I want you to think for a second of the story of Matthew Shepard.
Matthew Shepard was a student at University of Wyoming in Laramie. He was a bright, articulate, and attractive young man. He studied political science, and was elected as a student representative on the Wyoming Environmental Council. He was gay. And, as we cannot forget, he was the victim of one of the most barbarous hate crimes of the 1990s.
According to prosecutors, Matthew Shepard met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson on October 6, 1998 at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming. McKinney and Henderson pretended to be gay to win over Matthew Shepard's trust. From there they lured him to their car with the promise of a ride home. It seems clear that this was an all too common gay bashing ruse where homophobic men set out to find their prey, they come on to a gay man in some fashion by promising friendship or feigning sexual or romantic interest, or in any way demonstrate some desire to get to know their target in order to get their target alone, and from there commit a brutal act of violence against the victim.
That's what they did to Matthew Shepard. And the unimaginable overkill in which they perpetrated their crime is common in anti-gay hate crimes: they pistol whipped Matthew Shepard, tortured him, tied him to a post like a post-modern crucifixion, and left him to die. When Matthew Shepard's body was discovered eighteen hours later by Aaron Kreifels, a cyclist, it appeared to Kreifels that Shepard was a scarecrow. Matthew didn't look human, and it may seem cold to say it, but that is appropriate. The whole point of such hate crimes is to de-humanize the victim and his class. So, Matthew Shepard was a scarecrow meant to drive fear in all who are like him.
Sometimes hate mongers state literally what their goal is by perpetrating such ghastly acts of violence. Take the recent gay bashing of Brandon White in Atlanta that was videotaped by the bashers themselves. They state clearly what their goals are: "no faggots in Jack City." The point is to terrorize, and all too often they succeed, just listen to Brandon White's words in response to the attack: "The scars run deeper than anyone will know. The physical pain, I can get over that. My thing is: Who's to say they won't come after me again? Who's to say they won't kill me?"
Is this not a very grievous sin?
The traditional Christian telling of the story of Sodom is that God sent two angels to Sodom to see if he could find ten righteous men in the town, if he could not, he would destroy the whole town. The angels, who are seen as men go to Sodom and are invited to stay with Lot and his family. But the men of Sodom were sex-crazed homosexuals who wanted to have sex with the angels. Lot offers up his virgin daughter. The men, being homosexuals and all, turn up their noses at this virgin and demand a chance to get to know the angels. They break into Lot's house. The angels then blind the men to confuse them, and tell Lot to gather up his family and to leave Sodom, and never look back. Lot and his family leaves, and as punishment for their inequity Sodom, and sister city Gomorrah are destroyed by God. The lesson we are supposed to learn from this story? Homosexuality is a huge horrible sin, and if you let it go on in your town, your whole town will become depraved, and God will destroy it.
As pointed out in this diary here yesterday, this view is still promulgated in the media. CNN gave a platform to Kenneth Hutcherson, a minister, to recite this traditional view:
When I read about Sodom and Gomorrah, I believe God is saying that the right thing to do is for a man and a woman to be in a relationship without sexual sin and if you stray from that, it is very detrimental to society. Sodom and Gomorrah practiced the rampant sexual sin of homosexuality and because of that God brought judgment on the cities and destroyed them with fire because of the sin of homosexuality acts (Genesis 19:1-29.) ~link
Yup! That's the traditional reading of what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, if that's the case than Rev Hutcherson has a point as do all the traditionalists. There's a problem with that, though: the story of Sodom and Gomorrah doesn't say anything about "rampant homosexuality."
What does the Bible say was the sin of Sodom?
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50
Now that sounds much more like the guys who run Bain Capital than homosexuality. But, be that as it may, let's examine the actual text of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from the Bible. It starts in Genesis 18:19 and goes through Genesis 19:29. In it God sends two angels, who appear as men, to Sodom. There they are met by Lot who offers them hospitality and invites to his home.
Genesis 19:1-3:
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.” 3But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
So, we can see a set up here: the angels are strangers in Sodom, Lot (the good guy) leads him back to their home to offer them accommodations because this is what a good Jew would do when he sees strangers entering his town. But before long all of town's populace gathers around Lot's house demanding Lot to send the Angels out so that they may have a chance to
know them:
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
Now the inference that the traditionalists take away from the "know" here is that it is meant as a sexual connotation. We don't need to argue against that. It's largely irrelevant. Remember the Matthew Shepard story? Remember how McKinney and Henderson feigned being gay to gain the trust of Matthew Shepard? Even if we agree that the connotation of this "know" is sexual it doesn't necessarily reveal the true intentions of the people of Sodom who gathered around Lot's house that night.
This talk of "wanting to know the men," who are perceived as having travelled together to Sodom, could all be a ruse. The people of Sodom may have no sexual intent at all, they may simply be setting the new strangers in their town up for a brutal violent attack. But before we investigate that possibility let's see how Lot is interpreting these events.
And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
There's a lot to examine here. But the easiest thing to know is that Lot does not perceive these men to be exclusively homosexual, if homosexual at all, because he is offering these men his virgin daughters.
Further, we can see that in these times, even righteous men had so little value for females as they would willingly sacrifice them to a rowdy mob if it protected men. But it is also important to note that Lot's behavior here is not considered unusual at all. It was common to offer a virgin daughter or two to sooth a mob and get yourself out of a dangerous situation in those times. So, all we know for sure is that Lot is sensing that a dangerous situation is evolving and he wants to soothe the mob outside. We know another thing: Lot lives in this town so he knows these people best, yet he does not see them as gay males. He sees them as heterosexual, or in the very least, bisexual, and he's certain that offering up his daughters will appease the mob.
And we know another thing: these men who lot believes are sexually attracted to females are not particularly interested in sex, because they turn down the opportunity for sex:
And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
Wait! What? They don't want sex, do they? What do they want? Let's see this statement again:
This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them.
Now, we just found out something about Lot that we didn't know yet: Lot is an immigrant in this town. He's an outsider. He's on the margins of Sodom's society. And what angers the crowd is that this man who is but an immigrant himself dare try to tell the natives of this town what to do! And what do they say to that?
now will we deal worse with thee, than with them
Wait! What happened to all that sex stuff? "We are going to deal worse with you than with them?" That doesn't sound like they were going to have wild passionate sex with the men (who like Lot are immigrants to this town). When someone deals badly with you what are they doing? Are they having sex with you or are did they do something to harm you? I think right here this mob as revealed their intentions. They intended to deal with the angels badly. They were going to commit some brutal violent act against the angels! This wanting to "know you" stuff was just a ruse!
This seems to have many of the dimensions of a gay bashing. The pair of angels could double as a pair of gay men. The mob wishes to lure these gay men outside, and from there it is a bait and switch: they would deal badly with them -- commit some violent act against them.
Now, I'm not saying the angels were gay. But it could well be that they were perceived that way. In fact, if you go with the traditional reading of this story, that the men of Sodom who had gathered outside Lot's house were gay men looking for gay sex, then you have no choice but to agree with me when I say that the men of Sodom perceived the Angels as gay men. The only difference in my interpretation and the traditional interpretation then is that I see the men outside Lot's house as homophobic men wanting to deal badly with men they perceive to be gay. Remember: you don't actually have to be gay to singled out for a homophobic attack. You just have to be perceived that way.
Was the story unfolding before us a story of an imminent homophobic attack only thwarted through divine intervention? Well, I don't think we can say that for sure. But to my gay ears, perched on my gay experience, this sounds all too familiar.
Nonetheless, this is a powerful story, not about gay sex, but about the evils of prejudice, the violence it inspires, and God's vengeance against those who would carry out such violent acts. One can tell that Lot is a victim of prejudice in this story. He is an outsider, an immigrant to Sodom, and he will be dealt with worse than the angels he showed hospitality to because he stepped out of his place as a lowly immigrant to judge the men of Sodom as wicked for their intention to harm the angels. The two angels are also seen as outsiders, whether they were seen as gay, or just two more immigrants in Lot's household, or a combination of both, we know that the men of Sodom had every intent on victimizing them because of their status as outsiders. And THAT is repeatedly condemned throughout the Bible.
So, who are the Sodomites? They weren't Matthew Shepard or Brandon White. They were those who used a ruse to lure their prey into a violent attack in the case of Matthew Shepard. They were those who sent a violent message to an outsider like Brandon White to stay out of their neighborhood. And one thing is clear, sodomites are NOT those who express their love and passion for one another in sex, because THAT was never the intent of the inhabitants of Sodom.
3:57 PM PT: Thanks to Anglican Kossacks for the republish!
6:02 PM PT: Thanks to Angry Gays, and Milkmen and Women for the re-publish.