Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD

Sodom and Gomorrah ( /ˈsɒd.əm/;^[1]  /ɡə.ˈmɔr.ə/^[2]) were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources, as well as the Quran. According to the Torah, the kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah were allied with the cities of Admah, Zeboim and Bela. These five cities, also known as the “cities of the plain”, were situated on the Jordan river plain in the southern region of the land of Canaan.

Divine judgment by Yahweh was then passed upon Sodom and Gomorrah along with two other neighboring cities that were completely consumed by fire and brimstone. Neighboring Zoar was the only city to be spared during that day of judgment.^{[Deut.29:23][Gen.10:19]} In Christian and Islamic traditions, Sodom and Gomorrah have become synonymous with impenitent sin, and their fall with a proverbial manifestation of God’s wrath.^{[4][Jude 1:7]} Sodom and Gomorrah have been used as metaphors for vice and homosexuality viewed as a deviation. The story has therefore given rise to words in several languages, including the English word sodomy.

Homosexuality is an illicit lust forbidden by God. He said to His people Israel, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 20:13). In these passages homosexuality is condemned as a prime example of sin, a sexual perversion.  Having quoted the Old Testament and Leviticus, let us move to the New Testament.  The Apostle Paul, in his letters declares that homosexuality “shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 6:9-10). Now Paul does not single out the homosexual as a special offender. He includes fornicators, idolators, adulterers, thieves, covetous persons, drunkards, revilers and extortioners.  The verses read:

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men, (the words men who have sex with men translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual act), nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (I Corinthians 6:9-10)

In Romans 1:26-31 more than twenty punishable sins are listed with homosexuality leading the list. St. Paul analyzes the root cause of all sin as distance from true understanding of Monotheism and then goes onto examining different sins and lust and consequences thereof:

 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being (excluding Jesus to be God) and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and  received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1: 21-32)

Lehman Strauss writes about homosexuality: “The word ‘gay’ means merry, exuberant, bright, lively. More recently it has been adopted by homosexuals. In its original use it did not have this double meaning. The clever adaptation of the word ‘gay’ by homosexuals has robbed it of its pure meaning, thereby corrupting a once perfectly good word. I never use the word ‘gay’ when referring to homosexuals. There are many bright, exuberant, merry people in this world who are not sexual perverts.”  Read Lehman Strauss‘s Homosexuality: The Christian Perspective, from which I borrowed some of my references in the Bible.

Leviticus condemns homosexuality by death and yet some have the audacity to claim that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality.  Not only homosexuality is condemned in Leviticus but also in Genesis and Deuteronomy.  In Deuteronomy we read, “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 23:17) Not only the Old Testament but the New Testament also condemns homosexuality.  Despite such clear injunctions by God some are now trying to misinterpret the Bible on this issue.  Actually just this week an Op-Ed was prominently published in CNN to defend homosexuality from the Bible or at least confuse the subject:

My Take: What the Bible really says about homosexuality

How is it possible that despite very clear injunctions in the Bible against homosexuality and constant description of marriage, as between opposite sexes through out the hundreds of pages of the Bible, some can distort the Biblical message?  The Holy Quran very clearly explains, how scriptures are misinterpreted by those who have an axe to grind:

He (Allah) it is Who has sent down to thee (Muhammad) the Book; in it there are verses that are decisive in meaning (fundamental) — they are the basis of the Book — and there are others that are susceptible of different interpretations (allegoric). But those in whose hearts is perversity pursue such thereof as are susceptible of different interpretations, seeking discord and seeking wrong interpretation of it. And none knows its right interpretation except Allah and those who are firmly grounded in knowledge; they say, ‘We believe in it; the whole is from our Lord.’ — And none heed except those gifted with understanding.  (Al Quran 3:8)

This verse is a fitting refutation for all those who misinterpret any scripture or for that matter any message or book.  Allah says about those with a negative and prejudiced approach, “those in whose hearts is perversity pursue such thereof as are susceptible of different interpretations, seeking discord and seeking wrong interpretation of it,” achieving nothing, and true knowledge always escapes them.  I would encourage readers to read the commentary of this verse in a five volume commentary, to distinguish between honest commentary and exegesis and sloppy work and propaganda.  The propagandist emphasize the ‘allegoric’ and deemphasize the ‘fundamental’ verses and weave their case on the basis of allegoric to obfuscate the issue at hand.  By using these guiding principles and a little research one can easily refute the distortions of those who try to misinterpret the Bible or the Quran.

This cartoon is a joke, but, it also shows, how easily people can misinterpret a text.  The Bible has been read in a certain way, about homosexuality, by countless generations for more than thirty centuries and now some like the writer of the above CNN Op-Ed have the audacity to suggest a dramatic new interpretation.

In conclusion, to call a union of two persons of the same sex a “marriage” is a misnomer. In the Bible, page after page, marriage is a divinely ordered institution designed to form a permanent union between one man and one or more women for one purpose (among others) of procreating or propagating the human race. That was God’s order in the first of such unions (Genesis 1:27, 28; 2:24; Matthew 19:5). Please note that many of the Biblical prophets had multiple wives.  If, homosexuality were to be practiced on a large scale, at any time in human history, there would not be a human race in existence today. The whole idea of two persons of the same sex marrying is absurd, unsound and ridiculously unreasonable.