly in ours. I have already answered that error. Paul uses the word “nat­ur­al” in this pas­sage rel­a­tive to nat­ur­al law as defined by the cre­ation, not rel­a­tive to cul­tur­al cus­tom.

 

C. Per­sona Humana [here]. “Homo­sex­u­al acts are intrin­si­cal­ly dis­or­dered and can in no case be approved of.”

 

D. Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church 2357. “Bas­ing itself on Sacred Scrip­ture, which presents homo­sex­u­al acts as acts of grave deprav­i­ty, tra­di­tion has always de­clared that homo­sex­u­al acts are intrin­si­cal­ly dis­or­dered. They are con­trary to the nat­ur­al law. They close the sex­u­al act to the gift of life. They do not pro­ceed from a gen­uine affec­tive and sex­u­al com­ple­men­tar­i­ty. Under no circum­stances can they be approved.”

 

II. Sec­ond, homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is not of itself a sin, but it is “objec­tive­ly dis­or­dered.” That does not mean that homo­sex­u­al per­sons are dis­or­dered, but that the ori­en­ta­tion is. (Fr. James Mar­tin explains here.) It is not ordered toward its prop­er end, which is the pro­cre­ation of chil­dren and the union of male and female in mar­riage.

 

III. Third, homo­sex­u­al per­sons are “called to chasti­ty,” accord­ing to CCC 2359. Nev­er­the­less, “They must be accept­ed with respect, com­pas­sion, and sen­si­tiv­i­ty.” And they are capa­ble of “Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion.” The Cat­e­chism warns us against “unjust dis­crim­i­na­tion” of LGBT per­sons.

Well, one form of “unjust dis­crim­i­na­tion” is to scape­goat LGBT peo­ple in the Church as some­how the rea­son for the sex­u­al abuse in Penn­syl­va­nia and else­where.

ANSWERS IN GENESIS

All this being said, I have not found where the Church tells us what “the sin of the Sodomites” is. You’re wel­come to tell me if you know of any text in which such a list­ing of sins occurs; I don’t. And by “sin of the Sodomites,” I mean specif­i­cal­ly the sin of the peo­ple of Sodom.

I know of one text only that says “the sin of Sodom was this”:

Ezek. 16:49–50. “Behold, 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. They were haughty and did an abomina­tion before me.

Was the sin of Sodom lack of char­i­ty and hos­pi­tal­i­ty, or was it a sex­u­al abomina­tion? Many debate this ques­tion, and it’s a bor­ing debate because the answer is: The sin of Sodom was both. (Catholics are a both-and peo­ple.) But Ezekiel does not char­ac­ter­ize the species of “abom­i­na­tion,” pos­si­bly because he as­sumes (right­ly) that his audi­ence will know with­out being told.

But what Ezekiel does say is that Jerusalem’s abom­i­na­tions are greater, and more numer­ous, than Sodom’s. In Ezekiel 16, the prophet con­demns Jerusalem for “whor­ing” after oth­er gods. Jerusalem is guilty of adul­tery in a metaphor­i­cal sense. But in the wor­ship of false gods, Jerusa­lem com­mit­ted far more abom­i­na­tions than Sodom did.

Jude 1:7 says that Sodom “indulged in porneia,” which is a catch-all word for sex­u­al immoral­i­ty of any kind. Thay­er’s Greek Lex­i­con defines it as “illic­it sex­u­al inter­course in gen­er­al.”

So we must go to Gen­e­sis to find out what spe­cif­ic abom­i­na­tion “the sin of the Sodomites” is. The Bible first men­tions Sodom in Gen­e­sis 13: “The men of Sodom were wicked and sin­ners before the Lord exceed­ing­ly” (Gen. 13:13). That’s not very spe­cif­ic. Nor is Gen. 18:20 any more spe­cific when it describes the sin of Sodom as “exceed­ing griev­ous.” What­ev­er it is, it is bad, and God is going to destroy the city. Abra­ham bar­gains with God and God agrees to spare the city if he finds ten right­eous peo­ple liv­ing there. (Evi­dent­ly God failed to find even ten.)

Then, in Gen­e­sis 19, two angels come to Sodom. The men of Sodom do not know they are angels; they are for­eign­ers to them. No soon­er do these guests appear in Lot’s house than “the men of the city” sur­round the place. It is like a siege. They demand Lot give up the strangers so that they, the Sodomites, can “know” them. I do not dis­pute that “know” has a sex­u­al mean­ing.

But what the text describes is a threat of vio­lent rape. We must understand—go back and read Gen­e­sis 14—that Sodom had been at war with its neigh­bors. Rape of strangers pass­ing through the city was a way to send a par­tic­u­lar­ly strong mes­sage. And that is why I am not con­vinced by one par­tic­u­lar argu­ment used by those who think the men of Sodom have homo­sex­u­al attrac­tion.

The argu­ment relies on Lot’s actions in Gen­e­sis 19:8. Lot offers the men of the city his daugh­ters instead. But they refuse. The argu­ment is, they refused because they were gay; they weren’t attract­ed to women but to men.

But if it is true that the men of Sodom want­ed to send a strong mes­sage to sur­round­ing nations, their re­fusal of Lot’s offer sug­gests no more than that rap­ing men was par­tic­u­lar­ly humiliat­ing. And the fact that Lot offered his daugh­ters will­ing­ly sug­gests he thought it less so. But the men of the city were in no mood for com­pro­mis­es like this. Rape of women was not enough.

So you need stronger proof if you want to argue that the men of Sodom actu­al­ly had homo­sex­u­al attrac­tion, rather than the desire to humil­i­ate for­eign nations. (This is what hap­pens if you attack us.)

Based on the actu­al text, “the sin of the Sodomites” is vio­lent rape. It is sex­u­al assault. It is not, how­ev­er, “gay sex” under­stood as sex between two con­sent­ing men. That is a sin, and a grave one, but it is not the “sin of Sodom” that cries to heav­en for vengeance. No Catholic ought to treat it as though it is.

Fr. Dwight Lon­ge­neck­er agrees: “It is arguable, there­fore, that it is unfair to use the word “sodomy” for all homo­sex­u­al behav­iors. Sodomy is not less than that. It is more than that.”

Its “prop­er def­i­n­i­tion,” Fr. Lon­ge­neck­er goes on, “would be “rape or sex­u­al vio­lence of any sort,” espe­cial­ly the gang rape that the text describes.

One more verse is instruc­tive here, and that is Heb. 13:2: “Do not neglect to show hos­pi­tal­i­ty to strangers, for by this some have enter­tained angels with­out know­ing it.” By “enter­tain­ing angels,” the author refers to Sodom, since the guests in Lot’s house were angels and the men of Sodom did not know it. They feared that any stranger who came into their midst might be a for­eign ene­my. (Sound fa­miliar?) Vio­lent­ly rap­ing men was a way of show­ing “zero tol­er­ance.” But not every stranger is an ene­my; some might be angels. That—a par­tic­u­lar­ly egre­gious and bru­tal inhos­pi­tal­i­ty to a stranger—was the sin of Sodom. It had naught to do with homo­sex­u­al attrac­tion.

One must also take note of what the oth­er sins are that cry to heav­en for vengeance. Mur­der is one. Slav­ery is another—the cry of the for­eign­er, the orphan, the wid­ow, the oppressed. And defraud­ing work­ers of a just wage is the last. What all of these have in com­mon is that the vic­tims are utter­ly help­less against the pow­er­ful. These sins cry to God because he is the only recourse. Gay sex, under­stood con­sen­su­al­ly, does not fit this cat­e­go­ry. But sex­u­al assault does.

I know that many think “the sin of Sodom” cov­ers any species of homo­sex­u­al activ­i­ty. This usage has a very long his­to­ry. As for “sodomy,” many give the word a sim­i­lar broad usage. Oth­ers mean anal sex or oral sex, includ­ing be­tween a man and a woman.

We must define terms, but I don’t think any broad­en­ing of these words beyond rape is war­rant­ed by the text of scrip­ture. And I would ditch the term “sodomy” alto­geth­er. It has too loose a usage, and too pejo­ra­tive a con­no­ta­tion, to be of any use in these dis­cus­sions. When we use it, we speak to the con­vert­ed, not those who need con­vert­ing. Peo­ple like Matthew Vines close their ears when we say “sodomy.” Peo­ple like Matthew Vines close their ears when we sug­gest that the sin of gang rape is a par­tic­u­lar species of gay sex. It’s not.

“But Alt! If you agree, as you say, that all homo­sex­u­al activ­i­ty is a sin, why is it so impor­tant what peo­ple mean by these terms? Why argue so much over words?”

Well, “sodomy” is offen­sive to peo­ple, for one. Let your speech be always with grace. But accu­ra­cy should mat­ter in these dis­cus­sions. Should it not? If Catholics are going to explain to oth­ers why the Church teach­es what she does about homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, then we need to be pre­cise about what the bib­li­cal text says and what it does not. Oth­er­wise we open our­selves up to refu­ta­tion and unbe­lief. We can­not con­tinue to make ref­er­ence to bib­li­cal texts that have noth­ing at all to do with homo­sexuality. That hurts our wit­ness; it does not help it. And there are enough bib­li­cal texts (and Church texts) that tell us that even con­sen­su­al sex between two men or two women is a sin. We need not mis­represent Gen­e­sis 19, or cling to the hurt­ful word “sodomy,” to retain that truth.