Okay, so, strictly speaking, the infamous Leviticus 18:22 does say āforbidden.ā Hereās the thing:
1) The word translated as āforbiddenā is ātoevah.ā While that translation isnāt ā¦ wrong, itās sort of like saying āMcMansionā means āreally big house.ā There are a lot of connotations in that word. The specific issue with toevah is that we ā¦ sort of ā¦ donāt know anymore exactly what it meant. Based on context, it seems likely that the word referred to something ritually forbidden. This part of Torah was written not only as a guide for future generations, but also to say āso, look around, see your neighbors? DONāT DO THAT.ā Thus, if we interpret ātoevahā to mean something thatās forbidden to do as a ritual before G-d, then the verse says nothing whatsoever about Adam and Steve and their two kids and their dogāitās saying you shouldnāt have sex with another man in the Temple as a sacrifice.
2) Following the same āthis is ritually forbiddenā logic of toevah, this verse may also be interpreted as ādonāt do sex magic,ā which was a thing in. Like. A lot of fucking cultures at the time.
3) Hebrew is a highly gendered language, and the grammatical gender in this verse is really really weird. One of the āmenā in this verse is given female grammar. Why? Who fucking knows, man, this isnāt the only grammatical oddity in Torah. (There are also places where G-d is referred to as plural, and also as female.) One suggestion is that this is a way of creating a diminutiveāthat is, that the verse should be read as āa man should not lie with a boy.ā Now, itās worth noting that modern secular scholarship has concluded the written Torah was written down around the 6th century BCE, and most non-Orthodox Jewish scholars are like āyeah, all things considered, that sounds pretty legit.ā
Do you know what else was happening around the 6th century BCE? What laypeople tend to mean when they say āancient Greeceā was happening.
Do you know what happened a lot in that time period in Greece? Dudes forming relationships with younger boys, like ages 10-15, and using them for sex in exchange for financial gifts, mentorship, etc. While we donāt know just how young some of these younger boys may have been, we do know some were prepubescent. In light of this, and also something I mentioned under the first pointāāsee your neighbors? DONāT DO THAT,ā if this verse is interpreted to say āa man should not lie with a boy,ā then itās pretty clearly āmy dudes, my fellows, my lads, donāt be fucking pedophiles.ā
4) Because of the grammar I mentioned in #3, itās also possible that āshould not lie with a man as with a womanā is actually referring to a place, not an abstract personhood: a man shouldnāt have sex with another man in a womanās bed. In the time period, a womanās bed was sort of likeāthat was her place, her safe sanctuary. It was also a ritually holy place where babies were made. By having sex in her bed, youāre violating her safe space (and also introducing a man who may not be a male relative, thus forcing her into breaking the laws of modesty). If this verse is read this way, then it should be taken to mean ādonāt sexually violate a womanās safety and modesty.ā
5) And as an offshoot of #4, this may be a second verse relating to infidelity. Which womanās bed is any random dude in 600 BCE most likely to have access to? His wifeās. But laws were administered differently based on whether the person they pertained to was slave or free, male or female, and so onāthus, a man committing adultery with a woman would be treated differently than man committing adultery with a man (especially because the latter would carry no chance of an illegitimate pregnancy).
So youāll note, there are a lot of ways to read this verse, and only a one-to-one translation with no cultural awareness produces ābeing gay is wrong, all of the timeā.
(Youāll also notice the word āabominationā is nowhere to be found. Thatās like ā¦ a straight-up fiction created for who only knows what reason.)
