Women of Sodom and Gomorrah Collateral Damage in the War against Homosexuality?

Abstract

Women of Sodom and GomorrahCollateral Damage in the War against Homosexuality? Holly Joan Toensing Associating the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with homosexuality is common among the Christian Right. More specifically, many associate God's annihilation of these cities with the idea that the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were gay, engaging in sodomy. Verbal expressions of this association are used against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals at rallies or functions. For example, one might see slogans such as "Homosexuality = Death (Gen. 19)" or "God Hates Fags (Gen. 19:24-25)" written on placards held high by Christian Right groups protesting a gay and lesbian pride parade. Although they are expressed in more elite discourse, discussions of conservative biblical scholars also associate Sodom or its destruction with homosexuality. For example, Weston Fields states that God's destruction was brought about by the actions of "the sex-crazed homosexually inclined male population of Sodom."1 More elaborately, Robert Alter argues that "in the larger story of progeny for Abram, it is surely important that homosexuality is a necessarily sterile form of sexual intercourse, as though the proclivities of the Sodomites answered biologically to their utter indifference to the moral prerequisite for survival."2 He continues: the story of Sodom reveals that "a society that rejects the moral bonds of civilization for the instant gratification of [End Page 61] dark urges can be swept away in a moment; . . . the very danger of illicit sexuality may blight a kingdom with sterility."3 The Christian Right and conservative biblical scholars share certain characteristics and assumptions in how they read and understand the Sodom and Gomorrah story. First, they focus on the words and actions of the men of Sodom and usually only as they are depicted in Genesis 18 and 19, even though these cities and their inhabitants are first mentioned in Genesis 13. Second, they understand the central proposed action of Genesis 19—all of the cities' men wanting "to know" Lot's guests—as being what they call "homosexual sex," explicitly assuming that the sexual orientation of the men of Sodom was homosexual and implicitly linking homosexual desire with violence. Given the divine annihilation of the cities narrated in the text, this is a particularly powerful and destructive assumption, for it intends effectively to denounce all homosexual behavior, judging such acts as worthy of God's wrath. As Mark Jordan presents it, the prevailing history of interpretation of the Sodom and Gomorrah story abstracts "sodomy" from the geographical reference, "Sodom," through a series of processes that essentialize persons, making them identifiable across time and cultures and further permitting a punishment as near as one can get to divine annihilation to be pronounced in all cases.4 Indeed, the assumption that the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were homosexually oriented likely influences individuals who act aggressively or violently toward gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals today. For example, the National Coalition of Anti-violence Programs reports that "during the second half of 2003—following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that overturned the country's sodomy laws—the country experienced a 24% spike in hate incidents based on sexual orientation."5 A perceived weakening of national denunciation of "homosexual sex" seems to have prompted vigilantism among some Americans. In this article I argue that the views of the Sodom and Gomorrah story held by the Christian Right as well as conservative biblical scholars overlook the presence and role of women in the entire narrative about the cities, beginning in Genesis 13. As this presence and role are acknowledged, I further assert that it is more logical to assume that the sexual orientation of the men and women of Sodom and Gomorrah is heterosexual rather than homosexual. In arguing this, I wish to undercut the dangerous understanding that the "sin" of Sodom is homosexuality in need of annihilation in our society. Instead I assert that the wickedness of these cities is the inhospitable treatment of resident [End Page 62] aliens and sojourners at its worst, through the sexual humiliation of rape, linked with the wickedness of idolatry. That I retain the terms homosexuality and heterosexuality as categories of sexual orientation requires...

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