THE DOWNFALL
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One time I was on a 15 hour car ride with a member of my family. This was before I came out as a trans woman, and this person had no idea that I wrestled with gender dysphoria. 45 minutes into the 15 hour drive this family member said this to me ”trans people will be the downfall of America. This is why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah” yeah….. I had another 14 hours and 15 minutes left in the car after that was said. The only thing going through my mind at that moment was “you have no idea you are talking about me.” Further I couldn't escape the internal disagreement I had in my heart about that statement.
Many times people start railing against the LGBTQIA+ community around family. Families feel they're safe to just say whatever they want, so in car rides and family reunions and Christmas parties, the anti-trans sentiments start flying freely. The sad reality is that there are probably people who are wrestling with their gender or sexuality who feel unsafe inside their families because of this type of rhetoric. Further homosexuality is not the reason that God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah.
Sodom and Gomora are often touted as the example of God hating LGBTQIA+ existence. However if you closely read the story the city was destroyed because of abusive behavior. The people wanted to drag angels out in the street to gang rape them. To make matters worse Lot offered his virgin daughters as a replacement for the angels. The way these men acted in culture was outside of their nature. It was not about same-sex issues. They were abusive and this was not natural, and what God hated the most.
GENESIS 19- The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”
In Genesis 18 we see the reason God decides to destroy the cities. In a negotiated with Abraham.
GENESIS 18: 20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
The sinful culture of these people were labeled as “grievous” and that was correct. I have a hard time looking at society today and calling someone who has an LGBTQ identity as “Greivous'”. Something that would be grievous would be something that if it happened in front of my children, I would immediately shield their eyes, and take them away from it. My question is would we allow our children to see someone who is LGBTQ, and even speak to them, and even further have a relationship with someone who is. My bet is the answer is yes. Therefore we need to move our assumptions that God destroyed Sodom and Gomora because the people were gay. This is a completely false interpretation of the text. While in fairness the text can be taken for the words that are used, but we must look at the entire story.
The next time we're at a family gathering or in a situation where we hear LGBTQ hatred, specifically spiritual oppression of queer people, we need to remember to reframe this story. We need to be willing to challenge the thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of sexual orientation. This narrative is simply not true. In fact, it would be unloving of us to not correct family and friends who use the scripture improperly. As we all want to frame and have a working truthful knowledge of God, it would be wrong of us to not correct this thought pattern. God doesn't hate queer people. He's not going to destroy America because it is open and affirming to queer people. Let's lay down the rhetoric of using biblical stories to oppress others.
