Question about New (now Old) Testament

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Richelle Votaw" 
<rvotaw at i...> wrote:
> 4  Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the 
> city of Sodom-both young and old-surrounded the house.
> 5  They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? 
> Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
> 
> This is followed, of course, by Lot offering the men his two virgin
> daughters,  who they had no interest in.

And this is, of course, why I shudder at the idea of using Lot as a 
role-model.  Yes, lets all just offer up our daughters to be raped 
by enormous crowds because of the code of hospitality.

Which brings us round to what this passage is really about--rape.  
It was a very common practice in the ancient Middle East for 
victorious armies to drive their victory home by raping the members 
of the losing army.  This is not the same as two men or two women 
having loving, consensual sexual relations.  It is a violent act to 
communicate complete subjugation.  Many biblical scholars now 
believe that the men Lot was sheltering were believed (incorrectly) 
by the crowd to be enemies of the state.  The people in the mob were 
not asking to "have sex with them."  They were asking Lot to be 
patriotic and give the men up so that they could be subjugated and 
raped, so he offers his daughters to the mob instead.  What we 
really see in this passage is that it is okay for women to be raped 
but not men.  But this passage has absolutely nothing to do with 
whether two people of the same gender who love each other and have 
sexual relations are doing anything inherently wrong.  

--Barb

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