12. (a) What is God’s view of homosexuality? (b) Against what does God’s law forbidding homosexuality protect us?

¹² What of homosexuality? As we have seen, this practice is covered by the word por·neiʹa (“fornication”), used by Jesus and his disciples. The disciple Jude used that word when referring to the unnatural sex acts of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Jude 7) Homosexuality there caused degradation that produced a loud “cry of complaint.” And it led to God’s destruction of those cities and their inhabitants. (Genesis 18:20; 19:23, 24) Has God’s view changed since then? No. First Corinthians 6:9, 10, for example, lists “men who lie with men” among those who will not inherit God’s Kingdom if they continue such a practice. Also, describing the results to persons who ‘dishonor their bodies in uncleanness,’ going after “flesh for unnatural use,” the Bible says that they “became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error.” (Romans 1:24, 27) Such persons not only fall under God’s condemnation, but they also receive a “recompense” of mental and physical corruption. Today, for example, there is a disproportionately high rate of syphilis, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases among homosexuals. The high moral standards of God’s Word protect us against such harm, rather than deprive us of something good.

“Whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication [por·neiʹa], and marries another commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:9; 5:32) Por·neiʹa, as we have seen, refers to sexual relations outside of marriage, whether natural or unnatural.