What does Sodom and Gomorrah teach us about gays?

Answer 1

In Genesis 18, three messengers appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, and Abraham negotiated with one of them, the Lord, to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if good men could be found to live there.

Two messengers went to Sodom and visited Lot at his house. That evening all the men of Sodom surrounded the house, demanding to rape the two 'men' who were visiting Lot. Lot offered to let them have his two virgin daughters instead, but the two messengers made all the men blind.

If this tells us anything about gays, it first tells us that Lot did not really believe that his neighbours were really gay, or he would not have believed that the offer of his two virgin daughters would dissuade them. And presumably it tells us that all gays are rapists, a claim that we now know to be untrue.

The mythical nature of the story is evidenced not only by the presence of two and three messengers (although modern interpretations prefer to call them angels) but also by the story of Lot's wife inexplicably being turned into a pillar of salt. A myth tells us much about the those who created the myth and those who accepted it, but rarely anything about the characters in the myth. In this case, the story tells us more about attitudes to gay people rather than about the gay people themselves.