Dr. Rodney Plunket

a lecture presented at the Pepperdine University Bible Lectures on April 29, 1998

Likely no one needs to be told that contemporary culture is changing with regard to the way it views homosexual behavior.  So I am not going to describe that change.  My job, as I see it, is quite simple.  I want to try and determine the Bible’s teachings concerning homosexual acts?  But let me say, before I begin, that the amount of material which I feel compelled to cover is so extensive that I will be unable to give that material as thorough a treatment as I would like.

Let’s begin at the beginning.  Let’s go back to creation.  I think the story contained in Genesis (Gn) 1:1-2:3 can be characterized as the story of the creation of the world; I think the story which follows, i.e., the one in Gn 2:4-25 can be characterized as the story of the creation of human sexuality; and that second story is beautiful.  In it God does not lessen Adam’s desire for a suitable companion.  He does not tell him that he should forget all such ideas.  He does not tell him that the desire for a companion like himself with whom he can enjoy profound inti­macy is an inferior desire born of animal lust.  Instead, God actually increases that desire by having Adam look at and name every single creature God made.  Adam analyzes everyone of them looking for the creature that matches his desire.  None do, and Adam is left feeling even more alone.  After heightening Adam’s desire for a true companion, God creates woman.  Human sexuality then becomes fully present, and it is God who makes that happen.  God made Adam and Eve the way they were made so they could be “one flesh.”

Now I know that the phrase “one flesh” refers to a profound unity between a woman and a man––a unity that involves more than sexual union, but I also know that the phrase “one flesh” does include sexual union.  And notice that there is nothing dirty about that fact.  The text does not apologize for introducing such a subject into a holy book.  You see, sexuality itself is viewed as holy because it is made by holy God.  It is not dirty or degenerate.  It is holy and to be prized, and it is made to be shared by a wife and a husband.

In Matthew (Matt) 19:3 and in Mark 10:2 Jesus goes back to this passage about “one flesh” when He needs to teach concerning God’s will for marital union.  Jesus makes clear that God’s will is that a husband and a wife be “one flesh” and that this “one flesh” union be unbreakable.

Just as Jesus went all the way back to Gn 2:24 to reveal God’s will for mar­ital union, the apostle Paul does the same thing with regard to sexual union.  In 1 Corinthians (1 Cor) 6:9ff Paul addresses many sexual issues and in verses (vv) 15-16 says,

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Should I there­fore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?  Never!  Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her?  For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.”

I think these verses reveal that Paul viewed Gn 2:24 as the model for godly sexu­ality.

Now let’s turn to the first reference to homosexual behavior in the Bible.  It is found in Gn 19:1ff.  This story comes after Abraham’s nephew, Lot, has moved into the city of Sodom.  Two angels, who appear as human males, are sent by the Lord to Sodom apparently to assess that city’s evil.  Lot is the only resident of Sodom who opens his house to these visitors.  The text says that all the men of the city then surrounded Lot’s house and cried to Lot to bring the two men out so they could have sex with them.  Since the ancient Near Eastern world had a view of hospitality which meant that a host should sacrifice anything to preserve his houseguests, Lot offered his virgin daughters to the mob.  The mob of men was not at all interested.  They wanted the two male visitors and no one else would do.  The frightening exchange ended when the angels struck the mob with blindness.

Some people argue that this text is irrelevant to homosexual acts between consenting adults, because this is an example of persons who are attempting homosexual rape.  However, I think that the point of the story is to reveal how morally out of control the people of Sodom were.  It should be noted that this story is in the book of Genesis, which, in Gn 2:24 (just seventeen chapters ear­lier), makes clear that the divine purpose for human sexuality is that “a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”  Nothing could make clearer how far from that purpose a people have gone than for them to be consumed totally with homosexual desire even to the point of hun­gering to rape two men whom they should have sheltered.

However, before we leave this passage we should note another which refers to the evil deeds of Sodom.  Please take your Bible and turn to Ezekiel 16:49-50.  There we read,

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom:  she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.  They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

The word translated as “abominable things” in the NRSV is the Hebrew word t◊o®{eœb≈a® which is used in Leviticus (Lv) 18:22 and in Lv 20:13 to refer to homosex­ual acts.  So Ezekiel does refer, I believe, to Sodom’s homosexual behavior in this passage.  However, it is important to hear a prophet of God place the accent upon things associated with wealth and greed.  Those are the sins which Ezekiel men­tions explicitly.  For us to treat homosexual behavior more harshly than we treat materialism is, in my judgment, unbiblical.  It appears that Ezekiel does the exact opposite.

A few more biblical references to the Sodom story must be noted.  In Matt 10:12-15 and in Luke 10:10-12 Jesus makes reference to Sodom within a discus­sion of inhospitality.  Those who believe that the Sodom story in Gn 19 has little if anything to say about what Christians should believe concerning homosexuality, use the references in Ezekiel and in the Gospels to argue that Sodom is not even remembered in the Bible as a place of homosexual sin.  The use of the Hebrew word translated as “abominable things” weakens their argument as does, I think, a story found in Judges (Jdg) 19:9ff.  That story appears to have been told in such a way so as to clearly connect it to the Sodom story, and that story in the book of Judges also involves homosexual desire on the part of a wicked mob.  Let’s look at just a portion of that story together.  Please turn to Jdg 19:22ff.

While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the city, a perverse lot, surrounded the house, and started pounding on the door.  They said to the old man, the master of the house, “Bring out the man who came into your house, so that we may have intercourse with him.”  And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.  Since this man is my guest, do not do this vile thing.  Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now.  Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing.”  But the men would not listen to him.  So the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them.  They wantonly raped her, and abused her all through the night until the morning.  And as the dawn began to break, they let her go.

One of the points of this story, I would argue, is that the men of the tribe of Benjamin have become like the men of Sodom and, as a result, deserve to be pun­ished with great severity.  Therefore, the story in Jdg 19 indicates that the homo­sexual behavior of Sodom is a part of what made Sodom a by-word for wicked­ness.

Now turn to the book of Leviticus.  In Lv 18:22 we read, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”  Leviticus 20:13 says, “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomi­na­tion; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.”  There is nothing dif­fi­cult about understanding these verses.  But we must admit that there are many things commanded in the book of Leviticus that we do not keep today.  For exam­ple, Lv 19:19 says,

Keep my decrees.  Do not mate different kinds of animals.  Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.  Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

We do not enforce any of those decrees, so why should we abide by the ones pro­hibiting homosexual behavior?

Let me give you three reasons.  The first one comes from Acts (Ax) 15:19-20.  These verses come near the end of a discussion between several leaders of the early Church.  The purpose of the discussion is to decide what elements from the Law of Moses should the Church ask non-Jewish members to keep.  James, the brother of Jesus, gives the view which the group adopts.  Here is what he says in Ax 15:19-20.

Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.

Many scholars recognize that James here is referring back to Lv 17-18, because all of the items that he mentions are found in those two chapters and those two chap­ters also specifically apply these commands not just to the Israelites but also to those non-Israelites who live among them.  I hope you can see what a sensible and biblical transition James makes here.  He applies laws to non-Jewish Christians that the Old Testament (OT) applied to non-Israelites who were living among the Israelites.  The point most relevant to our purpose is that Lv 18 is full of refer­ences to forms of sexual behavior from which the people are to abstain, and in verse (v) 22 of that chapter (as previously noted) it says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”  The comments of James in Ax 15 give one good reason for believing that the prohibition in Lv 18:22 is to be applied to Christians.

The second reason for believing that the passages in Leviticus which pro­hibit homosexual acts do apply to Christians is that James, in Ax 15, refers to the kind of sex acts which should be prohibited with the Greek word porneía.  It is a generic term which is best translated as “sexual immorality.”  It is a term that refers to any act of sexual intercourse that is either unnatural or outside of mar­riage.  The use of that term by James in a discussion of what portion of the law of Moses should be kept by non-Jewish Christians would naturally have indicated that James intends for homosexual acts to be included in those things from which non-Jewish Christians are to abstain.

There is a third reason for believing that the two prohibitions in Leviticus against homosexuality do apply to all Christians.  It is what I learned as I read through the NT and noted all the references to sex acts which are condemned there.  I found that every one of those condemned sex acts is punished in the OT with the death penalty.  Now I am not saying that the NT teaches us that acts which the OT punishes by death should be treated in the same way in the Church, because such is not the case.  Leviticus 20:11, for example, pronounces the death penalty on a man who has sexual intercourse with his father’s wife.  When Paul confronts that same sin in 1 Cor 5:1ff, he tells the Church to put the man out of their fellowship so that the man’s “sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.”  So sexual sins are not punished in the same way in the Church that they were in Israel, but those sexual sins which in the OT resulted in death in the NT are treated as porneía and are condemned.  And homosexual acts receive the death penalty in the OT and are condemned in the NT.

There is also a fourth reason which reinforces the view that the NT applies these prohibitions against homosexual acts in Leviticus to Christians.  However, it is appropriate to save that fourth reason for just a few moments.

Now let’s look at the New Testament (NT) passages which refer to homo­sexual acts.  Two are very similar and can be discussed together.  They are 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Timothy (1 Tm) 1:10.  To understand these verses within their context, let’s read 1 Cor 6:9-11 and 1 Tm 1:8-11.

1Cor. 6:9-11:  Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived!  Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, rob­bers––none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.  And this is what some of you used to be.  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

1Tim. 1:8-11:  Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately.  This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and what­ever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

As is easily seen, in 1 Cor 6:9 Paul lists several types of sinful persons who will not inherit the kingdom of God, and in so doing he refers to two types of persons who were associated with male homosexuality in the first century.  The relevant terms are translated differently in different English translations.  In the New Inter­national Version the two terms are rendered as “male prostitutes” and “homosex­ual offenders.”  In the New Revised Standard Version the two terms are rendered as “male prostitutes” and “sodomites.”  The word translated as “homosexual offen­ders” in the NIV and as “sodomites” in the NRSV is also found in 1 Tm 1:10.  In that verse the NRSV again renders the relevant term as “sodomites,” but the NIV renders it as “perverts.”  The reason that the NIV renders the term as “homosexual offenders” in 1 Cor 6 and as “perverts” in 1 Tm 1 escapes me.  Especially when the term “pervert” is frequently used in our culture to make one sin appear worse than another, and that clearly is not Paul’s purpose, because in both 1 Cor 6 and in 1 Tm 1 this term occurs in a list contain­ing several sins all of which Paul thinks are a perversion of the will of God.  I think that the phrase “homosexual offender” is a much better rendering.

Now let’s look at the two terms which these lists from Paul employ.  The first relevant term found in 1 Cor 6:9 is not used in 1 Tm 1.  That term is ren­dered as “male prostitutes,” and it refers to the passive partner in a homosexual act.  As Richard Oster says in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, this term “gener­ally means ‘soft’ and when applied to a sexual setting can mean ‘effeminate’ or refer to the passive individual (of any age) in a homoerotic activity (Richard Oster, 1 Corinthians , The College Press NIV Commentary [Joplin: College Press, 1995), 145].”  Contemporary English does not have a good synonym for this term, so you will find some variety among the various English versions.  The important point to make is that such a person is in Paul’s list of those who “will not inherit the kingdom of God”.

The second term is highly significant, because it is a coined term.  It is coined from the Greek version of Lv 18:22 & 20:13.  Now be reminded that those two verses in Leviticus are the ones which prohibit homosexual acts.  The word best translated as “homosexual offenders” which Paul uses in 1 Cor 6:9 and in 1 Tm 1:10 is constructed by putting together two of the words from those verses in Leviticus––the Greek word for “man” and the word for “bed” (by the way, the Greek word for “bed” was used as a euphemism for sexual intercourse and is the word from which we get the English word “coitus” which means sexual inter­course).  Earlier I said that there was a fourth reason for arguing that NT Christians saw the Leviticus prohibitions against homosexuality as binding; this is that fourth reason.  The very word used by Paul to describe practicing homosexu­als was based upon those passages in Leviticus, a strong indication that Paul believed that those prohibitions in Leviticus applied to all Christians.  The impor­tant point to make is that in both 1 Cor 6:9 and in 1 Tm 1:10 Paul refers to those who commit homosexual acts as sinners.

Now please take your Bible and turn to Romans (Rm) 1:16-32 and follow along as I read.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salva­tion to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written,  “The one who is righteous will live by faith”.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.  So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immor­tal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!  Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions.  Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another.  Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done.  They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice.  Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gos­sips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward par­ents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.

Verses 26-27 are the ones which refer to homosexual behavior, but let’s briefly place those two verses in their context.  Verses 16-17 extol the power of the Gospel.  Beginning with v 18 Paul reveals the kind of world which the Gospel confronts, a world which has turned away from God and has worshipped the crea­ture rather than the Creator.  Verses 24-32 reveal the consequences resulting from the fact that people have turned away from God.  Two of those results are reported in vv 26-27, the verses which refer to female and male homosexual acts.  Some have read these verses to mean that homosexual acts are especially heinous and have contended that they are the sins which cause God to give a culture over to a depraved mind, but that is a misreading of these verses.  Paul’s point is that you know when a people have been given over by God to a depraved mind when behavior like this is approved of and encouraged.  In other words, these acts are not the cause but the effect.  Anyone who wants to argue that homosexual acts are seen by Paul as especially heinous must also note the list of sins which follows in vv 29-31.  That list includes gossips and those who are disobedient to their par­ents.

In response to Paul’s words here, many have argued that the apostle is writ­ing in a time when the main form of homosexual behavior was that between an older man and a young boy, and that is the only kind of homosexual behavior which he is condemning.  The first point to make is that there is nothing in these verses or anywhere else in Paul’s writings to indicate that such a practice is the sole target of Paul’s comments.  Second, even though this practice of an adult male having sexual intercourse with a young boy was widespread in the Greco-Roman world, it certainly was not the only form of homosexual behavior taking place at that time.  Homosexual behavior was widespread in the Greco-Roman world, and it was not confined to relationships between an older and a younger male; if Paul had wanted to condemn only one form of homosexual behavior he would have made that clear.  Instead of that his comments condemn homosexual behavior of all types.

Another response that is often heard is that Paul is condemning only those who are of heterosexual orientation and who have “exchanged” that orientation for a homosexual one.  Richard B. Hays of Duke University in an excellent dis­cussion responds to this argument as follows:

The “exchange” is not a matter of individual life decisions; rather, it is Paul’s characterization of the fallen condition of the pagan world.  In any case, neither Paul nor anyone else in antiquity had a concept of “sexual ori­entation.”  To introduce this concept into this passage (by suggesting that Paul disapproves only those who act contrary to their individual sexual ori­entations) is to lapse into anachronism.  The fact is that Paul treats all homosexual activity as prima facie evidence of humanity’s tragic confusion and alienation from God the Creator (Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament [New York: HarperCollins, 1996], 388-89).

Paul is not condemning only those who are naturally heterosexual in orientation and have rebelled, as it were, against that orientation and have become practicing homosexuals.  Paul simply believes that homosexual behavior is sin––period!

This orientation argument must be additionally addressed, because many have come to believe that people are born as homosexuals in orientation and find it hard to believe that God would condemn an inclination with which a person is born.  I am not an expert in the field of genetics, but what I do know is that the same type of research which points to genetics as an indicator of homosexual ori­entation also points to genetics as an indicator of sexual violence, and I doubt that we want to argue that rape ought to be accepted and the rapist treated as a non-sinner because of some genetic predisposition.  I suspect that most sinful acts are connected to some sort of predisposition not chosen willfully by the one who pos­sesses it.  Remember that the Bible declares that sin’s power is present in our world (e.g., Rm 3:9) and that evil forces in the world will not be totally con­quered until the return of Christ (e.g., 1 Cor 15:20-28).  If one predisposition is allowed to excuse sin, then all such predispositions can and should do so as well.

I once had the opportunity to talk in some detail with two men who work for the parole board in Texas.  They told me that sexual offenders almost never change in orientation.  They told me that parole officers have to treat sexual offenders just like an alcoholic has to be treated, i.e., with the awareness that the sexual offender will have to exercise discipline and restraint the rest of his or her life to keep from re-offending.  They even told me of a man who committed a sexual offense in his younger days and then re-offended at age eighty.  Sexual pre­dispositions do not absolve the child molester or the rapist, and they should not provide absolution for homosexual acts either.  I would even argue that Rm 1:27 indicates that something has made the men referred to have a genuine homosexual orientation, because Paul says they “were consumed with passion for one another.”  When persons of the same sex are “consumed with passion for one another” how do you decide which ones were born that way and which ones decided to become that way?  Paul shows no interest in that question.  As Hays says, “If Paul were shown . . . poll results [indicating that a significant percentage of the world’s pop­ulation were of homosexual orientation], he would reply sadly, ‘Indeed, the power of sin is rampant in the world’” (Richard B. Hays, “Awaiting the Redemption of Our Bodies:  The Witness of Scripture Concerning Homosexuality,” in Homosex­uality in the Church:  Both Sides of the Debate, ed. Jeffrey S. Siker [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994], 12).

Underneath most of the arguments which favor the Church’s acceptance of homosexual behavior is the belief that without sexual fulfillment a person has not really lived.  But that view is not biblical and is not Christian.  Matthew 19:10-12 and 1 Cor 7 both commend the celibate lifestyle as highly commendable and ful­filling.  The Bible believes that fulfillment is found in God and not in sexual union.  The joy of loving God is placed above the joy of human sexual love.  As Hays says, “Sexual fulfillment finds its place, at best, as a subsidiary good within this larger picture” (Hays, Moral Vision, 391).

Let me elaborate upon this point.  The best studies indicate that about 3% of the current population have a psychosexual orientation that is homosexual in nature.  Many believe that this 3% are being cruelly deprived because they cannot experience a godly release from that drive as a married heterosexual can.  Let’s notice the weakness of that argument.  If the church changes the rules for them, what about the heterosexual adult who never finds a suitable mate but who has the same drives as the heterosexual who does marry?  What biblical principles are to be bent to keep from depriving the unmarried single adult?

I want to conclude with a story from Hays relevant chapter in his book, The Moral Vision of the New Testament:

Gary came to New Haven in the summer of 1989 to say a proper farewell.  My best friend from undergraduate years at Yale, he was dying of AIDS.  While he was still able to travel, my family and I invited him to come visit us one more time.

During the week he stayed with us, we went to films together (Field of Dreams and Dead Poet’s Society), we drank wine and laughed, we had long sober talks about politics and literature and the gospel and sex and such.  Above all, we listened to music.  Some of it was nostalgic music:  the record of our college singing group, which Gary had directed with passion­ate precision; music of the sixties, recalling the years when we marched together against the Vietnam war––Beatles, Byrds, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell.  Some of it was music more recently discovered:  I introduced him to R.E.M. and the Indigo Girls; he introduced me to Johannes Ockeghem’s Requiem (Missa pro defunctis).  As always, his aesthetic sense was fine and austere; as always, he was determined to face the truth, even in the shadow of death.

We prayed together often that week, and we talked theology.  It became clear that Gary had come not only to say goodbye but also to think hard, before God, about the relation between his homosexuality and his Christian faith.  He was angry at the self-affirming gay Christian groups, because he regarded his own condition as more complex and tragic than their apologetic stance could acknowledge.  He also worried that the gay apologists encouraged homosexual believers to “draw their identity from their sexuality” and thus to shift the ground of their identity subtly and idolatrously away from God.  For more than twenty years, Gary had grap­pled with his homosexuality, experiencing it as a compulsion and an afflic­tion.  Now, as he faced death, he wanted to talk it all through again from the beginning, because he knew my love for him and trusted me to speak with­out dissembling.  For Gary, there was no time to dance around the hard questions.  As Dylan had urged, “Let us not talk falsely now; the hour is getting late.”

In particular, Gary wanted to discuss the biblical passages that deal with homosexual acts.  Among Gary’s many gifts was his skill as a reader of texts.  After leaving Yale and helping to found a community-based Christian theater group in Toronto, he had eventually completed a degree in French literature.  Though he was not trained as a biblical exegete, he was a careful and sensitive interpreter.  He had read hopefully through the stan­dard bibliography of the burgeoning movement advocating the acceptance of homosexuality in the church:  John J. McNeill, The Church and the Homosexual; James B. Nelson, Embodiment; Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?; John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality.  In the end, he came away disappointed, believing that these authors, despite their good inten­tions, had imposed a wishful interpretation on the biblical passages.  How­ever much he wanted to believe that the Bible did not condemn homosexu­ality, he would not violate his own stubborn intellectual integrity by pre­tending to find their arguments persuasive.

Hays, near the end of this chapter of his book, makes some relevant comments and completes Gary’s story.

Should homosexual Christians expect to change their orientation?  This tough question must also be answered in the critical framework of New Testament eschatology.  On the one hand, the transforming power of the Spirit really is present in our midst:  the testimonies of those who claim to be healed and transformed into a heterosexual orientation should be taken seriously.  They confess, in the words of the Charles Wesley hymn, that God “breaks the power of cancelled sin; He sets the prisoner free.”  If we do not continue to live with that hope, we may be hoping for too little from God.  On the other hand, the “not yet” looms large; the testimonies of those like Gary who pray and struggle in Christian community and seek healing unsuccessfully for years must be taken with no less seriousness.  Perhaps for the many the best outcome that is attainable in this time between the times will be a life of disciplined abstinence, free from obsessive lust.  (Exactly the same standard would apply for unmarried persons of heterosexual orien­tation.)  That seems to be the spiritual condition Gary reached near the end of his life:

Since All Saints Day I have felt myself being transformed.  I no longer consider myself a homosexual.  Many would say, big deal, you’re forty-two––and are dying of AIDS.  Big sacrifice.  No, I didn’t do this of my will, of an effort to improve myself, to make myself acceptable to God.  No, he did this for me.  I feel like a great weight has been lifted off me.  I have not turned “straight.”  I guess I’m like St Paul’s phrase, a eunuch for Christ” (Ibid., 379-80 & 402-03).

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