But as Job 36:13-14 (NIV) describes, the motive for seeking homosexual contacts in the temples of the nations surrounding the Hebrews was bitterness. That is typically the motive that clients of Exodus International express as the root of their homosexuality.

Johnston's argument is strange indeed. He wants to say that homosexuality is OK when it is not linked with idolatry, but the form of his argument is such that child sacrifice would be OK if not linked with idolatry. The Leviticus passages which condemn homosexuality also condemn incest. That suggests that more is at issue than idolatry and than being different from the gentiles for the sake of difference.

Homosexuality is not merely incidental to pagan idolatry. Today in the Inca marketplace in Cusco, Peru, one can buy clay figurines of erect penises. The centrality of the phallic symbol in Inca worship was not incidental to the idolatry: it was the thing idolized. Similarly, Baal worship in the OT was more than just a vague worship of fertility. Johnston tries to shift our focus from the thing worshipped to the kind of worship: he emphasizes its promiscuity (Johnston 106) and its violation of commitment, bisexuals for example violating marriage commitments. (107) Johnston although pro-gay condemns them as well.

That homosexuality is often the worship of the male sexual organ is the typical experience of gay men who are clients of Exodus International. All but one condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible does not apply to lesbians. Love and lust are mixed in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships. See further under Experience.

21 August 1996. Copyright information is available.