Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [25]
But there was no doubting the Bible’s strong language in reference to same-gender sexuality. In the Old Testament, Leviticus commands, “If a man has intercourse with a man as with a woman, they both commit an abomination. They shall be put to death; their blood shall be on their own heads.”
And Paul, in the New Testament, admonishes the Corinthians: “Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”
In Romans, Paul excoriates idol worshipers who have abandoned the monodeity and lead dissipated, decadent lives in which men and women “were consumed with passion” for those of their own gender. “Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error…. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die.”
Mary read the passages as if for the first time. To be gay is to be no better than a thief, idolater, or robber. Punishable by death. “Their blood shall be on their own heads.” The judgment and its implications held a nightmarish relevance to her son’s destiny.
But the ultimate conundrum lay in the Sodom and Gomorrah story. Nowhere else in the Bible did God’s judgment of sexual deviancy play out with such apocalyptic fury. For Mary, this story—along with that of the Flood—had always been the supreme affirmation of God’s willingness to wreak his vengeance on a wayward mankind.
The Lord warned Abraham, anointed to found the Hebrew nation, that he was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah in response to the unspecified “outcry” against the cities. Abraham tries to bargain God down, finally getting him to agree to spare the cities if his angel scouts, in the guise of two men, can find ten righteous people there.
The angels come to Lot’s house in Sodom and are treated well. But soon the house is surrounded by the city’s entire male population, who demand that Lot give up the visitors, so that they “may know them.” (Some versions say, “can have intercourse with them.”) Lot offers his daughters as substitutes, but the men refuse, proceeding to charge the house.
The angels blind the raiding throng, then lead Lot and his family to safety as the Lord rains “sulfur and fire” on the cities.
To Mary the account was flatly unambiguous. The Lord unleashed his wrath when his angels confronted the prospect of being violated by the males of Sodom. Confirmed in his belief that the town was evil, God destroyed it. Thus, homosexual sex is such anathema that God is capable of resorting to genocidal fury to punish it.
What consolation was there for Bobby in that account? she wondered. Mary plunged on, burrowing deeper and deeper into the Bible with a growing sense of despair. She located a classic biblical commentary by Matthew Henry from the seventeenth century, hoping it would help her decode the book and find a glimmer of optimism. But Henry, predictably, reserved his most eloquent denunciations for those groups most biblically indicted. She dug into her collection of Christian self-help books: A Man Called Peter; Don’t Wrestle Just Nestle: How People of All Ages Can Turn to God and Enjoy Life; Warfare Against Satan; and God’s Psychiatry.
She turned more and more frequently to Ed as a sounding board for her lonely search. Ed was now in junior college, working toward an A.A. degree in law enforcement, but he continued at Walnut Creek Pres, volunteering as a camp counselor, teaching Sunday school, and taking Bible study classes. He was the most religiously connected of her surviving children, and Mary felt comfortable discussing these issues with him. Ed detected a change in his mother. She was no longer spouting verses as gospel. She seemed to him like a student, or a seminarian, rummaging through the Bible