what did happen there?god you are easy to bait. Post that, take a piss, let the dog take a shit and refresh to find the post I wanted to reply to to begin with. "Sodomy" and "sodomite" are some of the ugliest words in the English language. They of course are derived from the Canaanite city of Sodom, whose destruction along with Gomorrah is related in Genesis 19. Most people assume that homosexuality was the grounds for this divine retribution and that this is the reason that gay men have been branded "sodomites." The word itself, used as implying a sexual sin, does not appear until A.D. 395 in letters between Saint Jerome and a priest Amandus, but the details of the act and the nature of the sin are not explained. A growing consensus about sexual orientation is that it primarily genetically determined, so gays and lesbians may not have any choice in the matter. There are two alternative theological positions that follow from the conservative Christian position: (1) If homosexuals are inherently evil, then that means that God created them such; or (2) more orthodox and acceptable is the view that all humans are created in the image of God and all that God creates is good. Therefore, if God creates gays and lesbians the way there are, then God must intend that they are an integral part of the human community. Interestingly enough, Jesus did not interpret the sin of Sodom as sexual. First, Jesus says nothing specific about the sin of homosexuality anywhere in the Gospels. He does of course speak of sexual sins, but all of us, regardless of our sexual orientation, commit a few of these. Second, when Jesus instructs his disciples to preach in the towns of Israel, Jesus warns that those who do not receive them peacefully will be judged more harshly than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Matt. 10: 5-15).Jesus joins other ancient authorities in viewing the sins of the Sodomites as the abuse of strangers, neglecting the poor and needy, and the stigmatizing of outsiders. For example, Ezekiel says that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah "had pride, surfeit of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy" (16:49-50); and the Wisdom of Solomon says that they "refused to receive strangers when they came to them" (19.14). On the other hand, an early Christian book I Clement states that Lot was saved "because of his hospitality and piety" (11.11). It is significant that when Leviticus condemns "men who lie with men," it does not mention the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.It is true that other ancient authorities mention sexual sins in Sodom and Gomorrah, but these are usually described in a general way, such as lust, sexual impurity, fornication, and adultery. These again are sins of the many not just as few gays and lesbians. The narrow interpretation known today comes from an ancient minority report from thinkers such as Philo of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo. The former condemned the Sodomites for "forbidden forms of intercourse" and the latter for "lewdness between males."[2] The odd point about this charge is that the object of Sodomitic lust is not male humans but sexless angels! (Those who object by saying that the Sodomites did not know they were angels miss the point: both Augustine and all of us who read the Bible know that they were angels!)Who wrote that?A SCHOLAR!by Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho