The word sodomy originates
from the sinful practice of the inhabitants of the city of Sodom and its
neighbors Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim in 2087 B.C. The sinful
acts in which the Sodomites engaged are referred to today as homosexuality,
lesbianism or gayness where men or women have attraction to and sexual
relations with the same sex. This sinful gay lifestyle occurring in the city of
Sodom was so offensive to God that he did not even mind Abraham's intercession
for the people of the city. God only allowed Abraham's nephew Lot and his
immediate family to escape the destruction of the city. The men of this city
were so sinful that they even tried to homosexually rape the two men who had
visited Lot. Had the men not been angelic and thus used their powers to blind
them, the Sodomites would have broken the door and raped them in Lot's
house. This terrible sin of sodomy led
to the unleashing of hell on earth. Fire and brimstone rained down on the
inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah till they were all destroyed and the only
remainders were ashes (Genesis 19:24-25). The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
became a proverbial expression even in the New Testament when God wanted to
express how the ungodly would burn in hell (2 Peter 2:6-8, Jude 1:7). Sodomy
was so nauseating to God that he allowed hell to be poured out upon the homosexuals
even before they could go there by natural death.
Sodomites again reoccurred
in the Old Testament in the days of King Rehoboam when the Southern Kingdom of
Judah began sliding down the path of idolatry and degeneration. Whenever there
was a spiritual revival it was marked by the expulsion of sodomites as in the
days of King Asa and King Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 15:12). In the days of King
Jehoshaphat the sodomites had even built houses next to God's temple but, “he brake down the houses of the sodomites,
that were by the house of the LORD” (2 Kings 23:7). This was a precursor
and antitype of the entry of sodomy into the ranks of the church.
In later history some of the
unbelieving nations and empires like the Roman Empire begun to practice sodomy.
Some of the Roman emperors themselves participated in this vice. Among the many
causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was the sin of sodomy. However, sodomy
was not limited to Europe or Rome alone in ancient times. Even the King of
Buganda (currently part of the Republic of Uganda), Kabaka Mwanga used to
practice sodomy with the young men and boys who served as pages in his court in
the 1800s. When some of these boys converted to Anglicanism and Catholicism
they could not stand to perform the abominable homosexual acts with their gay
pedophile King. When Kabaka Mwanga tried to engage in sodomy with these boys
and they refused, he decided to torture some of them and put others to death.
This was one of the primary causes that led to the killing of the "Uganda
Martyrs" at Namugongo and other parts of the Buganda Kingdom.
The modern term
"homosexual" was invented in the 1860s as a neutral alternative to
“sodomy” to sugarcoat the sin and make it appear as another sexual alternative.
The word "homo" is a Greek word meaning the same hence
"homosexual" is having sex with the same gender. Thus it is an
antithesis of "heterosexual" which denotes attraction to the opposite
sex. The term "lesbianism" derives from the name of a Greek island
called Lesbos. This island was the home of the female Greek poet Sappho (650-590 B.C.), who wrote love poems addressed to women. She
gathered a community of women around her with whom she engaged in
"lesbianism". Other terms have been coined in the recent past to
sugarcoat the blatant abomination of sodomy like the term "gay" that
seems to suggest that those practicing this vice are happy.
Throughout the Old and New
Testament God roundly condemns the blatant sin of sodomy. In Leviticus 20:13
the Bible states that, "If a man
also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an
abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon
them." Here God issues out a death penalty upon those who not only
commit “aggravated homosexuality” but on those who voluntarily practice
homosexuality. This is not viewed by God as an alternative lifestyle but as a
nasty and abominable sin. Sodomy is also condemned in the New Testament epistle
to the Romans, "For this cause God
gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural
use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the
natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men
working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of
their error which was meet" (Romans 1:26-27). This chapter concludes
by saying that all those who practice these vices are "worthy of
death". This is not surprising since sodomy is so appalling that it makes
human beings stoop below the level of animals or beasts since even they in
their simplicity do not engage in it. The Bible also condemns the
"effeminate" or those who are commonly labeled as transgender,
bisexual and transvestites. Those who assume that God turns a blind eye and
deaf ear to sodomy in all its forms are in for a surprise when they share the
fate of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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