If you are gay and a Christian, how do you reconcile the apparent fact that the Bible clearly states that homosexuality is a sin?

A lot of historians and theologians don't think an eternal and universal condemnation of all same-gender relationships is an accurate understanding or appropriate application of the texts.

Most of the passages commonly cited as condemning "homosexuality" are very dubious translations of words that probably meant something closer to "temple prostitution." Ancient Hebrew had no equivalent word.

Of the handful of texts that do unambiguously, critically refer to sex between men, the hostility is historically and culturally specific. The authors of these texts lived in a world where sex between men was overwhelmingly associated with temple prostitution and rape/sexual slavery.

Sex between women is never critically mentioned mentioned in the Old Testament at all. The only critical reference to gay sex in the New Testament, and the only critical reference to sex between women anywhere in the Bible, comes from Paul's letter to the Romans.

M/M or F/F sex weren't even the sin Paul was talking about; he was talking about "idolatry", ie Romans worshiping Roman gods, and claiming gay sex was the consequence of idolatry. Literally, because they worshiped Roman gods, therefor they had gay sex. This is probably quite literal; various Roman mystery cults were widely rumored to engage in sacred orgies of varying gender configurations.

Paul is clearly horrified by the idea, which isn't particularly surprising. The mystery cults were regarded with contempt by many Romans, and Paul was a Roman, Jewish, stoic, presumably heterosexual man. The entire idea of obligatory sex with another man in honor of Roman gods would have been surreal and unfathomable to him. He's literally homophobic; he's so terrified of gay sex, he's trying to use it as a threat to scare his readers away from the mystery cults.

Paul's clearly not a fan. But one 1st century Jewish straight man's horror at the thought of having sex with another man in honor of Bacchus does not necessarily translate into an absolute divine dictate against all sex between men or women for all time.

If you want more information about the various passages commonly used to condemn gay sex, and the various arguments for why that might not be correct, here is a good place to start.

/r/AskReddit Thread