Christianity and homosexuality
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Christian leaders have written about sex between men since the first decades of Christianity; sex between women has been discussed less prominently. Historically, most Christian churches have regarded homosexual behavior as immoral. This position is today held by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as well as by most Evangelical Protestant churches such as the Southern Baptist Convention. On May 15, 2008, for example, the Roman Catholic bishops of California issued a statement explaining their opposition to the state supreme court ruling of the same day which effectively legalized same-sex marriage.
Some denominations, however, have taken the position that homosexuality is not inherently sinful. These include the United Church of Canada, liberal congregations within the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, the Moravian Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Methodist Church of Great Britain, and Friends General Conference. A new denomination, the Metropolitan Community Church, has also come into existence specifically to serve the Christian LGBT community.
Other Christian denominations are actively debating the issue and have not reached a consensus either way; some of the most significant of these include the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodist Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The Episcopal Church of the USA became the first major Christian denomination to ordain an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, which is controversial in the world wide Anglican Communion.
History
Early modernity
An Italian text published anonymously in 1652 by Antonio Rocco, L'Alcibiade fanciullo a scola, was about a teacher's successful attempt to persuade the much younger Alcibiades to have sex with him. Although set in ancient Greece, it includes much anachronistic material, especially pertaining to Christian arguments, and denounces the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as a fiction made up by the Hebrew elders.
In France a similar text, Histoire de Dom Bougre, Portier des Chartreux, written in 1741, mocks biblical injunctions and extols same-sex love, as does Voltaire's The Bible finally explained (1776). It was followed by the Marquis de Sade who in his Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond of 1782 denounces religion (and other morality codes) as "man-made." In England the pseudo-Byronian poem "Don Leon" (written in the voice of Byron but of uncertain authorship, published in 1866) vehemently denounced the abusive treatment inflicted on homosexuals as based on a dubious tale.
I grant that casuists the Bible quote,
And tell us how God’s tardy vengeance smote
Lot's native town with brimstone from the sky,
To punish this impure delinquency,
Unmindful that the drunkard's kiss defiled
(Whilst yet the embers smoked), his virgin child.
But reason doubts the Jewish prophet’s tale.
