A historically specific understanding of heterosexuality provides a sense of a possible alternative. 1
1 Cor 6: 1-11; Rom 1: 18-32 and the rhetoric of same-sex marriage
1. Political and Religious Rhetoric
In 2004 PSOE (Socialist, Left-wing Party in Spain) won the elections presenting an electoral program that
advocated legal marriage of same-sex couples. Accordingly, they passed a bill in June 30th 2005 that conferred
marital status to those woman-woman, man-man couples who wished to go through the process of becoming
a marriage. This means that since in July 3th 2005 a man and woman can legally marry another person of
either sex with all the benefits that marriage brings along: not only certain fiscal advantages are enforced (as in
the other legal figure known as ‘union de hecho’ –similar to what in the United States is known as “domestic
partners” or “civil unions”) but more than 1000 rights that are associated with the figure of “matrimonio”.2
It is striking to see how a traditionally catholic country becomes the third country in the world put gay
marriage on the same level as ‘traditional’ marriage. Up to that point only Belgium and the Netherlands had
taken such a step, although some other countries have followed similar steps.3 Given this circumstances it is
not surprising that the main Spanish religious institution has belligerently opposed such legislation and has
mobilized its members against what they consider ‘a threat to the foundation of Western Civilization’. The
animosity of the Catholic Church towards sexual minorities is well-known as well as its reluctance to revise
other current gender issues. However, in the Spanish context, this Catholic resistance to the new law has
resulted in a well-organized movement promoting traditional family values that has taken the streets in an
unprecedented front with social, political and religious consequences.
Documents issued by the Spanish catholic hierarchy on this matter date back to “Marriage, family and
homosexual unions”4
(1994), a document that expressed the tenets of the catholic church regarding
homosexuality (John Paul II, 2008)5 and, at the same time, tried to apply them to the Spanish national
Jonathan Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality, University of Chicago Press ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2007), 162.
1
One important clarification: Spain has not passed a law ‘on gay marriage’ as such but has amended the constitution and other civil
laws so instead of reading ‘women’ and ‘men’ (“hombres” and “mujeres”) now it is read ‘spouses’.
3 Canada (here the process was a bit more complicated, becoming fully legal on July 20, 2005), Sweden (became the seventh country
to legalize on April 1, 2009), Norway (May 11, 2008 –number 6), South Africa (November 30th, 2006), Portugal has followed steps
(January 8, 2010) in a very interesting move because it shares the same political, religious and social controversies as Spain, being a
important difference that the Portuguese Parliament has passed a bill that bans same-sex couples from adoption which, in the end,
does not fully put hetero and homo marriages on the same level. On the religious aspect, the Catholic Church in Portugal has decided
not to go on public demonstrations although it obviously has expressed its reticence.
4 http://www.conferenciaepiscopal.es/documentos/Conferencia/pdf/LIBRO21.PDF
5 Carta a las familias (2.II.1994) n. 13; CONGREGACIÓN PARA LA DOCTRINA DE LA FE, Persona humana. Declaración acerca de
algunas cuestiones de ética sexual (29. XII.1975), Ecclesia, 17 I. 1976, 72-76; ID., Carta a los obispos de la Iglesia Católica sobre la atención pastoral
2
context. This document was published in response to a note by the European Parliament that recommended
the elimination of the marriage ban for same-sex unions. As in many other instructions, the church leadership
contextualizes the debate about gay marriage in terms of a ‘deep truth crisis’ that obscures the most evident
and elemental truths.6 This catholic statement considers that sexual attraction towards persons of the same
sex is a transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon and underlines the inalienable dignity of every person,
regardless of sexual orientation7. The document also explains that there is split between ‘homosexual
condition’ and ‘homosexual behavior’, the first being nature-given and thus not subject to moral/ethical
judgment. It is easy to perceive behind these lines the adagio ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ although there is
more subtlety to it: the homosexual inclination is not by itself sinful but ‘objectively disorderly’ and the
behavior that caters to such disorder ‘is always intrinsically wrong from a moral standpoint’.8
The main argument of this catholic document is that civil law cannot regulate gay marriage because it
is plainly illegitimate9: by doing so, politicians betray a universal ethical value: “What are we basing on to say that
homosexual behavior is intrinsically and always wrong? When we state so, we do not do anything more than sanctioning the truth
found in human nature, assumed and revealed fully in the Christian Revelation.”10 Before going into detail about the
scriptural basis deployed to buttress this argument, it is worth noticing that the church document seems to
imply that any political organization needs to lay its foundation on Christian values and convictions. It goes
without saying, nonetheless, that this regime of Christendom in which Truth is put at the same level as
Revelation assumes an epistemological model in which ‘Faith’ stands over ‘Reason’ -the first term being
interpreted in terms of the Tradition, and the second being viewed as a subsidiary tool that helps to
understand the Revealed Truth. This is clearly seen in the way the subsequent argumentation is presented: on
the one hand, the homosexual behavior is ‘against the natural law’11 because it betrays the sexual fulfillment
that is given through complementarity and because it is unable to open itself to procreation, to a new life12.
Sexuality, thus, has two main aims: unity and procreation. On the other hand, the Christian tradition does not
make more than recognize this universal truth as it is shown in Gn 1, 27. It is this complementarity that
foregrounds the condemnation of Sodom (Gn 19, 1-11), the exclusion of the homosexuals from the ‘chosen
people’ (Lv 18,22 and 20,13) and that results in the ‘clear’ condemnation of those ‘pagan’ practices in the
Pauline tradition (Rom 1,18-32 and 1 Cor 6,1-11, 1 Tim 1,10)13.
a las personas homosexuales (1.X 1986), Ecclesia, 15.Xl.1986, 1579-1586; JUAN PABLO ll, Familiaris consortio. Exhortación apostólica sobre el
matrimonio y la familia (22.Xl.1981; ID., Carta a las familias (2.Il.1994).
6 n. 2.
7 See also “In favor of the true marriage”, n. 2.
8 CONGREGACIÓN PARA LA DOCTRINA DE LA FE, Carta a los obispos..., 3.
9 Of course, the conference allows for tolerance and does not encourage prosecution.
10 N. 8.
11 N. 9.
12 The theology behind these assertions is found in John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio : Apostolic Exhortation on the Role of the Christian
Family in the Modern World His Holiness Pope John Paul II Promulgated on 15th December, 1981 ([London]: Catholic Truth Society, 2008).
13 More attention will be given to these texts later on.
Given this scriptural basis, it is argued that not real true (sexual) love can be produced between two
persons of the same sex: “love between two homosexual persons must not be mistaken as true marital love, simply because it
does not belong to that kind of special love. It can be a love of benevolence or of friendship oriented towards the beloved person
well-being. However, friendship love never includes genital expressions which are aimed at the gift of life.”14
This church document operates with some anthropological assumptions that are mapped onto the
religious discourse so as to criticize or sanction specific political practices. So the argument goes: it is an
anthropological/religious truth that male and female are complimentary to each other, marriage is an
expression of such phenomenon, thus no law the state passes can change this god-given order. In “In favor
of the true marriage”, a more recent church document issued in response to the Spanish civil law regarding
same-sex marriage15, the bishops aver: “The State cannot recognize an inexistent right, unless it is willing to act in an
arbitrary way that exceeds its capacities and that will harm very severely the common good.”16 Although the threads of
argumentation are very clear, different scriptural and theological arguments are added in different
documents.17 Regarding scriptural reference, which is the main focus in the present paper, the “Letter to the
Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Person,” issued on October 1st 1986, is
of the utmost importance. Because it provides the biblical foundation for the church stance on homosexuality
and because it foregrounds much of the argumentation that the Spanish Bishop Conference has developed in
its writings, it is worth quoting it at length:
Providing a basic plan for understanding this entire discussion of homosexuality is the theology of creation we find in
Genesis. God, in his infinite wisdom and love, brings into existence all of reality as a reflection of his goodness. He
fashions mankind, male and female, in his own image and likeness. Human beings, therefore, are nothing less than the
work of God himself; and in the complementarity of the sexes , they are called to reflect the inner unity of the
Creator. They do this in a striking way in their cooperation with him in the transmission of life by a mutual
donation of the self to the other.
In Genesis 3, we find that this truth about persons being an image of God has been obscured by original sin. There
inevitably follows a loss of awareness of the covenantal character of the union these persons had with God and with each
other. The human body retains its "spousal significance" but this is now clouded by sin. Thus, in Genesis 19:1-11,
the deterioration due to sin continues in the story of the men of Sodom. There can be no doubt of the moral judgment
made there against homosexual relations. In Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, in the course of describing the conditions
N. 11.
“In favor of the true marriage”, n. 1.
16 N. 3. See also references in J Ratzinger and A Amato, "Consideraciones Acerca De Los Proyectos De Reconocimiento Legal De
Las Uniones Entre Personas Homosexuales," Documento presentado en Roma el 3, no. 6 (2003).
Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, Consideraciones acerca de los proyectos de reconocimiento legal de las uniones entre personas homosexuales (3
de junio de 2003), Ecclesia 3165/66, 9 y 16 de agosto de 2003, 1236-1239
17 For example: the marriage institution takes precedence over the State who in turn can only regulate what is given by nature (In
favor of, 4b) as it is shown in the Universal history (4b), traditional marriage is equal to the marriage between Christ, faithful husband
who fecundates the Church, his wife, begetting numerous offspring (In favor, n. 6). See also: Press Release in reaction to the
legislation that puts homosexual unions at the same level than the marriage institution (5 th May 2005); Press Release about
conscientious objection on a law that radically corrupts the essence of marriage (5 th May 2005); Press Release in reaction to the
legislation that modifies the civil law code to establish that marriage is not between a man and a woman (30 th June 2005); Press
Release about the European Parliament Resolution regarding ‘homophobia’ (11th May 2006).
14
15
necessary for belonging to the Chosen People, the author excludes from the People of God those who behave in a
homosexual fashion.
Against the background of this exposition of theocratic law, an eschatological perspective is developed by St. Paul when,
in 1 Cor 6:9, he proposes the same doctrine and lists those who behave in a homosexual fashion among those who shall
not enter the Kingdom of God.
In Romans 1:18-32, still building on the moral traditions of his forebears, but in the new context of the confrontation
between Christianity and the pagan society of his day, Paul uses homosexual behavior as an example of the blindness
which has overcome humankind. Instead of the original harmony between Creator and creatures, the acute distortion of
idolatry has led to all kinds of moral excess. Paul is at a loss to find a clearer example of this disharmony than
homosexual relations. Finally, 1 Tim. 1, in full continuity with the Biblical position, singles out those who spread
wrong doctrine and in v. 10 explicitly names as sinners those who engage in homosexual acts
The bill passed by the Spanish Government constitutes the counterpart to this stance on sexuality,
marriage and family. Here I summarize some of the most relevant issues found in this Law:18
1. The origin of the legislation harkens back to the French Civil Code in 1804 which was the founding law
for the Spanish legislation in 1889. It was in this context that the law established that the marriage was
only to take place between persons of the different sex. The current law explicitly argues that the codes of
the last two centuries reflect the mainstream mindset showing the close link between socio-political ideas
and their translation into civic laws.
2. Given that link, the law recognizes that ‘society evolves in its way of recognizing different ways of living
together’ and that ‘our Spanish social reality is richer, more plural and dynamic that the society that gave
birth to the 1889 civil code”. The argumentation of the law, thus, is to show that the legislator is not
doing anything more (nor less) that giving shape to a socio-cultural demand.
3. After recognizing a long history of stigmatization and marginalization the bill considers that one of the
aims is to move forward towards ways of legislating that do not perpetuate this state of affairs (in this
case the marriage institution)
4. Given the afore mentioned consideration the bill focuses on the modifications that are necessary to be
introduced in civil code so as to eliminate references of ‘wife/husband’ and introduce the neutral word
(spouse).
Several issues are worth mentioning: for example, we could compare the stance towards tradition
between this bill and the church stance (see point 1)19, or the difference in terms of the relationship between
society and law (see point 2).20 There is little doubt that these factors have played a major role in the clash of
the government with the church and that the bitterness in the bilateral tradition harkens back to other
Ley 13/2005 de 1 de Julio, por la que se modifica el Código Civil en material de derecho a contraer matrimonio
For the Catholic Church tradition is unitary and a value in itself while for the Spanish government tradition must seriously be
revised because it is the main source of a mainstream thought that has marginalized homosexuals.
20 For the Catholic Church natural law shapes society, for the government it is rather the other way around.
18
19
political issues regarding not only morality and sexuality but questions of power and ideology21. Despite the
ramifications I will focus on the following problem:
1. From the point of view of the Catholic Church in its reading of the scriptural tradition the root-problem
is one of ideology and its relationship with conceptions of faith. That is, it is considered that any
deviation from ‘traditional values’ that are grounded in a pre-given natural order is a misunderstanding of
an ‘eternal knowledge’ that can be acquired through the contemplation of what is naturally given. On one
hand, the ‘primary aspect of the believers’ life that need to be addressed is not only family-life but society
in general. The official stance of the Catholic Church makes very clear that any change in civil law will
undermine and destroy the basic foundations of the family structure. On the other hand, that the aspect
that they are seeking to address is focused on society is seen in their view that civil society is ‘wrong’ in its
acceptance of new ways of conceiving families and in its tolerance of alternative to traditionally held
values. Ideology is present all the way along because it is a fight over who gets to decide what is ethically
valuable and what is not in society as a whole.
2. From the point of view of the Government the root-problem is one of ideology, but seen from a quite
different perspective: a group (lgbtqi) long time oppressed by traditional family and sexual ideologies
needs to be freed. In its legislation the Government argues that civil laws must account for changes in
moral values and that society is ready to assimilate these new changes. These argumentations imply that
there is no pre-given order and that ethical principles are negotiated throughout society following a
procedural/dialogic way of ethical reasoning.
2. Scriptural issues in 1 Cor 6: 1-11 and Rom 1: 18-32
Scholars have been calling attention to several problems in the interpretation of both texts: for instance, who
are the addressees (gentiles? Jews? Mixed?) or what are the nature of the instructions themselves (is Paul
describing a ‘cosmological’ situation or is he rather pursuing a solution to specific communal problems?)
Dealing with these hermeneutical puzzles is beyond the scope of this paper, but it is worth noticing that in
both texts the appearance of lists of sins are framed within a wider discourse against surrounding practices
and values: in Romans, men and women are failing to live according to the standards than God made evident
to them (1:19) and, thus, have deviated from righteous practices (1:21; Paul emphasizes the ‘knowledge’
dimension –compare with 1:14 and 1:22, and how this results in aberrant practices). In 1:24 God appears as
the one that delivers ‘them’ ‘in the lusts of their hearts to impurity’ and in 1:26 this dimension is reinforced by
stating that God again gave them over to ‘degrading passions’ (see also 1:28). On the other hand, in 1 Cor
For example, there has been also a conflict between the Church and the State around the question of the ‘historical memory’ or the
scholarly curriculum in public and private schools
21
6,1-11 the context is more specific to the community in that Paul encourages his addressees to solve conflicts
by not recurring to civil institutions (6:1) and showing how wrong it is to take ‘your own brother’ to court
(6:6) so that they may be righteous. Acting otherwise is acting like those who will not inherit the kingdom of
God: Christians should know better since they have been sanctified (v. 11). The lists of sins in both cases are
extensive but are not organized according to theological criteria; they are rather offered as examples of the
behavior committed by the ‘outer world’: exchange the natural use of sex, unrighteousness, wickedness,
greed, evil, envy, murder, deceit, malice, slander, arrogant, boastful, unloving, unmerciful (Romans) or
covetous, drunkards, swindlers, revilers, adulterers, effeminate (Corinthians). It needs to be emphasize that as
extensive as these ‘catalogues of sins’ are, they are of secondary concern for Paul who offers them as a way to
instantiate his primary point: idolatry in Romans, pitiless practices in Corinth.
3. Reading Strategies
I use Gagnon’s approach as an example of articulation of theological arguments that can be put in parallel
to hat deployed by the Catholic Church.
Gagnon argumentation is one of the most complex, intellectually sophisticated and scripturally wellgrounded22. It is nonetheless extremely homophobic. For example, he considers that same-sex relationships
find their most similar counterpart in incestuous relationship. As he argues, both acts are:
1. Regarded with similar revulsion.
2. Capable of being conducted as an adult, consensual, long-term and monogamous relationship.
3. Wrong partly because they involve two people who are too much alike (incest on the level of blood
relations, homosexual behavior on the level of sex or gender)
4. Wrong partly because they are associated with a disproportionately high incidence of negative side
effects.
On a foot note on point 4, Gagnon goes on to say:
They each generate their own set of negative side effects. Incest produces higher rates of procreative
abnormalities and tends toward intergenerational (i.e., parent-child) sex. Homoerotic behavior is
characterized by disproportionately high rates of sexually transmitted disease, mental health issues, high
numbers of sex partners, noncommittal and short-term relationships, intergenerational sex, grotesque sexual
practices, and extreme forms of gender identity disorder.23
I use Gagnon’s approach as a parallel example of the articulation of theological arguments deployed by the Catholic Church.
Robert J. Gagnon, "Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful," Christian sexuality: Normative and pastoral
principles (2003): 26.
22
23
It would be wrong to fully equate Gagnon’s stance to that of the Catholic Church. There is not, to my
knowledge, any instance in any official catholic document of such bigotry and plain homophobia,24 although
the consideration of homosexual behavior as an intrinsically wrong seems shares some traits and various
public bishop statements have used these and other kinds of arguments.
Gagnon’s strategy of reading is mainstream not only in conservative denominations but also in the most
liberal ones. Conservative denominations tend to consider that there is continuum between conceptions of
homosexuality in the past and the present; because there was a condemnation on religious grounds back then
(made explicit by Paul in Romans, Corinthians and the Pastoral Epistles) it makes sense to have such a
condemnation nowadays. Liberal churches tend to assume the same past-present continuity, although they are
more prone to contextualize its contemporary consequences: homosexuality is a transhistorical phenomenon,
so the argument goes, but the grounds on which Paul prohibited such practices are completely alien to
present-day anthropological or psychological conceptions.
It is most important to note that both the liberal and the conservative approaches presuppose a
conception of Scripture that delimits the kind of dialogue between text and interpreter which is possible. For
example, Gagnon explicitly considers that Scripture cannot be merely viewed as an equal partner in the
dialogue; it is the “normative playing field” to which any contemporary reflections must yield. In parallel, the
Catholic Church regards biblical texts as a part of a wider Tradition and counts this Tradition as playing the
leading role in a dialogue between contemporary questions and ancient answers. This is a plausible
epistemological option that positions the present and its interpreter on a lower ground regarding the authority
of the sacred texts and considers that the interpreter or the community are able to have a pristine access to
the original meaning of the text regardless of the context. This approach lacks any critical reflection on the
preunderstandings that readers bring into the texts and by ignoring them it is much more likely to
unconsciously adopt contemporary stances25 (and to some extent, anachronistic regarding the text) on moral
issues.26
Usually, this hermeneutic and heuristic option is linked to claims to consider authorial intention as the
tenet of any sound interpretation. When Gagnon, for instance, says that Paul intended to condemn same-sex
unions he uses a theory of ‘authorial intention’ which places the writer’s aim in writing a text at the forefront,
Of course, Gagnon would have to rationally argue what is wrong with having high numbers of sexual partners, short-term
relationships, grotesque sexual practices and intergenerational sex (all of those between consenting adults) and whether he is also for
banning heterosexual unions on those grounds in the civil arena, which is what he is aiming at –that is, not only in the Church. It is
not clear either what is “extreme forms of gender identity disorder” and definitely he is going against some empirical evidence when
ascribes higher rates of sexually transmitted disease to gay relationships.
25 It goes beyond the scope of the present paper to consider hermeneutical advances in the last 20 years. Enough to point out,
however, that Gadamer has deeply called into question this schema in which the interpreter stands isolated from the tradition he
belongs to.
26 As I will explore below, this will prove to be of capital importance regarding ethical stances on sexuality.
24
displacing any other considerations in the quest for meaning. The above mentioned Church documents
operate in similar fashion.27 As the argument goes: in order to face the issue of homosexual relationships in a
contemporary Christian setting, the best source is the New Testament and the normative authority it
provides; what we find in Scripture is that Paul’s intention was to condemn homosexuality; we can trace a
continuous experience between what was in Paul’s mind concerning same-sex relations and the present
setting; thus, same-sex sexual relations are to be intrinsically condemned.
Although it is not my main purpose to analyze critically the presuppositions underlying such conceptions
of authorial intention and meaning construction, it is worth mentioning, if briefly, how skipping a
methodological reflection on our own presuppositions poses the danger of importing standard contemporary
views into the hermeneutical task. Modern trends in philosophy tend to allocate the main criteria in defining,
delimiting and applying meanings to present contexts to ‘original intentions’ but, as soon as we try to
determine why it must be so and what is ‘original intentions’ we are confronted with important
methodological problems. As Dale Martin has masterfully shown regarding New Testament studies, meaning
is not univocally linked to the person who utters words; it might be as well linked to the person who tries to
decipher them, or to the community to which one belongs; the meaning of those same words also varies
when they are related to previous utterances or to later ones, for that matter. Meaning is also intrinsically
intertwined with contexts; then the problem gets even harder to solve: which context? Paul’s context? The
context of the community that is addressed? Who is the Community addressed? Or the context of modern
readers? These are some basic considerations that have called the attention of Martin and that I want to bring
into account because it will be of the utmost importance to show how meaning, experience, and values are
attached to contexts. For Martin,
1. Authorial intentions do not really exist anywhere in nature so that we could hold up our
interpretations against them for testing purposes.
2. Authorial intentions, when used as factor of interpreting texts, are themselves products of people
interpreting texts.
3. In our everyday practices we actually do not always use notions of authorial intention to settle the
meanings of texts.
Notice the use of Paul intention in the above mentioned church documents. A normative conception of ‘tradition’ as supporting
Paul’s position buttresses the Catholic Church approach.
27
4. Even if authorial intention is something we may legitimately imagine for purposes of interpreting a
text, there is no reason to limit interpretations of all texts to attempt to ascertain intentions.28
According to Martin we consider authorial intention to be determinant because we are socialized into a
modern historical consciousness29 which is a point that has been extensively developed by all kinds of
postmodern philosophical approaches and that only recently have been paid attention to in biblical
scholarship with some problems attached to it.30 Although Martin makes an excellent use of the
undetermined theory of meaning in order to carry out an acute critique of contemporary thought regarding
sexual identities31, I am more interested in putting his insights at work in order to show how the concept of
“experience” remains unexamined in the Catholic Church discourse on same-sex relationships and especially
how a revision of it might help to move the debate forward in new directions not only for queers but for the
church as a whole.
4. Romans, Corinthians, homosexuality and plausible readings.
If there is a gay biblical canon, Romans and Corinthians are definitely the main stars. 32 Many scholars
have revolved around the intricacies of these texts in order to offer the clearest account possible of what Paul
is referring to. For Victor Paul Furnish, Romans 1:26-27 presupposes “that same-sex intercourse compromises what
Dale B. Martin, Sex and the Single Savior : Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation, 1st ed. (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2006), 8.
29 “We want to know what the ancient author may have intended to communicate, what the text may have meant in its ancient context. Therefore, most
modern people will resist a reading of a text they realize is highly anachronistic. But this is not a constraint exercised on the reader by the text; it is rather a
constraint exercised by modern consciousness and the socialization of the reader”; Ibid., 14-15.
30 Ibid. It is also worth noticing not only which theories we mine to apply to ancient texts but how do we use them and the rhetorical
effects they produce. See for example, Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner, Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse:
Thinking Beyond Thecla (London, New York: T & T Clark 2009)., comparing the scholarship of Martin and Moore. In his influential
book Jack Bartlett Rogers, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality : Explode the Myths, Heal the Church, Rev. and expanded ed. (Louisville, Ky.:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). The author considers that we must avoid a surface literalism, so we can escape the sort of
subjectivism that brings our biases to the text. We must, instead, “take seriously the text as it is given to us and seek to understand it fully in its
context”, p. 56. Further on, “to be faithful to the ‘plain text’ of Scripture, we must be very careful to understand the meaning of the text in its original
context. Then we must be equally careful to discern if it is appropriate to apply that text in quite different, contemporary context”, p. 57. Notice here how
the author is still trapped in a ‘conception of meaning’ that it is bound to and determined by the myth of ‘the original context’.
31 For instance Martin considers that the current demand to push churches towards a more gay-friendly politics is way less radical that
the revolution brought about by the puritans in the United States: “When modern gay and lesbian Christians urge the recognition of same-sex
marriages in churches, they are actually asking for a change much less radical than that already accomplished by the Reformers and the Puritans, who
completely reversed doctrines and ethics of 1,500 years of Christian tradition and made the married state not only equal to singleness but superior to it. In
comparison, simply evaluating gay and lesbian relationships on a par with those of their heterosexual neighbors is a modest innovation. Second, modern
advocates of ‘traditional family values’ should admit that their notion of the (usually) egalitarian, private, nuclear family is not a true continuation of the
Reformation or Puritan household after all. The irony, or rather the hypocrisy, of modern appeals to ‘tradition’ or the ‘religious heritage’ of American
‘forefathers’ to support the modern notion of family should be obvious”; Martin, Sex and the Single Savior : Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation,
121.
32 For an interesting reflection on the idea of “the gay canon” see George E. Haggerty, "The Gay Canon," American Literary History 12,
no. 1/2 (2000). The author reflects critically on the recent anthologies that deal with “gay literature”. It is beyond the scope of the
present essay to consider to what extent selecting Romans 1 as a piece of analysis in debating same-sex issues it is an appropriate
endeavor. Enough to say that my purpose is not to deal with the text in itself but analyze the religious rhetoric around it in some
religious traditions so I take as a given fact that Romans has been chose by others to play a major role in those debates. I do not
necessarily that it should be that way. To say it differently, the fact of choosing Romans as a source to deal with sexual ethics is in
itself a political and ideological option.
28
patriarchal societies regard as the properly dominant role of males over females.”33 On the other hand, there is some
scholarly agreement that the issue in Romans 1:18-2:1 is idolatry, not sexuality.34 Consequently it would be
considered that the sins mentioned need not to be sexual in nature but strictly religious in meaning. Natural
and unnatural would not refer to the divine order of creation but to consuetudinary societal norms.35 Some
scholars also mention the fact that Paul’s statement is imbued within the rhetoric of excess and moderation.36
These different considerations might be intertwined in complex ways. For instance, Cosgrove argues that in
Romans 1:18-32 Paul considers homoeroticism as a passion that leads to unnatural behavior because it is
unchecked by a reason that does not consider God’s natural order.37 Cosgrove argumentation is interesting
because it allows room for including other hermeneutical considerations such as the male/female role38 and
gender categories that do not relate straightforwardly to homoeroticism but to the rupture of socially
sanctioned roles.39 However, I think Cosgrove misunderstands some of the arguments he mines in his
presentation: he agrees that contemporary forms of homosexuality were not known to Paul and thus he could
have not possibly banned them but, on the contrary, he maintains that the rule still applies because, using a
metaphor, a statute that prohibited ‘vehicles from entering the park’ would include fire engines and
ambulances, even if the city council did not mean to include emergency vehicles but simply forgot to consider
them.40 The problem with this argumentation, however is that the simile does not work.
From a queer perspective it would not be that Paul does establish a ban on “vehicles” but rather on
certain transportation not knowing the locomotive means we possess today. Means of locomotion back then,
33Victor
Paul Furnish, "The Bible and Homosexuality: Reading the Texts in Context," Homosexuality in the church: Both sides of the debate
(1994): 31. In other words, the concern seems to be rather gender configurations not sexual behaviors: see, for instance Martti
Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World : A Historical Perspective (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1998). See also the dynamics of
penetration in Martin, Sex and the Single Savior : Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation, 129.
34 In this interpretation idolatry seems to be the cause rather than the effect of inappropriate sexual behavior. Thus, in this reading,
homosexual behavior is condemned insofar as it is pursued against an idolatrous relationship with the divine. See Margaret Davies,
"New Testament Ethics and Ours : Homosexuality and Sexuality in Romans 1:26-27," Biblical Interpretation 3, no. 3 (1995). For Leland
White, in a similar argument, derives from God’s abandonment due to the fact that some do not honor him, “thus without honor,
they act dishonorably, lacking control over their bodies”, see Leland J. White, "Does the Bible Speak About Gays or Same-Sex
Orientation? A Test Case in Biblical Ethics," Biblical Theology Bulletin 25, no. 1 (1995): 23. Boswell emphasizes that for Paul the ideal is
monotheism and, as a consequence homosexuality derives from the Gentile’s rejection of this ideal. See John Boswell, Christianity,
Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (University of
Chicago Press, 1981), 108-09.
35 The fact that in Rom 11:24 Good seems to act ‘contrary to nature’ supports this view. Nissinen points here is that Paul is accepting
the conventional view of people (P. 107). On the other side, Gagnon considers that ‘natural law’ is especially relevant because in fact,
Paul does not condemn anything beyond what is unnatural: “Acceptance of biblical revelation is thus not a prerequisite for rejecting
the legitimacy of same-sex intercourse.” See Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice : Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 2001), 488.
36 Robert Jewett, "The Social Context and Implications of Homoerotic References in Romans 1: 24-27," in Homosexuality, Science, and
the “Plain Sense” of Scipture. Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, Uk: Eerdmans Publishing, ed. David L. Balch (2000), 229-30. Dale B.
Martin, "Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Romans 1:18-32," in Boswell Thesis (Chicago: Univ of Chicago Pr, 2006).
37 Charles H. Cosgrove, Appealing to Scripture in Moral Debate : Five Hermeneutical Rules (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.,
2002), 39.
38 As argued by Bernadette J. Brooten, Love between Women : Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, The Chicago Series on
Sexuality, History, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 215-66.
39 See Dale B. Martin, "Arsenokoitês and Malakos : Meanings and Consequences," in Biblical Ethics & Homosexuality (Louisville, Ky:
Westminster/John Knox Pr, 1996).
40 Cosgrove, Appealing to Scripture in Moral Debate : Five Hermeneutical Rules, 41.
to go further with the image, were completely different not only in its materiality but its cultural significance. I
want to delve into this consideration bringing into the debate some of the recent foucauldian insights into the
history of sexuality. To account seriously for cultural constructions of gender and sexuality in Antiquity has
important consequences not only for those who look back to biblical texts in order to condemn homoerotic
behavior but for those who follow the opposite strategy: to legitimate same-sex intercourse on the grounds of
the Greco-roman attitudes means, as David Halperin has masterfully argued, rescuing misogyny, racism and
pederasty because
sexuality back then had to do with ‘one does to another’ not to inner affective
dispositions.41
The bulk of queer criticism has disproportionately swelled in the last fifteen years making a slow but
challenging move from ‘identity politics’ to ‘subversion and resistance politics’. This means that the focus has
stopped being gay and lesbian people and rather the cultural/sociological/philosophical constructions of
identity in all its sex/gender/sexuality varieties. Butler, Kosofsky Sedgwick, Warner or Halperin42 have
undoubtedly contributed, if not founded, a field of studies that is questioning the heterosexual culture tenets
mining, expanding, analyzing, foregrounding, applying or criticizing mainly the work of Foucault. In Michael
Warner’s words,
Because the logic of the sexual order is so deeply embedded by now in an indescribably wide range of social
institutions, and is embedded in the most standard accounts of the world, queer struggles aim not just at
toleration or equal status but at challenging those institutions and accounts. The dawning realization that
themes of homophobia and heterosexism may be read in almost any document of our culture means that we
are only beginning to have an idea of how widespread those institutions and accounts are.43
David M. Halperin, How to Do the History of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). One specific example to
illustrate the divergence between an ancient configuration (paederasty) and a contemporary one (homosexuality): “To assimilate both the
senior and the junior partner in a paederastic relationship to the same “(homo)sexuality, for example, would have struck a classical Athenian as no less
bizarre than to classify a burglar as an ‘active criminal’, his victim as a ‘passive criminal,’ and the two of them alike as partners in crime: burglary –like sex,
as the Greeks understood it- is, after all, a ‘non relational’ act. Each act of sex in classical Athens was no doubt an expression of real, personal desire on the
part of the sexual actors involved, but their very desires had already been shaped by the shared cultural definition of sex as an activity that generally occurred
between a citizen and a non-citizen, between a person invested with full civil status and a statutory minor’”. Halperin, How to Do the History of
Homosexuality, 32.
42 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble : Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Thinking Gender (New York: Routledge, 1990); Judith Butler and
Joan Wallach Scott, Feminists Theorize the Political (New York: Routledge, 1992); Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter : On the Discursive Limits
of "Sex" (New York: Routledge, 1993); Linda Singer, Judith Butler, and Maureen MacGrogan, Erotic Welfare : Sexual Theory and Politics in
the Age of Epidemic, Thinking Gender (New York ; London: Routledge, 1993); Judith Butler, Excitable Speech : A Politics of the Performative
(New York ; London: Routledge, 1997); ———, The Psychic Life of Power : Theories in Subjection (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 1997); ———, Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge, 2004); Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men : English Literature and Male
Homosocial Desire, Gender and Culture (New York ; Guildford: Columbia University Press, 1985); ———, Epistemology of the Closet,
Centennial Book (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1990); Michael Warner and Social Text Collective., Fear of a Queer
Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory, Cultural Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993); Michael Warner, The Trouble
with Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life (New York: Free Press, 1999); David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma I.
Zeitlin, Before Sexuality : The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990);
David M. Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality : And Other Essays on Greek Love (New York: Routledge, 1990); ———, Saint
Foucault : Towards a Gay Hagiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Halperin, How to Do the History of Homosexuality; David
M. Halperin, What Do Gay Men Want? : An Essay on Sex, Risk, and Subjectivity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007); David
M. Halperin and Valerie Traub, Gay Shame (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
43 Warner and Social Text Collective., Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory, xiii.
41
Acknowledging this situation Halperin considers that homophobia is not to be fought only over certain
institutions44 but rather we are to consider how –in a foulcauldian analysis- power oppressions are everywhere
and thus can not merely be countered in terms of rationality because, in the first place as Sedgwick classically
argued, they are rationally inconsistent. For Halperin “if they are to be resisted, they will have to be resisted strategically
–that is, by fighting strategy with strategy”.45 Of course, these theorists’ political agenda is not only concerned about
the present but also about the theoretical philosophical framework which operates when we reinterpret the
past.
It is not too risky to affirm that in the essentialist46 versus constructionist47 debate the proponents of the
cultural constructions of gender and sexuality have prevailed48 and in an intercontextual approach this is of
the utmost importance in order to establish an intellectual dialogue between religious and philosophical
thought, especially as it has developed in Spain.49 It is not only that as presented in the official documents the
Catholic interpreters seem to have a pristine idea of what Paul meant by ‘arsenokoites’ and ‘malakos’ which is
something that is still very much debated, but they also know/define/ what to be queer implies today. It is
common understanding, as it appears that homosexual sex is what men do to men and women to women in
their private bedrooms but this already posits some hermeneutical problems: what do we understand as
sexuality and how do we ascribe sexual meaning to any public/private act? Is it exclusively related to the
private dominion?50 In what sense does queer sex fail to fulfill the rule of complementarities that is so
strongly argued by Gagnon, the catholic documents and others? What idea of mutuality is lurking behind?
And, for that matter, why is mutuality based on difference ethically better suited than sameness?51
These are not idle questions since the field of sexuality cannot be isolated from politics as recent events
in the global scene show. It is not only that the demand for gay rights are deeply imbedded in what images
He cites the Supreme Court, but it surely applies to the Church. See Halperin, Saint Foucault : Towards a Gay Hagiography, 32.
Ibid., 32-33.
46 Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth
Century; John Boswell, The Marriage of Likeness : Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (London: HarperCollins, 1995, 1994); Amy
Richlin, Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); ———, The Garden of
Priapus : Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor, Rev. ed ed. (New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Aurelius Marcus,
Marcus Cornelius Fronto, and Amy Richlin, Marcus Aurelius in Love (Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
47 K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality ([S.l.]: Duckworth, 1978); Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality : Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical
Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Laura A. Dunn, "The Evolution of Imperial Roman Attitudes toward Same-Sex
Acts" (Miami University, Dept. of Philosophy, 1998); Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality : And Other Essays on Greek Love.
48 For a presentation of the controversy see Edward Stein, Forms of Desire : Sexual Orientation and the Social Constructionist Controversy (New
York: Routledge, 1992).
49 Here I fully assume a foucauldian point of view a la Butler in which genealogy in that “it is a specifically philosophical exercise in
exposing and tracing the installation and operation of false universals”. Judith Butler, "Critically Queer," GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and
Gay Studies 1, no. 1 (1993): 282, n. 8.
50 Warner and Social Text Collective., Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory; Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics
(New York: Zone Books, 2002).
51 Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind and Other Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). See a discussion in Leo Bersani, Homos
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); ———, Is the Rectum a Grave? : And Other Essays (Chicago ; London: The
University of Chicago Press, 2010).
44
45
and conception of what politics are at the domestic level52 but also play a major role in how international
relations are shaped and how we choose to proceed in enforcing a widening human rights throughout the
planet.53 Just one sample: death penalty for same sex acts applies in 6 countries, and it is illegal in more than
50 resulting in imprisonment. Given this circumstances churches might want to be careful about the rhetoric
they use in promoting attitudes towards gays. No wonder, on the other hand, that these countries tend to be
the more religious. As important as these issues are, what really interests me here is to show to what extent
the experience of queers cannot be traced back to the classical or the biblical period as if it were a continuum
with connections to present-life circumstances.
In the Catholic Church documents issued in Spain and above mentioned it is stated that ‘homosexuality’
is a disorder, not a sin. Only those who at free will choose to indulge in such behavior would be considered to
commit a sin. In this argumentation it is implied that (1) sexual orientation (homosexual orientation for this
matter) takes precedence over homosexual actions or, to say it differently, desire is structured before factual
experience or even more clearly: first, sexuality then choice. (2) This axiom can be sustained across cultures so
it is possible to map out identities throughout spaces and times and pigeonhole them establishing continuities
among them. This language between choice and determination hovered over sexual identities for a long time
and has been used by both sides of the debates to the point that it remains instilled in most contemporary
debates so some considerations on its usage are needed.54
Intertextual readings, for example, consider that Romans condemnation of same-sex relationships find
scriptural support on the Genesis creation accounts. Gagnon and the Catholic Church documents quoted
above find that Genesis stands as the proving text for considering sexuality intrinsically related to procreation
and monogamous love. However, as legitimate as it is, it is reading history backwards55 and runs the risk of
excluding from full humanity different sexual identities that do not conform to any standard, including
biblical and traditional rooted ones. To affirm that heterosexual marriage is the unique condition of human
sexual fulfillment does not only exclude celibates or other types of unions but seriously questions the
affective life of Jesus or Paul.
In this respect Gagnon and similar approaches such as the one led by the Church seem to be trapped in
the “nature” versus “choice” debate. The natural order of things is love between a man and a woman
although it is not discarded that some other tendencies are embedded in nature. If so, homosexual Christians
Dawne Moon, God, Sex, and Politics : Homosexuality and Everyday Theologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
See for instance the recent release by The Economist of an article about how these dynamics are played out in developing countries:
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16219402.
54 Claudia Card has reflected on how this language is not appropriate as far as sexuality is concerned because it frames agency in such
a terms that cannot be appropriately explored; Cfr. Claudia Card, Lesbian Choices, Between Men-between Women (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1995), 42.
55 See Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History : From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage (New York: Viking, 2005), 24.
52
53
need to bear their cross and remain single because by failing to do so they are betraying God’s intended
natural order.
Progressive Christians, on the other hand, offer multifarious scriptural arguments to support the
inclusion of queers. For example, Luke Timothy Johnson considers that Luke advocates for a letting of the
Gentiles who were considered unclean.
56
In a similar way, Rogers argument goes around Acts 15 regarding
the Council of Jerusalem57 or other texts as the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus teaching on marriage
and divorce, Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch…58
These attempts of “progressive” Christians to push church structures towards more inclusive politics are
praiseworthy. For one, they aim at mining theological tenets in order to re-read and re-write a tradition they
consider to some extent homophobic. Strategies here vary from contextualizing Paul’s discourse on sexuality
against its Greco-Roman context to submitting Pauline scarce assertions on homosexuality to wider
theological principles.59 In the end, as far as the scriptural arguments are concerned, contemporary church
structures need to be as inclusive as they were in the past. Any gay and lesbian theology would be more than
satisfied with these hermeneutical arguments: by granting lgbt people equal rights the church makes a step
further in inclusion politics and gay and lesbians win another battle over the equality. The problem, however,
lies in that both accounts (conservative and progressive) assume that identity is fixed transhistorically
although there is disagreement on what measures are appropriate to adopt. In any case, arguments on either
side reify and naturalize identities that in critical theory have been proved to be socially constructed. Further,
on the conservative side (whether in biblical scholarship or the Catholic Church itself) homo and
heterosexuality are identities that are morally categorized, on the progressive side those homosexuality is not
ethically saturated but still is constructed as the “the other” whereby ‘heterosexuality’ remains the norm and,
thus, unexamined and privileged.60 Both conceptions, in the end, consider sexual identities as fixed and do
not pay sufficient attention to the ideological tenets that frame the question.61
Luke Timothy Johnson, Scripture & Discernment: Decision-Making in the Church (Abingdon Pr, 1996), 144-48.
Rogers, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality : Explode the Myths, Heal the Church, 86-87.
58 Ibid., 128-36.
59 Ibid., 127. “The best methods of interpretation, from the Reformation on down through today, call upon us to interpret the
Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ’s life and ministry. Using this method, se see clearly that Jesus and the Bible, properly
understood, do not condemn people who are homosexual. In fact (…) the Bible contains an extravagant welcome for sexual
minorities (…) To bar people who are LGBT from ordination and marriage is a violation of these fundamental principles of our
faith.”
60 The privilege of ‘heterosexuality’ as a social construct virtually unexplored has been masterfully dealt with in Katz, The Invention of
Heterosexuality.
61 The work of Foucault has been decisive here. See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vintage Books ed., 3 vols. (New York:
Vintage Books, 1988). Especially important for the methodological tenets it is the first volume who has inspired the development of
queer theory as a field in itself. For a bibliography see note 42It goes beyond the scope of the present paper but a further reflection on
the constitution of sexual identities needs to be taken into account in the development of contemporary theological ethics. Wilkerson
account is, in my view, an excellent starting point for such enterprise: William S. Wilkerson, Ambiguity and Sexuality : A Theory of Sexual
Identity, 1st ed., The Future of Minority Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). This author develops an extremely useful
56
57
5. A personal reading of Romans 1. Some hermeneutical principals.
Ascribing to a constructionist/phenomenological point of view regarding sexual identity does not imply
negating the ‘realness’ of sexual identity: it basically means asserting that there is no pure access to desire, that
this is always interpreted against the background of cultural norms and that any fixation of identity is, by its
own nature, doomed to fail because it eliminates to some extent the power of agency.
In my view the Catholic Church emphasis on heterosexuality as an orientation that links opposite sexes in
order to create life is one that does not harken back to Paul’s times because as many studies have shown
heterosexuality and the conception of sexuality behind it, only appear in the 19th century and are linked to
conceptions of gender, class and race that determine its meaning. This engenders some contradictions in the
church discourses:
1. The rhetoric of the ‘normal’ versus the ‘abnormal’ in sexual behavior owns its coinage and establishment
to the Freudian theory which, ironically, the church documents have often despised. It must be noted
that the categories of normalcy in sexual behavior are not biblical.
2. The relationship man/woman has evolved into a personal sphere in which procreation is no longer
essential. The church discourse, still in terms of procreation, has to deal with contraception and related
issues in ‘heterosexual’ relationship. It must be noted that the insistence on procreation is scarce in the
New Testament: rather the Christian scriptures seem to point to a relativization of ‘blood’ familial
structures.
3. One of the differences in argumentation among both sides of the debate has to do with the rhetoric of
law and rights. For those against gay rights, the battle needs to be fought in the field of the “natural law”;
for those in favor, in the field of human rights. These two rhetorical fields are incommensurable because
they belong to two different traditions which can be viewed as being in a chronological succession but –
as this debate shows- overlap.62 Although beyond the scope of this paper, a discussion of the category of
“tradition” and its importance in the church might help to further the debate around identities.
4. For the Catholic Church gender and sexuality categories are unduly collapsed upon each other. A more
historically sensitive understanding of both systems might provide with a better practices in pursuing
equality. For example, it is implied that to be a ‘true man’ one needs to be heterosexual so here the
phenomenological/genealogical approach to extricate the factors involved in the constitution of contemporary sexual identities in that
he is looking to overcome the debate between ‘nature’ and ‘choice’, social construction and essentialism.
See Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self : The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1989), 11-13.
62
definition of manhood is determined by the gender of the desired which is not naturally given 63 nor
(necessarily) biblically ordained.
Given these challenges and other challenges posed by the history of the Catholic Church in Spain itself I
consider that choosing to read Romans 1 in this venue poses more problems than it solves. Instead, from a
queer perspective I consider that we might want to take into consideration the following issues:
1. Paul is arguing from a Jewish point of view against the idolatry of the gentile culture. Having rejected
monotheism God delivered them to idolatry and thus are not able to use reason properly. In Paul’s term
it seems that “homosexuality” is a consequence of idolatry, not its cause. It seems here that Paul is using
the parameters of the myth of the “fallen nature”64 which the Church itself does not subscribe to as it has
become clear in the Vatican II documents.65 Instead of reading Paul attitude as a brazen opposition to
any pagan attitude it is better to understand him against those aspects of the culture that are considered
to be sinful because they hinder the construction of God’s Kingdom. The theological attention is likely to
be more consistent if focused on themes where texts provide a wider support for an elaboration of
biblical ethics: justice, compassion, love, commitment… Choosing to read Paul as a purveyor of sexual
norms implies assuming the risk of bringing into the present a moral that was not “radically
democratic”.66 Choosing to read Paul as a purveyor of a love ethics opens new possibilities to regard
relationships not in terms of its object but in terms of its Christian commitment (1 Cor 13). In fact, I
would argue that, by defining any authentic love relationship in terms of biology (“transmission of life”),
the Church discourse is assuming a medical discourse not only alien to the Christian tradition but also
problematic in terms of the relativization of blood descent in order to belong to the Christian community
(see for example, Mat 12,46 ff.)
2. Paul might be referring to an excess of desire rather than to a different desire. It is not an unnatural desire
but a natural desire taken to an ‘unnatural extreme’.67 Again the reverence that the Catholic Church
shows for tradition should help to show not only that Paul’s references do not relate to homosexuality68
but also that Tradition itself must remain open to the work of the Spirit in the concrete lives of the
For example, Chauncey has demonstrated how as early as in the beginning of the twentieth century one could have
sex with other men without losing his status as man: “Men had to be many things in order to achieve the status of
normal men, but being ‘heterosexual’ was not one of them”; George Chauncey and American Council of Learned
Societies., "Gay New York Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940." (New York:
Basic Books, 1994).
64 Martin, "Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Romans 1:18-32."
65 Lumen Gentium 16-17, Gaudium et Spes 58, Nostra Aetate 2, Ad Gentes 9.11.15.
66 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Democratizing Biblical Studies : Toward an Emancipatory Educational Space, 1st ed. (Louisville,
Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).
67 Martin, "Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Romans 1:18-32," 137.
63
For an excellent historically informed study on the category of sodomy from Saint Augustin onwards cfr. Mark D. Jordan, The
Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago, Ill. ; London: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
68
people. For instance, when the “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of
Homosexual Person”69 n. 7 affirms that homosexuals cannot lead a happy life it is not only making an
empirically wrong statement about the lives of many Christians70 but also is refusing to consider their life
as a locus in which the Spirit is working and enriching the very tradition of the Church.71
3. It is an opportunity to attune ancient discourse to more modern conceptions of family and love. For
example, Paul shows no concern for procreation (see 1 Cor 7) or for marriage which is viewed as solution
for the weak. There is no need to pursue here a literalist reading that the same church does not grant (Dei
Verbum 11: ‘for the sake of our salvation”). I interpret Paul’s consideration of same-sex relationships as
dependant of an outdated (not in the sense of being overcome but in the sense of not intelligible) specific
anthropology dependent upon contextual cultural and social values. To interpret in this sense Romans is
equally as interpreting Gen as cosmologically reasonable. However this does not mean that the text has to
be dismissed to contemporary life church. In fact, its critique of idolatry might well be put in service of
contemporary idolatries in which “heterosexism” might be one since - as stated in the Gospel- there is
only one criterion to become Christian, and it is not related specifically to sexual or familial values. Paul’s
texts might indeed be critical of same-sex relations in the surrounding culture but that does not
necessarily mean that he is referring to homosexuality; indeed -he is criticizing it while still being faithful
to contemporary conceptions of gender (which are untenable today in terms of equality between the
sexes). To say as some progressives do, on the other hand, that Paul does not condemn same-sex
relations implies that he agrees with the gender system behind such values, which can be a theologically
counterproductive argument in light of the struggle of women for equality.
Concerned as I am by the gap that is being brought by an increasing breach between a religious and a
secular ethics (that is especially relevant regarding Rom 1 and Cor 6 since the catholic church discourse in
Spain has used to counteract the Political Party paralleling Paul’s opposition to the Roman Culture) I
think it would be interesting to consider that Paul is not interpreting pagan culture in terms of sexual
values but against a background of imperial ideology and oppression. From this point of view,
homosexuality is not the problem but homophobia and heterosexism is. From this point of view, a queer
approach might help to hand Romans and Corinthians over to postcolonial approaches.
“As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one's own fulfillment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God. The
Church, in rejecting erroneous opinions regarding homosexuality, does not limit but rather defends personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically
understood”; n. 7.
70 For a theological reflection from a catholic standpoint on the happy life of gay Christians see: Gareth Moore, A Question of Truth :
Christianity and Homosexuality (London ; New York: Continuum, 2003), esp. chapter 6.
71 Reimund Bieringer, "The Normativity of the Future: The Authority of the Bible for Theology," Ephemeredes Theologicae Lovanienses,
no. 8 (1997). For a application of this conception of authority to the question of same-sex relationships see Vincent A. Pizzuto, "God
Has Made It Plain to Them: An Indictment of Rome's Hermeneutic of Homophobia " Biblical Theology Bulletin, no. 38 (2008).
69
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