Samuel, the prophet said:

"Does the Lord desire whole offerings and sacrifices as he desires obedience?
To obey is better than to sacrifice and to listen to him is better than the fat of rams"

As Jesus often said:

"anyone here with two good ears had better listen"

the sheep hear the shepherd's voice and follow him . . .

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself"

The Law, the prophets and Jesus are all in agreement on this.

The silence of Jesus on homosexuality is deafening. Jesus was a strong critic of many of the social and religious practices of his day. He has strong words for heterosexual men. "But what I tell you is this: if a man looks at a woman with a lustful eye, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Why does he say nothing against homosexuals? The Roman centurians owned boy slaves for their sexual pleasure. Yet when one of them asked Jesus to heal his boy, Jesus restores the boy to health and commends the centurian's faith. There is no word of condemnation from Jesus of either slavery or homosexual activity. Translators have chosen to translate the Greek word "pais" as servant in an attempt to conceal his age, gender and the nature of his duties. Most modern readers would find this story as disturbing as the original witnesses, but for different reasons.

The few direct references to homosexual acts in the Bible are in lists of behaviour to be avoided. It is strange that those who think the Bible is against homosexual acts rarely worry about the other activities in these lists.

Of course the word homosexual does not appear in the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek original texts of the Bible. The translations preface at the front of the Bible is a good place to begin to understand how difficult translators find their task. It is unusual for two words in different languages to have the same meaning. Some words appear so rarely that it is hard to know what they mean. There is also the problem that the Bible was written over a period of several hundred years and the meaning of words change. The word "homosexual" was created in the nineteenth century and first appeared in English in 1912. The word "homosexual" first appeared in a Bible in 1946. Most recent translations no longer use the word "homosexual". There are two reasons for this:

The meaning of the Greek and Hebrew words in the biblical books is now better understood. They never refer to sexual activity between consenting adults. Recent translations reflect a more accurate understanding of what is being discussed, whether pagan religious ceremonies or the ceremonial rape of defeated kings. more information

The meaning of the word homosexual has changed since 1946. It is no longer considered a mental or medical condition, just the way that about ten percent of the population express their sexuality. more information

For a queer christian, the conflict between moral attitudes and sexual desire ultimately resolves into a conflict between church given religious ideas and God given intelligence.

The most startling information in the Bible about queers is how many queers and queer relationships are praised throughout the Bible. Queer relationships are usually spelt out in considerable detail compared to the coy accounts of male with female couplings.

Jonathan and David: such love between two men makes many uncomfortable, this is what Saul had to say to his son Jonathon: "You son of a crooked and rebellious mother. I know perfectly well you have made a friend of the son of Jesse only to bring shame on yourself and dishonor to your mother"

The Joseph story: Genesis chapter 37 and 39 to 50, queer saves nation? "You meant to do me harm, but God has turned it to good" Joseph was handsome in face and feature, his brothers were jealous and attacked him. An interesting aside is that the Egyptians regarded shepherds as unclean.

Was St Paul queer? Was not he the one who condemned gay people in Romans, and elsewhere? There is considerable debate over those anti-gay "proof -texts", but whatever the conclusions, there is much, as Anglican Bishop of Newark John Spong has pointed out which leads one to suspect Paul might have been "queer" in some way. The fact he was never married, unusual for a Jew of his time, his companionship with a series of younger men, especially Timothy, his mention of an unnamed "thorn in the flesh". and, possibly, his disdain for some types of exploitative homosexual relationship in his period, all raise questions about his sexuality. It should also be added that despite Paul's modern reputation for placing women lower than men, he also penned revolutionary words about the absolute equality of all believers in Christ, a complete destruction of prevailing social codes and norms that has only intermittently played out in full in Church history.

1 Samuel 15: 22, 23 Samuel then said:

"Does the Lord desire whole offerings and sacrifices as he desires obedience?
To obey is better than to sacrifice and to listen to him is better than the fat of rams
Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, arrogance as evil as idolatory.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as King"

Samuel 15: 18-27 "David went out with his men and slew two hundred Philistines; he brought their foreskins and counted them out to the king in order to be accepted as his son in law. Saul then married his daughter Michal to David'

1 Samuel 20: 30 "Saul's anger blazed againsy Jonathan and he said, "you son of a crooked and rebellious mother. I know perfectly well you have made a friend of the son of Jesse only to bring shame on yourself and dishonor to your mother" (what aspect of the friendship between Jonathan and his brother in law David is of such concern to Saul?)

There is no Hebrew or Greek word that corresponds to our very modern words homosexual and homosexuality. These words were coined by Karoly M. Benkert in 1869, and they were translated into English in 1912. There is therefore no warrant for discussing homosexuality as if it was a biblical term. Any definitions we want to use should be derived from the Bible, not from the jargon of Hungarian, German, and modern sexual psychology.

The word homosexual first appeared in an English Bible in 1946 in the RSV translation of two Greek words in 1 Cor. 6:9. NEB cautiously translated the two words together as sexual perversion.

The biblical fact is that some forms of sexual behaviour are certainly condemned. There never was and there never can be any New Testament fact about homosexuality in general.

All quotes are from the Revised English Bible (1989) Oxford and Cambridge University Press