The hyperbole and the emotional upset among the religious right does not seem to have diminished much since the SCOTUS ruling in favor of marriage equality. And, one of the erroneous news stories that some conservative journalists have put out there involves the lawsuit of a man against a Bible publisher over including the word "homosexuals" in the I Corinthians 6:9 passage of the Bible. They say President Obama and the SCOTUS ruling emboldened this gay man to file the lawsuit. The problem is that the suit was filed in 2008, and has since been dismissed because of lack of Article III standing. Follow me below the fold for more information.
From the Christian Post (7/10/08):
A homosexual man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, alleging that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him emotional distress.
Fowler, who is representing himself in both cases, claims that Zondervan manipulated Scripture by using the term "homosexuals" in 1 Corinthians 6:9 of their 1982 and 1987 revised edition Bibles. He also contends that the reference to homosexuality were deleted by the publisher in later versions without informing the public.
He alleges that since the older Kings James Version containing the term "homosexuals" is used by his family pastor, he has been outcast by his family.
Actually, there is no King James Version of the Bible with the word "homosexuals" in it that I am aware of. But, there are some newer version of the Bible with that language in them.
And from snopes.com:
On 9 July 2015, the disreputable web site Truth Uncensored published an article titled “Gay Man Files $70M Lawsuit Against Bible Publishers Over ‘Homosexual’ Verses” which suggested that President Obama and the U.S. Supreme Court acted in a manner to inspire “suits like this” that are now “occurring all over the country” — citing as an example the case of a (presumably newly emboldened gay man) who had just filed a lawsuit against publishers of the Bible:
Barack Obama and the Supreme Court are to blame for suits like this that are occurring all over the country.
A gay man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, claiming that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him great emotional distress.
Daily Headlines reported that Bradley LaShawn Fowler, an ex-con turned author, filed the federal suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, the same day a judge refused to appoint him a lawyer for his suit against Thomas Nelson, The Grand Rapids Press reported.
Truth Uncensored cited Daily Headlines as a source for their report, linking to an article that made similar assertions:
That article linked back to a Christian Post piece titled “Gay Man Files $70M Suit Against Bible Publishers Over ‘Homosexual’ Verses.” However, the date of the article (displayed directly under the title) was 10 July 2008. As such, not only did it describe events that occurred seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling purportedly to blame for it, it also occurred before President Obama was elected to the White House (much less inaugurated and thereby able to direct national policy).
The mistake in the first report was discovered and a correction made, but other conservative sites picked up the story and ran with it anyway.
The original lawsuit was dismissed because the gentleman did not have standing. You must have a concrete and particularized personal injury for standing in federal court and not just a generalized complaint. Nevertheless, did he have a point about the I Corinthians passage? Yes.
The following is from a diary that I wrote on 12/22/13. I have updated it with additional new information.
Let's quote I Corinthians 6:9-10 in the KJV of the Bible first. It states:
9) Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10) Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
The passage was written in a letter that Paul (Saul of Tarsus) wrote to the church at Corinth. The language used was Koine Greek. The verse has been mistranslated in many of the more modern versions of the Bible, particularly to include homosexuals or persons who have sex with others of the same sex. The Koine Greek words in question are "malakos" which is translated to "effeminate" in the KJV and "arsenokoites" which is translated to "abusers of themselves with mankind" in the KJV.
The NIV translates malakos to "male prostitutes." The Living Bible translates it to "homosexuals." And, the Interlinear Bible translates it to "abusers." In Koine Greek, the word literally means "soft." It was generally used to describe clothing worn by the Roman elite of Paul's time. Since the word was used in a list here, there is very little if any context to its usage. Therefore, it's difficult to see how these translators came up with those translations. The word's usage in I Corinthians is ambiguous at best. Some scholars believe that Paul simply meant persons with soft or very limited morals in general. Others believe that he meant persons who were spineless or cowards. It took great courage to be a practicing Christian during this time period, so I guess that is possible. But, homosexual? Really??
In Greek ethical theory, which was adopted by the Romans, the idea of "softness" was used to refer to men who didn't have control over their desires. That could apply to sexual desires, but also to pretty much any desire. It also referred to men who were too eager to avoid pain.
In both these regards, they would have been seen as "womanish." (Never mind all the brave, stalwart, temperate, and scornful-of-pain Greek women of whom the poets sang. Eh, since when are gender norms logical?)
From Gay Christian 101:
The remarkable semantic shift in the meaning of malakoi, which by 1958, came to equate malakoi with homosexuality instead of softness, moral weakness or the effeminacy of temple prostitutes, was not prompted by new linguistic evidence. Instead, cultural factors influenced modern translators to inject anti-gay bias into their translation.
It's very interesting to look at all the different ways that various translations and versions of the Bible have translated that word through the years as listed in the above site. And, in no version or translation does the word homosexual appear until 1958.
The most problematic word is "arsenokoites." It is a word that Paul apparently made up from two other words which meant man or male and bed. The KJV translates this one to "abusers of themselves with mankind." The NIV translates this word to "homosexual offenders." The Interlinear Bible translates the word to "homosexuals." J. B. Phillips translates this word to "perverts." In I Timothy 1:10, the New English Bible translates this word to perverts." The words are repeated in I Timothy 1:10 with various other translations. It's even more unclear how one would get homosexual out of this word "arsenokoites." Arsenokoites is apparently a hapax legomenon, and we simply do not have enough references of the word (in context) to know what it means.
At the time of Martin Luther, "arsenokoitai" was universally interpreted as masturbator. But by the 20th century, masturbation had become a more generally accepted behavior. So, new translations abandoned references to masturbators and switched the attack to homosexuals. The last religious writing in English that interpreted 1 Corinthians 6:9 as referring to masturbation is believed to be the [Roman] Catholic Encyclopedia of 1967.
One of the few references to arsenokoites that gives a clue as to its meaning, that of John the Faster, a Patriarch, expresses concern that men are arsenokoitein with their WIVES.
There are a whole lot of ways to have sex, but a man's being homosexual with his wife is something I'm having trouble understanding.
In addition, Gay Christian 101 gives us a list of some of the earliest uses of arsenokoites after Paul coined the word. I'll list just a few, but you can review the site for other early uses.
Sibylline Oracle 2:70-78. The context is stealing, falsely accusing and murder. The meaning is not defined.
Epistle of Ignatius to the Tarsians. Ignatius quotes I Corinthians 6:9 without providing a definition.
Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians. Polycarp quotes I Corinthians 6:9 without providing a definition.
Define arsenokoites. Acts of John 36. The context is robber, defrauder, thief but no definition is provided. Arsenokoithj is translated sodomite here, which indicates a shrine prostitute.
Define arsenokoites. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 3.11. Clement twice quotes I Corinthians 6:9, without providing a definition.
Define arsenokoites. Aristides, Apology, 13. Aristides, a Christian preacher, delivered his Apology around AD 125. The context was interspecies rape and Greek gods committing adultery, murder and arsenokoitia with humans.
The above information was collected from the University of California Irvine's Greek Language Thesaurus.
The Greek Language Thesaurus, is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. Founded in 1972 the TLG has collected and digitized most literary texts written in Greek, from Homer in the 8th century BC to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453.
One last point that I would like to make is what exactly did Paul mean by "the Kingdom of God?" We do have an answer to that question in Paul's own words from Romans 14:17. It states:
17) For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. (KJV)
I doubt that he meant that it was this wonderful magical place with "streets paved with gold" that is spoken of in Revelation.