Bible's stance on homosexuality

Editor—Wayte quotes selectively from the national survey on sexuality about the prevalence of homosexuality.¹ He is doing exactly what I reported in my personal view—distorting the evidence.

He says that the “Bible references to homosexuality clearly show that they are disapproving of homosexual activity (not orientation).”¹ Experts in biblical interpretation believe that in biblical times there was no understanding of the modern view of homosexual orientation as mutually supportive and affirming.²,³ Wayte is right in saying that the Bible's stance is not to “bash homosexuals.” Leviticus chapter 20, verse 13 reads: “If a man has intercourse with a man as with a woman, both commit an abomination. They must be put to death.” So the Bible's stance is not just to bash homosexuals but to murder them. Why Wayte or anyone else wants to associate themselves with such barbarous and inhuman texts is beyond my comprehension.

Wayte comments on the medical risks of homosexual activity by which he presumably means anal intercourse. But only two thirds of gay men take part in anal intercourse while as many as one third of heterosexuals do so. This means that more heterosexuals than homosexuals have anal intercourse.⁴ Wayte's criticisms should therefore be primarily addressed to heterosexuals. And the national survey found that there is no great disparity between numbers of partners overall.

Wayte says that the use of the word homophobia in this context is incorrect. A recent survey of 4000 known homosexuals and bisexuals has shown that 34% of gay men and 24% of lesbians had experienced physical violence and 73% had been taunted in the previous five years because of their sexuality.⁵ This is clear evidence of the “extreme abnormal fear or aversion to” homosexuality which Wayte rightly quotes as a correct (though ungrammatical) definition of homophobia.