Arrested Pulse

The Westboro Baptist Church is an infamous activist group known for its claim that God Hates Fags. But does God really hate fags? Let's find out by reading the most taken-out-of-context, allegedly "antigay" chapter from the Old Testament of the Holy Bible (the Torah if you're Jewish), Genesis 19, where we find the famous tale of Sodom and Gomorrah.

While the conventional interpretation of this chapter supposedly affirms God's detestation of homosexuality, when read literally -- that is, stripped of its dogmatic context -- the chapter reveals quite the opposite: God, in fact, hates straights.

Want to "know" more? Read on!

Here's how the story unfolds, literally: Two angels come to the gate of Sodom, where they are humbly met by Lot. Lot is favored by the Lord because he is, unlike the rest of Sodom's population, virtuous. They have come to warn Lot that God intends to destroy Sodom and its sister city Gomorrah, but that He will allow Lot and his family to flee the city providing they don't look back while doing so.

Kindly old Lot invites the angels into his home for a repast. While they have gathered inside, the men of Sodom congregate outside, horny as hell. They shout for Lot to hand over the angels so that the men may get to "know" (have sex with) them. They are adamant in their desire to gratify their craven appetites.

At that moment, kindly old Lot comes out and addresses his "friends." He announces that he'll happily throw them his two young daughters -- "which have not yet known man" -- so long as they leave the two angels unmolested: "Let me, I pray you, bring my daughters unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes," he pleads. But the men rebuke Lot.

Whoa...

Let's stop here for a moment. For centuries, Church dogma has encouraged Christians to conveniently overlook Lot's astounding lack of paternal concern for -- or for that matter love of -- his own little children!

By pointing the finger again and again at the perceived homosexuality of these "Sodomites," Christians have lost sight of this chapter's depiction of the vilest sin imaginable -- a father's offering of his young virgin daughters to be gang-banged by an entire city of men -- even though it is written in plain text on the sacred page in front of them!

And it gets worse...

The next morning Lot, his wife, and his two daughters flee the condemned city. As they made their way into the surrounding mountains, "the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone out of heaven." Lot's wife, very understandably, looked back at the inferno engulfing her home. For this act of disobedience she was turned immediately into a pillar of salt, leaving Lot a widower.

So much for the sanctity of that marriage!

So Lot shacks up with his two daughters who are, as he had proudly announced to the sex-starved Sodomites, virgins. They live in a cave in the mountains of Zoar. It is here where heterosexuality rears its ugly head. The girls, now young women, start to bemoan their barren wombs. Beset by the pangs of maternal instinct, they conspire to get their father drunk and have sex with him in order to propagate.

So the eldest gave him wine, "and lay with her father; and he perceived not that she lay down, nor when she arose." The next night the youngest did the same thing and, again, "he perceived not when she lay down, and when she arose." The two daughters, no longer virgins, got what they wanted: pregnant with boys. The eldest bore a son named Moab, who begat the Moabite tribe. The youngest bore a son named Ben-ammi, who begat the Ammonites.

Again: Whoa...

Now, let's interpret these passages literally: God destroys Lot's legitimate marriage over a minor infraction, then allows incest -- yes, incest -- to replace it!

WTF? Father-daughter incest, the most repugnant manifestation of heterosexual lust, is how Lot is rewarded by God for his "virtue"? And, seeing as the Moabites and Ammonites were doomed to destruction, the poor old guy was even robbed of a legacy of which he could be proud. Does this make sense?

And what's all this crap about Lot not "perceiving" his daughters having sex with him? The guy's old and stone-cold drunk, living 3000 years before Viagra, but he's still able to get a good enough woody going to deflower and impregnate -- via orgasm -- both of his daughters!

God Hates Straights

Chapter 19 of the book of Genesis is a savage portrayal of God's contempt for people who lead typical, married, family-oriented heterosexual lifestyles. The Bible is clear on this point. From the moment Adam ate of the fruit offered to him by Eve, heterosexuality has been a plague upon humankind and a boon for the Devil. Clearly, it would have been better for Lot and his family to perish in the flames alongside those ravenous men who, despite all their faults, were virtuous enough to refuse to gang rape two innocent little girls.

That God "saved" Lot only to condemn him to a life as an alcoholic widower conceiving offspring with his own children points to something much more detestable in His eyes than the assumed homosexuality of the occupants of Sodom. Only those blinded by religious dogma and a desire to point judgmental fingers at others can deny the irrefutably literal truth of Genesis 19: God hates straights.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Note:This blog was originally published as an essay on my website in 2001. Because there was no option to leave comments, many people emailed their responses directly to me. Here are some of my favorite emails from between 2002 and 2006.

If you go there, please return to this page and leave your response below... if you dare.