To put it simply, we have to take the Bible within the context. The Old Testament also says eating cheeseburgers (or anything that mixes meat and dairy), being a woman and praying without covering your head, tattooing yourself, divorce, cutting your hair, eating pork, and wearing clothing made of more than one kind of cloth is wrong. (rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_actions_prohibited_by_the_Bible) One can't cherrypick the bible to believe what they want to believe. Many Old Testament laws are considered to be outdated, however, but the New Testament also says eating strangled meats, asking foolish questions, and arguments about the law are wrong. It says women cannot speak in church. It tells young women (and only young women, not young men) to "be keepers at home," meaning if you were a woman and held a job, that would be considered sinful, and to "beware of dogs." (abc.net.au/reslib/201407/r1308729_17984331.pdf) Most people don't follow these, like I said, one can't cherrypick the Bible. We have to focus on the main message the bible puts forth, which is love. Ignoring this goes against everything God has said, and perpetuates inequality and discrimination. This has happened throughout history, when people focus very literally on singular passages. The Bible has been used to justify slavery (Ephesians 6:5-7, Leviticus 25:44-46), racism (Genesis 9:18-27), sexism (1 Timothy 2:11-14, 1 Corinthians 11:1-34), and r^pe (Deuteronomy 22:28-29, 23-24), among other things. The Bible has, seemingly clearly, justified slavery, racism, sexism, and r^pe. Assuming we don’t want to say that these things are okay, which I sincerely hope we don’t, we can’t look at the Bible in a one-sided way, assuming that exactly what it said, over two thousand years ago, is exactly what it should mean in this day and age. We have to take things within the context and with a grain of salt. For example, we, as humans and as Christians, have evolved to believe slavery is a horrible thing (which it very much is). However, many prominent slaveholders were Christians, and used the Bible to staunchly justify the fact that they held literal human beings as property. Do with that what you will, but one could use it as a glaring comparison with the Christian slavery of the 1800s and the Christian homophobia of today. The most important law, something God repeats over and over again, is to love thy neighbor (Matthew 22:39). You can't properly love thy neighbor when saying that love that they cannot control is sinful and invalid. That's not proper love, that's not how it works. You're choosing to tell a select group of people that the love that they feel is not "right" in your eyes, which some might call dislike or prejudice (Dictionary definition of homophobia! Dislike of or prejudice against gay people.) God made everyone fearfully and wonderfully (Psalm 139:14), he made no mistakes when making anyone gay, as like I said, being gay isn't a choice. It’s been proven by biologists to be something natural. One could find many more essays debunking the specific verses commonly used to condemn homosexuality (https://geekyjustin.com/great-debate/ is a great one), so I’m not going to get into that, partly because I am not a biblical scholar. I’m more focusing on the big, arbitrary picture here. My main message with this essay is that we have to put love over hate, and acceptance over discrimination. That’s the godly thing that we are called to do as Christians. Love isn’t holding another human being as your property. Love isn’t saying anyone is lesser than anyone else because they have different genitals or a different skin color. Love isn’t violating another human being, love isn’t calling anyone unnatural or inferior because of something they can’t control, because of something that does absolutely no harm. As I've said before, that's not love. That’s not how it works. Of course, I cannot force you into agreeing with my beliefs, as you cannot force me into agreeing with yours. However, I hope that you acknowledge that although I wrote this to persuade, only you can decide for yourself what you would like to believe, and if you will use your beliefs to hurt others.
