This page sets out the passages that are usually cited, what each one says in its context, how the English versions handle the disputed words, where Christian interpretations divide, and what the major traditions officially hold. It is written to describe rather than to settle, because the churches have not settled it and this page has no authority to do so on their behalf. It also keeps four things apart that are often run together: a person's orientation, their identity, their relationships, and specific sexual acts.
The passages usually cited, what they say in their contexts, where Christian interpretations divide, and what the major traditions officially teach.
Scripture
Key Verses
Now the two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them, bowed facedown, and said, “My lords, please turn aside into the house of your servant; wash your feet and spend the night. Then you can rise early and go on your way.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” But Lot insisted so strongly that they followed him into his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded the house. They called out to Lot, saying, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have relations with them!” Lot went outside to meet them, shutting the door behind him. “Please, my brothers,” he pleaded, “don’t do such a wicked thing! Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them to you, and you can do to them as you please. But do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” “Get out of the way!” they replied. And they declared, “This one came here as a foreigner, and he is already acting like a judge! Now we will treat you worse than them.” And they pressed in on Lot and moved in to break down the door. But the men inside reached out, pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. And they struck the men at the entrance, young and old, with blindness, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the door.
Two visitors arrive at Sodom and Lot takes them in as guests. The men of the city surround the house and demand that the visitors be brought out so that they may 'know' them; Lot refuses and offers his daughters instead, which the text records without approving; the visitors strike the crowd blind and the family escapes before the city is destroyed. The story is about violence done to guests inside a household that had offered them protection. Interpreters read its central sin differently — as attempted sexual assault, as a violation of hospitality, as arrogance and inhospitality, or as more than one of these at once — and the debate over which is primary is old.
You must not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination.
One prohibition inside a chapter of prohibitions addressed to Israel before the entry into the land. The American Standard Version reads: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.' The Hebrew phrase rendered 'as with womankind' is unusual, and what precisely the verse prohibits, and how far the surrounding chapter's concern with the practices of Israel's neighbours shapes it, is disputed in the scholarly literature. The same chapter also prohibits practices that Christians have not generally continued to observe, which is one reason the passage is read differently across traditions.
If a man lies with a man as with a woman, they have both committed an abomination. They must surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
The same prohibition appears again in a chapter of penalties, and this time a penalty is stated: 'they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.' Because the two verses are nearly identical in wording, discussions usually treat them together, and the questions about the Hebrew phrase and about the scope of the holiness code apply to both.
For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Part of an argument that begins at Romans 1:18, in which Paul describes humanity exchanging the truth about God for idolatry and being given over to the consequences of that exchange. He writes that women exchanged the natural use for that which is 'against nature', and that men likewise burned toward one another. The Greek phrase translated 'against nature' is para physin. What Paul is describing — whether same-sex orientation as it is understood today, or particular practices within an idolatrous setting, or something else — is the central point at issue in the interpretation of the passage.
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
A list of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God, followed immediately by verse 11: 'And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.' The two disputed words appear in the list: malakoi, rendered 'effeminate' by the King James and American Standard versions and 'male prostitutes' by the NRSV; and arsenokoitai, a rare word that may have been coined by Paul from the Greek words for 'male' and 'bed'. Some versions translate the two words separately and others merge them into a single phrase: the Christian Standard Bible merges them as 'males who have sex with males', and its footnote indicates that both participants are in view. Verse 11 is part of the passage and applies to the whole list rather than to any one item.
We realize that law is not enacted for the righteous, but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for killers of father or mother, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching
A similar list, in which Paul says the law is laid down for the lawless rather than for the righteous. Arsenokoitai appears again in the sequence, which is the main reason the two passages are usually discussed together. The same questions about the word's meaning apply.
In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.
Jude cites Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of judgement, saying that they 'gave themselves over to fornication, and went after strange flesh'. The phrase rendered 'strange flesh' is disputed, and interpreters differ over whether the sin in view is sexual, or the rejection of God's messengers, or both. The verse is short and allusive, and it leans on the Genesis narrative rather than restating it.
Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
Inside Paul's discussion of disagreements among believers over matters of conscience, he asks: 'Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls.' The chapter concerns food and the observance of days rather than sexuality, and it is included here for the posture it prescribes toward those who differ within the same community.
Ask ScriptureSide AI
Have questions about these verses? Ask for context, a prayer, or to compare this passage in the translation versions we serve, such as BSB or KJV.
Scripture Cards
Shareable Scripture Cards
Psalm 23:1
Scripture card
Philippians 4:13
Scripture card
Proverbs 3:5-6
Scripture card
01
How to read this page
This page has three jobs: to show what the passages usually cited actually say in their contexts, to set out where Christian interpretations divide, and to record what the major traditions officially hold. It does not argue for a conclusion, and it is written on the assumption that readers will differ from one another and from the person who wrote it.
Two limits are worth stating at the outset. The first is that this page cannot settle the question. The churches have not agreed on it, serious interpreters disagree, and a webpage has no standing to decide it for them. The second is that applying these passages to modern questions about orientation, identity and relationships requires interpretation. The date of a modern English term does not establish what the biblical writers knew or intended.
Where a word or phrase is genuinely disputed, this page names the dispute instead of resolving it, and where a claim could not be verified it has been left out rather than softened.
02
Genesis 19 and Judges 19
The story of Sodom in Genesis 19 is the passage most often invoked in this discussion, and it is a story about violence against guests. Two visitors are taken in by Lot; the men of the city surround the house and demand that the visitors be handed over so that they may 'know' them; Lot refuses and offers his daughters in their place, which the narrative reports without endorsing; the visitors blind the crowd, and the family is led out before the city is destroyed.
Because the demand is sexual, the story has been read as a condemnation of same-sex acts. Because the offence is committed against guests who had been taken in, it has also been read as a condemnation of inhospitality and of violence against the vulnerable — a reading supported by the way later biblical writers refer back to Sodom, where the accusations are of pride, plenty, and failure to help the poor (Ezekiel 16:49) and of injustice generally.
Judges 19 tells a closely parallel story set in Gibeah, in which a woman is handed over and killed. Read together, the two passages share a pattern of a host, a mob, a violation of hospitality, and a demand that the household surrender someone to it. Interpreters differ over which element is the primary offence, and the disagreement is not new; it goes back at least to the patristic period.
What the passage does not do is describe a consensual relationship, and that is one reason both traditional and affirming interpreters have been cautious about resting an argument on it.
03
Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13
Leviticus 18 is a chapter of prohibitions addressed to Israel before it enters the land, framed by warnings not to follow the practices of Egypt or Canaan. Verse 22 reads, in the American Standard Version: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.' Leviticus 20:13 repeats the prohibition in a chapter of penalties.
The Hebrew phrase behind 'as with womankind' is a rare construction, and what exactly it proscribes is a matter of scholarly argument rather than a settled point: whether the prohibition concerns male-male penetrative acts specifically, or a particular set of acts in a particular setting, and how far the chapter's concern with the practices of neighbouring peoples shapes its scope. The word rendered 'abomination' (to'evah) is used elsewhere in Leviticus for a range of cultic and moral offences, and does not by itself specify what kind of offence is in view.
The chapter also prohibits, among other things, sexual relations during menstruation, and various forms of intercourse with relatives, and Leviticus 20 attaches the death penalty to this offence together with several others in the same chapter. Christian traditions have not generally treated the whole of this material as binding in the same way, and how the parts relate to one another is one of the questions that divides them.
Interpreters who read these verses as a continuing prohibition and those who read them as addressed to a specific ancient setting both work from the same text. The disagreement is about scope and application rather than about what the words say.
04
Romans 1:26-27
Paul's argument in Romans opens by describing humanity turning from God to idolatry, and being given over to the consequences. Within that sequence he writes that women exchanged the natural use for that which is 'against nature', and that men in the same way burned in their desire toward one another.
The phrase translated 'against nature' is para physin, and it is the pivot of the dispute. In Greek usage outside the New Testament, 'contrary to nature' is used of a range of things that violate what is considered the order of things, and the question is what Paul means by it here: whether he is describing same-sex relations as such, or particular practices associated with the idolatry he has just described, or a departure from what he takes to be the created order, and whether he is describing behaviour or something closer to what we would now call orientation.
The passage sits inside an argument that continues past verse 27 and ends in a list of offences that includes gossip, insolence and disobedience to parents, and it turns at Romans 2 toward those who judge others for the very things they do themselves. Readers who take the passage as a prohibition and those who read it more narrowly both appeal to the shape of the argument, and the disagreement is about what Paul is describing and how far his description extends.
05
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10
Paul lists the kinds of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God, and the list includes two words that have been the subject of more argument than any others in this discussion. The first is malakoi, an ordinary Greek word meaning 'soft', which the King James and American Standard versions render 'effeminate' and modern versions handle in a variety of ways. The second is arsenokoitai, a rare term that may have been coined by Paul by combining the Greek words for 'male' and 'bed'. It appears again in 1 Timothy 1:10 in a similar list, which is why the two passages are discussed together.
The two words present different interpretive questions. Malakoi is an ordinary Greek word for soft; the question here is its particular use in this list. Arsenokoitai has few surviving occurrences, so its interpretation draws on its components, the contexts where it appears, and later usage. Those components alone do not settle its meaning.
Two things about the passage are not in dispute. The first is that these words name something the writer considers wrong, whatever the exact reference. The second is verse 11, which belongs to the same passage and applies to the whole list: 'and such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified.' Any reading of the list that separates it from the sentence following it is reading against the shape of the paragraph.
06
Jude 7
Jude cites Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of judgement, saying that they gave themselves over to fornication and went after 'strange flesh'. The phrase is disputed: it may refer to sexual sin generally, to the attempted assault on the visitors in Genesis 19, or to the pursuit of angels, which is the reading some interpreters favour because of the way the verse is constructed.
Because the verse is short and allusive and depends on the Genesis narrative rather than restating it, it is usually treated as a supporting text rather than a primary one, and the questions that apply to Genesis 19 apply here as well.
07
Where interpretations divide
Two broad families of reading run through the literature and through the churches. Neither is the property of a single denomination, and neither is held by all Christians; the summary below is a description of positions rather than an argument for either.
Traditional interpreters hold that the Bible consistently treats same-sex sexual acts as contrary to God's intention for human sexuality, that the passages above say so in their own terms, and that the church is therefore to teach and practise according to that understanding while treating those who experience same-sex attraction with respect, compassion and an avoidance of unjust discrimination — a combination stated explicitly in the Roman Catholic Catechism quoted below. Scholarly statements of this position include Richard Hays's response to Boswell and William Loader's study of Romans 1, both listed in the sources.
Some affirming interpreters argue that the passages have been misread, and the arguments differ from passage to passage rather than forming a single case. On Genesis 19, a reading associated with scholars including Bartlett and Phyllis Bird holds that the sin of Sodom is inhospitality and violence against guests rather than same-sex relations as such, and that reading is both reported and contested in the peer-reviewed literature. On Leviticus, some interpreters argue that the prohibition's target is not sex between men as such: one recent reading holds that its concern is the erasure of the social difference between man and woman, and an older line of argument holds that it addresses cultic prostitution, which other scholars have questioned on historical grounds. On Romans 1, interpreters differ over whether Paul condemns all same-sex relations or only the idolatrous excess of Gentile culture, and John Boswell's and Richard Hays's readings are commonly treated as the paradigmatic pair in that debate. On 1 Corinthians 6:9 the argument turns on two rare Greek words whose meanings are disputed rather than settled. On these readings the Bible does not address committed same-sex relationships, and so does not condemn them. Affirming interpreters do not all take the same route to that conclusion, and some of the arguments above are disputed among them as well as by others.
There is also a range of positions between these, including the view that the texts prohibit certain acts without speaking to orientation, and the view that the church's disagreement is itself the thing to be borne patiently rather than resolved by argument.
The summary above is limited to the arguments this page could verify from sources it read; the literature on both sides is larger, and the sources below, including a survey of the scholarship on Leviticus 18-20, are the place to go further. The arguments turn on the meaning of particular words and on the shape of particular arguments, which summaries cannot carry. Where a detailed treatment is listed below rather than described here, that is because its full text was not read while preparing this page.
08
How the English versions differ at 1 Corinthians 6:9
The translations below render the same two Greek words, and the differences are large enough to be worth seeing together. The King James Version (1611) reads 'nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind'. The English Revised Version (1881) and the American Standard Version (1901) keep 'effeminate' and read 'abusers of themselves with men'. Weymouth (1903) reads 'nor any who are guilty of unnatural crime'.
Among modern versions the two words are handled in two different ways. Some keep them separate: the New American Standard Bible (1977) reads 'nor effeminate, nor homosexuals'; the New King James Version reads 'nor homosexuals, nor sodomites'; the New Revised Standard Version reads 'male prostitutes, sodomites'; and the NET Bible reads 'passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals'. Others merge them into a single phrase: the Christian Standard Bible reads 'males who have sex with males', with a footnote indicating that both participants are in view; the English Standard Version reads 'men who practice homosexuality'; and the New International Version reads 'men who have sex with men'.
The renderings above are quoted from the versions themselves. Setting them side by side is not a way of identifying a winner, and it does not settle what the two Greek words mean: it shows that translators working from the same Greek have read them differently enough to produce noticeably different English, which is something a reader who wants to understand the passage needs to know. How much the words are in doubt is a question for the lexical and exegetical work rather than for a count of translations. The verse comparison tool linked below will show any of these side by side for a passage you choose.
09
What the Christian traditions officially hold
Denominations differ, and some are internally divided. What follows records positions that were verified from official documents on 16 September 2026, and nothing is asserted about a tradition whose official text could not be checked.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches, in the Catechism, that homosexual acts are 'intrinsically disordered' and that 'under no circumstances can they be approved', and in the same section that those who experience a predominant same-sex attraction 'must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity' and that 'every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided'. It describes the inclination as a trial, and calls homosexual persons to chastity. Both halves belong to the official text, and quoting one without the other misrepresents it.
The Church of England's General Synod, meeting in February 2026, affirmed that the Prayers of Love and Faith are in use in regular services, while confirming that new bespoke services for same-sex couples would require formal authorisation under canon law, and approved a working group to explore both that process and what legislation would be needed to license or ordain same-sex married clergy. The motion also lamented the pain many have suffered during the process, and the Archbishop of York said the Church remains deeply divided. The Living in Love and Faith programme concluded by July 2026.
The United Methodist Church's 2024 General Conference removed the prohibitions that had excluded practising homosexual persons from ministry and forbidden clergy to preside at same-sex unions, and removed the statement that 'the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching' from its Social Principles. In November 2025 the denomination ratified a restructuring that gives each regional conference the same authority to adapt the Book of Discipline, including the authority to set its own practices for marriage rites; the practical effect is that these questions are now decided region by region, and central conferences in Africa and the Philippines have kept their existing prohibitions.
Other traditions — Anglican provinces, Lutheran and Reformed bodies, Baptist conventions, Pentecostal and Orthodox churches — hold a range of positions, and some have changed their position in recent decades. The official texts of those bodies were not verified while preparing this page, so their positions are not stated here. A reader who wants to know what a particular church teaches should ask that church for its own statement rather than rely on a summary.
10
What this means for a reader
Whatever conclusion a reader reaches about the passages, several things follow from the material above. The first is that the four categories — orientation, identity, relationships and acts — are not interchangeable, and that most of the confusion in this discussion comes from treating a statement about one as though it settled another.
The second concerns what the professional bodies hold, and on this the American Psychological Association's own wording is worth quoting. Its 2009 task force report states that 'same-sex sexual attractions, behavior and orientations per se are normal and positive variants of human sexuality — in other words, they do not indicate either mental or developmental disorders', and it concluded that efforts to change sexual orientation are 'unlikely to be successful' and 'involve some risk of harm'. The report is published at apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexual-orientation, and the Association's policy statements, including the Resolution on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts adopted in February 2021, are collected at apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/policy.
The third concerns attempts to change a person's sexual orientation. The American Psychological Association has adopted a resolution opposing them, and this page does not recommend them, describe them favourably, or present them as a pastoral option. Anyone who encounters such a suggestion should consult the Association's published position rather than accept it.
The fourth is about how to treat people. The Roman Catholic Catechism's instruction to avoid 'every sign of unjust discrimination' is stated in the same section as its teaching on acts, and the pattern of distinguishing a person's standing from a disputed question about behaviour recurs across traditions. Paul's question in Romans 14:4 — who are you to judge another's servant? — was written about disagreements over food and days, and its posture is not irrelevant to a disagreement this much sharper.
Anyone for whom this subject is not abstract should talk to a person rather than to a page: a pastor, a trusted friend, or a counsellor. And a reader who finds that this page has not answered their question should take that as accurate rather than as a gap in the page. It has not been answered here because it has not been settled.
11
Sources and further reading
Primary sources verified for this page on 16 September 2026, with links: the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2357-2359 at usccb.org; the Church of England's news release of 13 February 2026 on the General Synod motion, at churchofengland.org; UM News, 'New United Methodist Church structure ratified', 5 November 2025, at umnews.org; and the United Methodist Church's own account of the 2024 Book of Discipline changes at umc.org. The translation renderings compared above were read from a parallel display of the versions at biblehub.com, and the coining of the word 'homosexual' in 1869 by Karl-Maria Kertbeny is recorded in reference sources. The position of the American Psychological Association on sexual orientation and on change efforts is set out by the Association itself at apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexual-orientation and apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/policy.
Peer-reviewed work that bears directly on these passages, listed so that readers can consult it rather than a summary: Saul M. Olyan, 'And with a male you shall not lie the lying down of a woman: on the meaning and significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13', Journal of the History of Sexuality 5:2 (1994), 179-206; Mark P. Stone, 'Don't Do What to Whom? A Survey of Historical-Critical Scholarship on Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13', Currents in Biblical Research 20:3 (2022), 203-233; Richard B. Hays, 'Relations Natural and Unnatural: A Response to John Boswell's Exegesis of Romans 1', Journal of Religious Ethics 14:1 (1986); Bernadette J. Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (University of Chicago Press, 1996); Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible); and Ernest Nyarko, 'Malakoi (Effeminates) and Avrsenokoitai (Homosexuals): A Reflection on 1 Corinthians 6:9 from a Ghanaian (Akan) Perspective', E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies 7:12 (2021), 201-214, which is open access.
Exegetical work whose published abstracts were read while preparing this page, listed so that readers can check the limited arguments attributed above: S. Olanisebe and A. Adelakun, 'Re-Interpreting Sodom and Gomorrah Passages in the Context of Homosexuality Controversy: A Nigerian Perspective', Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies 3:2 (2014), 191-209, which reports and contests the inhospitality reading; Carmen Dell'Aversano, 'How does one lie with a woman? The performance of gender in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26)', Whatever 3:1 (2020), 29-44, open access, arguing that the prohibition's object is not sex between men as such; Ken Stone, 'The Hermeneutics of Abomination: On Gay Men, Canaanites, and Biblical Interpretation', Biblical Theology Bulletin (1997), on the cultic-prostitution reading and the historical objections to it; William K. Gilders, 'Romans 1:26-27 and Homosexuality: A Study in Text and Context' (1993), which treats Boswell's and Hays's readings as the paradigmatic pair; and William Loader, 'Paul on Same-Sex Relations in Romans 1', Interpretation (2020), for the traditional reading. The abstracts of these works, rather than their full texts, were read. Attributions on this page are limited to points explicitly supported by those abstracts and do not describe the full arguments. The preceding further-reading list includes works whose full arguments were not verified and to which this page attributes no conclusions. The Olanisebe and Adelakun abstract documents a debate about Genesis 19; it does not provide a complete commentary on that passage or on Judges 19.
Context in Scripture
Four things are kept apart on this page because they are often run together: a person's orientation, meaning the pattern of attraction they report; their identity, meaning how they describe themselves; their relationships, meaning what they do with others, including marriage, friendship and celibacy; and specific sexual acts. A statement about one of these is not automatically a statement about the others.
The English word 'homosexual' was coined in 1869. That is a fact about the English word, and it does not by itself establish what the biblical writers knew or meant; that question belongs to the exegesis of the passages rather than to the date of the term.
The passages usually cited are few, and their interpretation is contested in the scholarly literature as well as in the churches. Where the meaning of a word or phrase is genuinely uncertain, this page says so rather than treating the uncertainty as evidence for a conclusion.
The sources for this page were verified on 16 September 2026, which is the date those checks were made; the page itself was last edited on the same date. The two are not the same thing and are recorded separately, because a page can be edited without its sources being rechecked. Denominational positions change, and where a position is quoted below it is dated.
Put it into practice
Read whichever passage concerns you in its whole chapter, not only in the verses usually quoted, and note what the surrounding argument is doing.
Compare two translations on the same verse. Where they diverge, something in the original is open to more than one rendering, and that is worth knowing before drawing a conclusion.
If you belong to a church, ask your pastor what your own tradition officially teaches and where that is written down, rather than assuming it from what you have heard.
If this subject touches your own life or your family, do not carry it alone, and do not let a webpage — including this one — be your only counsel.
A Prayer for You
Lord, give me honesty about what the text says, humility about what I do not know, and charity toward those who read it differently from me. Amen.
Genesis 19:1-11, with its parallel in Judges 19; Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, with 1 Timothy 1:9-10; and Jude 7. Some discussions also cite Genesis 1-2 on creation and marriage, and Matthew 19 on divorce and marriage, as background rather than as direct statements on the subject.
Does the Bible mention sexual orientation?
The English word 'homosexual' was coined in 1869, and the modern category of sexual orientation developed in the nineteenth century. Whether the biblical writers had an equivalent idea is a question about the texts rather than about the date of the word, and interpreters answer it differently. What the passages address is acts and relationships.
Why do English Bibles translate 1 Corinthians 6:9 so differently?
The two words raise different questions: malakoi is an ordinary Greek word for soft whose specific use here requires interpretation, while arsenokoitai has few surviving occurrences. Translators also differ over whether to render the two words separately or as one phrase. The result is renderings as different as 'effeminate', 'male prostitutes', and 'males who have sex with males'.
Do all Christians agree about this?
No. Two broad families of reading — traditionally non-affirming and affirming — are both represented in the churches and in the scholarly literature, along with positions between them. Neither is the consensus of all Christians, and several denominations are internally divided.
What do the major churches officially teach?
It varies. The Roman Catholic Catechism describes homosexual acts as intrinsically disordered while requiring that such persons be treated with respect and that unjust discrimination be avoided. The Church of England permits the Prayers of Love and Faith in regular services but not yet bespoke services or same-sex marriage for clergy. The United Methodist Church removed its prohibitions in 2024 and now decides such questions region by region.
Does this page take a position?
No. It describes the texts and the readings and records what the traditions officially hold. It does not argue for a conclusion, and it states plainly where a word's meaning is uncertain rather than treating the uncertainty as evidence for one side.
Study notes prepared by:ScriptureSide Editorial Team
Prepared with AI assistance
Last updated: 2026-09-20
Disclaimer: This page describes what the biblical texts say and how they have been read. It does not settle a question the churches have not settled, and it is not a substitute for your own pastor or for professional care.
Share this topic card in a newsletter, blog, or church site. The embed links back to ScriptureSide so readers can explore the full study.
<a href="https://www.scriptureside.app/topics/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">
<img src="https://www.scriptureside.app/api/og?type=topic&title=What+Does+the+Bible+Say+about+Homosexuality%3F&subtitle=The+passages+usually+cited%2C+what+each+one+says+in+its+context%2C+how+the+English+versions...&cta=Open+the+topic&sourceLabel=Bible+Topic&accent=sage" alt="What Does the Bible Say about Homosexuality? | ScriptureSide" width="1200" height="630" />
</a>
