But Church Teaching ...

Biblical authority

The church teaches that there is scriptural authority for its view that sexual activity between two men or two women is sinful. Arguments based solely on scriptural authority (or: "It says in the Bible") are characteristic of Protestant rather than Catholic thinking, but the Roman Catholic church continues to take a position that there is Scriptural authority prohibiting sexual acts between men or between women which is very similar to that taken by conservative evangelical commentators. On this basis, Catholics who wish to inform their conscience on this issue need to understand the scope of Scriptural authority and the meaning of those passages in the Bible on which Scriptural authority arguments are based.

This area is a complex one, and more detailed papers on the subject can be found on the national LGCM website (www.lgcm.org.uk) and through some of the resources on our Links tab. However, the key points to be aware of are as follows:

No Christians, even the most conservative evangelical fundamentalists, take everything that is in the Bible as authoritative. The Bible supports slavery (Leviticus Ch 25 vv 44 and 45, Colossians Ch 3 v22), advocates violence against children (Psalm 137 vv 8-9), advocates discrimination against disabled people (Leviticus Ch 21 vv 18 -23), supports polygamy (Genesis Ch 29 v 28) and glorifies lethal violence (psalm 58 vv 3-10, 1 Samuel Ch 15 vv 32-33) . Violent attitudes towards non Jewish people in the Old Testament are then turned against the Jewish people (and their descendants) in certain passages in the New Testament (Matthew Ch 27 vv 24-25). Each of these views and attitudes is regarded as immoral and uncivilised in modern secular society and by the Roman Catholic church.

In addition, the Bible contains a number of statements and requirements which modern society regards as impractical or meaningless, such as a prohibition on wearing mixed cloth (Leviticus Ch 19 v 19) , a statement that it is sinful to run (Proverbs Ch 19 v 2) and prohibitions on lending money at interest (Leviticus Ch 25 v 35, Ezekiel Ch 18 v 13). The Bible requires that employers pay their staff on each day that they work, and prohibits holding pay over night (Leviticus Ch 19 v13). The Bible also makes clear statements which are contrary to the Christian faith, such as the statements in Ecclesiastes (Ch 3. vv 19-20) that there is no life after death.

Clearly, the fact that the Bible makes a clear statement about an issue is not, by itself, any indication of Christian teaching on the matter. However, in the context of same sex relationships the argument is exceptionally weak because the Bible has very little to say about anything which modern society would classify as "homosexuality" or "lesbian" "gay" or "bisexual". There is no concept of sexual orientation mentioned anywhere in the Bible. This is hardly surprising because all the historical evidence about sexual attitudes in the societies which produced the Bible show that the idea had not been thought of at that time. Sexual orientation is a concept which was developed in the nineteenth century and is associated with post Freudian psychological models. Analysis of the texts which supposedly cover the subject by modern scholars has shown that the majority of them are not references to gay male or lesbian sex at all and that those that are, or may be, are in no way statements which form any part of the Christian faith.

This is in contrast to large numbers of clearly anti Semitic statements in the gospels (particularly the gospel of St John) and the Acts of the Apostles, which were for many years used as a justification for vicious attitudes and violence towards Jews. The Roman Catholic church has, by the grace of God, abandoned its use of the Bible to justify such atrocities and recognised anti Semitism for the evil that it is. It is intellectually unsustainable to use a handful of unclear and prejudiced statements in the Bible as a basis for condemning same sex relationships when the far clearer and more frequent anti Semitic material is given no authoritative status.