Homosexuality

Homosexuality. The attitude of religions to homosexuality is obscured by the extremely wide reference of the term (in some religions, for example, particular acts may be condemned, but not the disposition itself, and not all acts), by the ambiguities in the status of eunuchs, and by the uncertainty whether the term covers both males and females. In general, homosexuality is regarded as abnormal (standing outside the norms of nature and practice); there is then much difference concerning the ‘normativeness of the norm’—i.e. how much it has to be covered by law. In Judaism, certain kinds of sexual activity are forbidden, including incest and adultery. The prohibitions against ‘men lying with men as with a woman’ occur in Leviticus (18. 22; 20. 13). According to the rabbis, the prohibition is a part of the Noachide Laws, and thus applies to all people (i.e. to gentiles as much as to Jews). The penalties are karet (being cut off from the people of Israel, Leviticus 18. 29) and death (Leviticus 20. 13). Very little is said about relations between women (known as mesoleloth). Christianity inherited the prohibitions and amplified them with the condemnations of homosexual acts in Romans 1. 26–7 (including women), 1 Corinthians 6. 9, and 1 Timothy 1. 10. While some Christian exegesis has drawn attention to a distinction between (i) context-dependent applications and the more fundamental context-independent command to love, and (ii) the condition of homosexuality which lies in nature and particular acts which would have to be assessed for morality just as heterosexual acts have to be, the Roman Catholic Church has moved strongly to maintain the condemnation, describing the homosexual orientation as ‘an objective disorder’ (On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, 1986); the Catechism of the Catholic Church recognized that homosexuality is basically not a matter of choice, but insisted that homosexual persons are called to a life of chastity. In Islam, homosexuals (qaum Lut, the people of Lot, or Lutis) are condemned in the story of Lot's people in the Qurʾān (e.g. 15. 73 f.; 26. 165 f.), and in the last address of Muḥammad. Some argue that since penetration has to be involved, homosexual acts between women should be less severely punished. In any case, shariʿa is, as usual, concerned with public behaviour, so there is no strong condemnation of homosexuality if it is not displayed in public.

In India, the evaluation is more complex, because of the many strands of religious life. In general, it is clear that for twice-born Hindus, ‘homosexual acts’ (maithunaṃ puṃsi) are condemned (e.g. Manusmṛti 11. 174 f., both men and women). But attitudes vary. The Kāma Sūtra specifically states that physical sex between two people of the same sex (as also of the opposite) ‘is to be engaged in and enjoyed for its own sake as one of the arts’. The evaluation depends on the context and on what is appropriate (i.e. dharma) for it. Among Buddhists, the issue is subsumed under the general dynamic of Buddhist societies, in which the choice is between monastic celibacy and lay life. While consideration is given to homosexual acts within communities, there seems to have been little isolation of homosexuality as such.

All these considerations were formed at a time when the ‘natural nature’ of homosexuality (and particularly of the genetic contribution to this widespread human condition) were not known. Religions which affirm the goodness of sexuality in its own right are adjusting more easily to new knowledge than those which hold that sexual acts must be open to life, and that the other functions of sex are always subordinate.