Huckabee and Homosexuality

Once again, thanks to my opponent for picking this debate up, it has probably been done to death in various forms. "The first thing in the context of the religion and history the old and new testaments are inseparable, since they are both accepted to be the infallible word of the God, by Christians." That is accepted; it does however go further to show, any misinterpretations of what that word means are worse for the ignorant basis of their interpretation. The OT and NT verses: Deuteronomy 23:17-18 These verses have been applied to homosexual behaviour because of mistranslation of the root words. The King James Version reads "whore" and "sodomite". Hebrew uses the same noun in its masculine and feminine forms, the words are best translated "temple (or cult) prostitute". These verses have nothing directly to do with homosexual behaviour. Cult prostitution flourished throughout the ancient world and this fact sheds important light on other verses. Fertility cult worship concerned sexual activity in the temple, habitually with a sacred prostitute who was like a priest or priestess. This sacred sexual activity was believed to encourage the god (so to bestow fertility on the earth and its creatures). Genesis 19:4-11 The sin of Sodom is clearly explained in Ezekiel 16:49-50. It was not homosexual behaviour, but for its deep and common sinfulness, the men in the story may have planned sexual abuse of the divine visitors (the translations of the verb "know" here is not clear). The problem is not that the objects may have been homosexual but that it was to be abuse. This was in character with the whole of their uncaring, greedy and godless lives (as an aside, casting ones virgin daughters to a mob, is seen as the morally proper response). Leviticus 18:22; 20:13-14 These verses are found in the "Holiness Code" which emphasised to the Israelites that they were to be set apart for god. The context is prohibition of practices found in the nearby fertility cult of Molech. "Abomination" is a translation of the Hebrew word which specifically means idolatrous practices (not necessarily sexual). The condemnation here is a reference to the fertility worship which the Israelites were to shun. The seriousness of this idolatry in Hebrew eyes was compounded by the belief that "to lie with a man as with a woman" violated the dignity of the male sex. Women were property but men were the direct image of god. To treat a man the way a woman was treated was to reduce him to property and, thereby, to violate the image of god. The issue was idolatrous activity which failed to acknowledge God's creation 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 At issue are two words: malakoi (found only in 1 Corinthians) and arsenokoites, which is in both verses. Tradition assumes a homosexual meaning of the words. Actual study reveals that in its use there, malakoi means "soft". Arsenokoites means to refer directly to cult prostitution, again. Such practices were common both in Corinth and Ephesus (where Timothy was). It plainly refers, in this use and later uses in other writings, to prostitutes who engaged in both homosexual and heterosexual cult practice. Neither of these words can possibly be translated to mean "homosexual" or any similar distortion of their meaning. Romans 1:26-27 This is the only passage in Scripture which, apparently, talks about homosexual behaviour among women as well as men. The dangerous, conventional interpretation comes from failure to relate it to the whole chapter. Paul talks about idolatrous people who put things or concerns before their devotion to god. As an example, he refers to fertility cult worship prevalent in Rome. The homosexual activity to which he refers is idolatrous. He implies that all of the cult worshipers engaged in it. (The interpretation that he is writing about homosexual behaviour in general would force this to say that all idolatrous people become homosexual, an obviously spurious interpretation.) The final sentence is in reference to their just reward; the venereal disease which was epidemic among such cults. This specific reference to fertility cult worship cannot be construed to condemn homosexual behaviour in general. All instances are contextual; none can be directly related to a pure anti homosexual stance. The religious foundation of homophobia is based upon a tradition of poor translation and a horribly institutionalised tradition of blind acceptance over the rational study of the text it draws from. My opponent concedes there is only one pure instance of homophobic rhetoric "Leviticus 18:22 is rather clear on what it means and it alone can be used to sow that homosexuality is considered a sin in the Bible, and therefore saying "the bible says so is justification for homophobia". I have shown this to be an erroneous assumption, just like all other instances. It is a highly specific Jewish moral code, and does not refer to homosexuality but to the dishonour of god. There is no biblical basis for homophobia. Regards, Spiral.