letters to surfers

Does Leviticus prohibit Gay and Lesbian behavior?

By Robert Brow  (www.brow.on.ca)


Leviticus 20:10-16 was a guide for judges, and it lists twelve kinds of sexual behavior for which the death penalty could be assigned : the sexual penetration of another man's wife, a married woman allowing herself to be penetrated by a man other than her husband, three kinds of incestuous sexual penetration by men, and the corresponding allowing this to happen by women, a man using another man for sexual penetration, a man allowing himself to be used for sexual penetration, a man using an animal of either sex for sexual penetration, and a woman allowing a male animal to penetrate her.

Sexual penetration was involved in all of these twelve cases, which is why other forms of intimacy between men, or between women, or between humans and animals as pets, were not listed.

There is no mention of intimacy between women being prohibited in the Old Testament, and there is no case in the Bible of a Jewish man being convicted of sexual penetration of another man. In each case a conviction would require two male witnesses, which explains why so few executions or stonings were ever carried out among the Jewish people. (In John 8:2-11 no witnesses were produced and only the woman was about to be stoned for adultery).


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