Bible View of Sexual Perversions

Due to worldly propaganda even some among God’s people have been influenced so as to view homosexuality and similar sexual perversions as ‘not so bad.’ However, God’s Law to Israel was that homosexuals should be put to death! And in the Christian Greek Scriptures, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10 says, according to the New International Version: “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral . . . nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders . . . will inherit the kingdom of God.” And, according to this same Bible translation, Romans 1:26, 27 says: “Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men.” Ro 1 Verse 32 continues: “Those who do such things deserve death.”

Surprisingly, some who have become involved in immoral conduct, such as bestiality, did not feel that what they did was really so bad. Yet having sexual connections with an animal is wrong. It is grounds for being disfellowshipped from the Christian congregation. Similarly, some have expressed ignorance regarding what are homosexual practices. What, then, is homosexuality?

What Is Homosexuality?

To help get this clear, consider dictionary definitions of homosexuality:

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language: “Erotic activity with a member of one’s own sex.”

The American Heritage Dictionary: “1. Sexual desire for others of one’s own sex. 2. Sexual activity with another of the same sex.”

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: “Sexual desire or behavior directed toward a person or persons of one’s own sex.”

It is interesting that, according to dictionary definitions, homosexuality includes sexual DESIRE for others of one’s own sex. Yet the Bible makes a distinction between the practice of what is bad and sinful desires or tendencies. These desires may be present despite determined efforts to eradicate them from mind and body. Because of their earlier life environment, and perhaps other factors, we may have Christian brothers and sisters who from time to time have the urge for sexual relations with members of their own sex. But they fight that unnatural, Satan-inspired desire​—and they do not give in to it. So they are not practicing homosexuals. They get control of their thinking, knowing that wrong desire that is allowed to grow fertile is bound to express itself in wrong acts.​—James 1:14, 15; Colossians 3:5-10.

What is condemned by God in the Bible, and is a disfellowshipping offense, is the “erotic activity,” or ‘sexual behavior,’ directed toward another person of one’s own sex. This activity, or behavior, does not necessarily have to be sodomy in order for it to constitute homosexuality. Any activity involving the genitals of at least one of these persons, such as kissing, fondling, rubbing one’s sexual parts against another, or other such behavior designed to obtain sexual pleasure with another member of one’s own sex, is homosexuality. And while most people think of homosexuals as males, the term applies equally to females who carry on similar practices, though they are generally termed lesbians.

Regardless of how such propaganda is altering “people’s perceptions of homosexuality,” it is just as abhorrent to the Creator of the human body as it ever was. God’s Law required that homosexuals in ancient Israel “be put to death without fail.” (Leviticus 20:13) And God’s law for Christians shows that his mind on the matter has not changed. The Bible says clearly that “homosexual perverts” are classed along with others who “will not possess God’s Kingdom.”​—1 Corinthians 6:9, 10, Today’s English Version.