Sodom and Gomorra were neither Judged by God as wicked nor destroyed because of homosexuality

"However, a hostile mob showing up to demand that a citizen bring out their male strangers, so that they can know them has shown no ‘contextual' evidence linking it to a sexual implication. We cannot assume that just because a woman is threatened with rape, that a man too would automatically, or has automatically been subjected to the same treatment." Yet, Pro ASSUMES that because the girl died, that they wanted to subject the man to the same treatment! What double standards on Pro's part! I cannot assume that "know" has a sexual connotation for the male guests just because it has such a meaning for the female daughter, but Pro can ASSUME it means to kill the man just because they killed the girl. Further, I never argued that the word "know" meant sex just because it is also used in a sexual context for the women. Rather, I have demonstrated verses where the word "know" does carry sexual connotations (Matthew 1:25; Genesis 4:1) and I am arguing that in the absence of any proof that this word means "to kill," we are forced to choose between them literally "knowing" him INTELLECTUALLY, and their "knowing" him SEXUALLY! Clearly the mob wasn't there to know who he was intellectually, so the other option is that they wanted to have sex with him. What's more, after all my opponent's call for CONTEXTUAL evidence that "know" is used in a sexual way, I have a few things to say: (1) I have shown CONTEXTUAL evidence that "know" DOES NOT MEAN KILL. Notice that the men "know" AND "abused" her all night, then let her go. The word "know" here simply CANNOT mean "kill." They didn't kill her, and let her go afterwards. They "knew" her but she was not dead. They wanted to know the man under his roof, but they ended up knowing the girl instead. (2) He demands UNREASONABLE proof for a sexual context for the word "know" which he himself cannot provide even where he claims it has such a meaning. For example, in Genesis 19:8 Lot says that his daughters "have not known man." He argues that this cannot mean to know intellectually, for they knew their father, and thus BY DEFAULT it means to know sexually; yet, he will not accept that if "know" is not the intellectual act of knowing in verse 5, that it is BY DEFAULT the sexual act! He therefore is using reasoning which he himself rejects to back up his own assertions. (3) Usually, the sexual context of the "knowing" was that the female became pregnant, but in the case of the men in Genesis 19, they cannot get pregnant, and the mob never got to "know" them anyway, so no pregnancy could occur. One is left to wonder exactly what it is Pro wants the context to say in order for it to mean "knowing" in a sexual way? "Judges 20:5, the Levite man himself tells us that the intentions of the men of Gibeah wanting to know him, was so that they could kill him." And because HE thought they wanted to kill him means that they did? Even granting my opponent all that, this doesn't prove the word "know" means to kill. All it means is that that they wanted to know (have sex with) AND kill the man. But I think my opponent fails here because he makes the leap of assuming too much; namely, that if the men wanted to know him, and he says they wanted to kill him, that "know" means "kill" in this context. In Numbers 14:2 the Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron, then in verse 27 Yahweh said they were murmuring against him; does that mean Moses or Aaron (or both) is Jehovah? No. Similarly, the people said they wanted to "know" the man, the man said they wanted to "kill" him, does that mean that "know" means "kill"? Of course not! This is poor reasoning. "In a desperate attempt to piece together a fragmented and inconclusive argument, Con brings up Leviticus 18:22, and Ezekiel 16:49-50. He claims that the word for abomination mentioned in Ezekiel, is also the same word for abomination in Leviticus 18:22. This I agree with him on, except he fails to mention that everything in chapter 18 of Leviticus is also labeled an abomination (Leviticus 18:26)." Homosexuality is one of the abominations listed in Leviticus 18, murder is not, so if the sin of Sodom is an abomination, its more likely to be homosexuality than murder anyway. "This means that a man having sex with his daughter/niece, a woman having sex with her son/nephew, having sex with your first cousins, sacrificing your children, BESTIALITY, having sex with your neighbor's wife, etc are ALL abominations." And since the guests in Lot's house were angels, we know they were not related to the men and boys outside in the mob, so we can rule out those possibilities, leaving behind the one abomination of a man having forced sex with a man; a homosexual act. Also, since they specifically called for the MEN in his house, not animals, we can rule out bestiality as well. "What evidence leads us to the conclusion that Leviticus 18:22 (which is datable in its supposed condemnation of homosexuality) is the abomination that Ezekiel is talking about, as opposed to bestiality or incest?" Like I said, the angels were not related to the men of Sodom (hence, no incest), and they didn't ask Lot to bring out the animals, they wanted the men! Notice also that Pro actually says that Leviticus 18:22 is DEBATABLE in its condemnation of homosexuality. How much more clear can one get than this: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." What is unclear about that? It clearly condemns men having sex with men the same way they do with women. I guess the readers will decide it its clear or not. "He accepted in full my definition of homosexuality, but continued to argue that a man trying to rape another man is homosexual conduct, when according to my definition, it is not." Pro's second definition of homosexuality is this: "2: Of, relating to, or involving sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex." Rape is still sex, forced sex, and therefore men raping men involved intercourse between persons of the same sex. This is a homosexual act even using Pro's definition. I also pointed out at the beginning that I didn't agree that persons were born gay and had no control over this. Developmental and social science models of behavioral sexual attraction attribute maturation of the testes or ovaries (gonadarche) as the biological basis for a child's budding interest in sexual matters. If true, it only means that puberty awakens an interest in sex, but does not dictate the choice of weather the object of attraction will be male, female or beast. Others argue age 10 to be the mean age of first sexual attraction, probably caused by the maturation of the adrenal glands during middle childhood, called adrenarche. Again, it is clear in both cases that no one is born either gay or strait, but develops interest in sex later in life, weather it be a gradual process beginning at age 10 with sexual attraction, followed by sexual desire, culminating in sexual behaviour; or an instantaneous interest caused by a pubertal increase in hormone levels. Also, sexual attraction in itself is not the same as the choice object of such attraction. Homosexuality refers to sexual attraction to the same gender. But when people claim they are born gay, certainly this is not what they mean in all cases. For many of them, they refer to the fact that from an early age they (though male) liked to play with dolls, and put on lipstick, or wear a dress – to play the role of the female. But is there really such a thing as biological gender roles? Is there a chemical that causes a child to prefer dolls over toy trucks and cars? Is there anything in our harmones that could cause a male to want to wear a dress? Babies are not born with information locked away in their brains about high-heel shoes, lipstick and dresses. All these man-made items are things one has to learn about! A boy child can only play with a doll if its parents allow it to have one. Gender roles are learnt, not inert.