The Supreme Court Decision on Sodomy: Answerable to a Higher Court?
A commentary by Melvin Rhodes
Good News writer and United Church of God pastor, Lansing,
Michigan
Sodomy is now legal all over America, following a decision of the U.S.
Supreme Court that struck down anti-sodomy laws in 13 states. Other states
had already changed laws that went back centuries.
Sodomy is defined in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary as "carnal
copulation in any of certain unnatural ways." Clarke’s
Standard Reference Dictionary (UK, 1982) defines it as "any
sexual intercourse held to be abnormal, as between a person and an animal
or between two persons of the same sex."
When most people think of sodomy, they think of sexual acts between
people of the same sex, but the legal definition is clearly broader than
that. The Bible also shows us that the sins of Sodom were many. The Old
Testament prophet Ezekiel described them as "pride, fullness of
food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand
of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination
before Me . . ." (Ezekiel 16:49-50). Certainly, sexual sins were
included among these.
The word sodomy comes from the biblical city of Sodom, notorious
for its vice and corruption. Sodom, along with its sister city Gomorrah,
were destroyed by God because of the sinfulness of its people.
You can read an account of the circumstances that led up to this destruction
in Genesis 18 and 19.
When Abraham realized that God had determined to destroy the twin cities "because
their sin [was] very grave" (Genesis 18:20), he appealed on their
behalf, bargaining with God's messengers. He asked: "Would You also
destroy the righteous with the wicked?" (verse 23). "Suppose
there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the
place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it?" Abraham
was assured that if there were 50 righteous left in the city, the city
would be spared.
On second thoughts, Abraham realized that there might not be 50 righteous
inhabitants left, so he asked again, this time wondering if the city
would be spared if only 45 God-fearing citizens remained. He was assured
the city would be spared. Eventually Abraham got down to 10. And the
Lord said, "I will not destroy it for the sake of ten" (verse
32).
In the next chapter we see the cities destroyed. Clearly, there were
not even 10 righteous people left.
The incident that preceded the final destruction of Sodom involved homosexual
rape. When the two messengers from God were staying with Lot, "the
men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people
from every quarter, surrounded the house. And they called to [Abraham's
nephew] Lot and said to him, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight?
Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally [sexually]".
Rebutted, the men "pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near
to break down the door" (verses 4-9).
Immediately after this incident, God took action to destroy the cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah (read the rest of the chapter). After witnessing
their sin for a very long time, His patience had run out and He chose
to remove them from the face of the earth.
Could the same fate befall the United States of America?
Since the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s, America and other
Western nations have progressively moved further and further away from
God and His standards of morality as defined in His Word, the Bible.
The sexual reforms of the '60s and subsequent decades have contributed
greatly to the breakdown of the family, the increased spread of sexually
transmitted diseases, millions of HIV/AIDS infections, an epidemic of
drug-taking and increased crime and violence. Despite this fact, the
greatest legal authorities in the land have reacted with yet another "reform" that
takes the country further away from God’s laws for mankind.
As with Sodom and Gomorrah, when will God pull the plug on our immoral
society? |
