Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 are the only two references to same-sex behavior in the Hebrew Bible (the Sodom and Gomorrah story is about rape and not consensual sexual relationships and so it isn’t relevant to a discussion about sexual orientation…rape is wrong, period and we don’t need a bible story to know that).
The two verses in Leviticus say simply, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman” and “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads” (Leviticus 20:13). The anonymous writer or writers of Leviticus (spoiler alert, it was not Moses) were writing from a time and culture not our own and to a community that is not us.
Still, the writer is clearly no fan of male-on-male sex and even considers punishing such activity with extreme violence to be acceptable (surely we disagree with the ancient anonymous writer). Not only are we free (perhaps even compelled) to disagree with the writer, but we can’t help but notice that Leviticus is full of ancient Jewish laws that are routinely ignored by Christians, such as prohibitions against eating pork and shellfish and condemnations of tattoos.
If you like shrimp but hate gays, you aren’t living by Leviticus, you’re just using Leviticus when it suits you to be mean to gay people. Leviticus further threatens the death penalty for adultery (if we followed that one to the letter, our population would be cut in half at least). The writer of Leviticus may have been homophobic, but that doesn’t make homophobia okay; it makes the writer wrong. You’re already ignoring Levitical prohibitions. Feel free to ignore the writer’s homophobia as well.
