even like leviticus, a lot of people translate that whole “man lies with another man” as actually something closer to “do not lie with another man IN THE BED OF A WOMAN,” which is less anti-lgbt and more anti-being-a-fucking-dick

In Matthew 19:11-12, Jesus says that not all men are are made to marry women. Some men are uninterested in women from birth, some are made uninterested by other men, and some men become uninterested by their own vows to church. Then Jesus urges acceptance.

…and as a former evangelical Christian I’m going to keep saying this every time I see a post like this:

to a Bible-wielding bigot, none of this matters

NONE OF IT.

as soon as the argument turns to scripture, you’ve already lost

for the dyed in the wool conservative true believers literally nothing will sway them from homophobia and transphobia short of massive sustained engagement from people close to them

these people are Biblical literalists and a good number of them engage on a level of apologetics with very specific rules, and for every “ah ha!” you try to throw at them, they will come back with some other verse, probably some Pauline stuff in Romans or Corinthians. liberals and non-Christians love to say that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality but that is literally irrelevant to the Biblical literalist crowd that comprises the vast majority of homophobic Christians, because they believe everything in that book is inspired by God, including everything said by other people

even if you’ve “won”, they will always fall back on the tried and true “you can’t truly understand the Word unless your heart is right with God” and will dismiss you as being ~of the World~ and thus unable to understand the Bible

the rest, the mindless sheep who follow whatever their bigot pastors tell them, will literally not give a fuck about you parroting these verses at them because in their mind no one knows the Word of God like Rev. Homophobe

in general they are clannish and irrational people who exist in a bubble and will literally not listen to anyone outside of it and especially not on what they believe are questions of morality. they believe they alone have the answers, they alone know The Truth, and anything that runs contrary to what they’ve been taught, everything that challenges the party line they’ve been taught in their churches and Bible studies, is a “lie from the Enemy” intended to lead the faithful astray (the “Enemy” being a quaint evangelical euphemism for Satan. they sort of treat him like Voldemort tbh)

please understand especially for those of you who are not Christians or who were never raised in a conservative Christian environment: getting into scriptural dogfights with them is letting them dictate the terms of the argument and it is the worst possible waste of your time imaginable

don’t let them dictate the terms of the argument

don’t try to reason with the unreasonable, much less by the rules they set and gleefully discard at will

literally the only people who should be concerning themselves with arguing with Christian bigots on the basis of scripture are lgbt Christians and allies who are trying to agitate for change within their denominations or faith communities

for the rest of you, please don’t think Bible verses are “cheat codes” to win arguments, unless you think gasoline is an acceptable way to fight a fire

^ I’m a reformed Christian bigot that is now an ally. I use that privelege to come for Christian homophobes regularly.

Christians that want to argue scriptures with you honestly have no interest in the words you are saying. They just want to be right.

In calling them out I’ve been accused of not being saved, being at least bi, luke warm, etc, and I’ve had boyfriends leave me.

The pride of the Christian bigot will outweigh facts. they will only receive what you are saying when they are open to learning. In a debate they want to flex their Christianness by dragging lgbtqa folks for the same reasons bullies do.

They want to feel good and they believe by saying the things they are that they aren’t hurting anyone. They think they are rightly dividing the word of truth. They have been taught that Christianity will Pit family members against each other etc. So in being called out they feel like they are being picked on by worldly people.