I still think that homosexuality is a Victorian construct. What the Bible acknowledges is sodomy, right?
10 “‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.
11 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
12 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, both of them are to be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.
13 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
14 “‘If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.
15 “‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal.
16 “‘If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
17 “‘If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They are to be publicly removed from their people. He has dishonored his sister and will be held responsible.
18 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a woman during her monthly period, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has also uncovered it. Both of them are to be cut off from their people.
19 “‘Do not have sexual relations with the sister of either your mother or your father, for that would dishonor a close relative; both of you would be held responsible.
20 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his aunt, he has dishonored his uncle. They will be held responsible; they will die childless.
21 “‘If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless.
22 “‘Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. 24 But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations.
Well, Paul does refer to sodomites having "vile affections". (KJV) Vile affections does seem to refer to a homosexual orientation or desires in this context.
The words “homosexual” and “heterosexual” were coined by Austro-Hungarian activist and “journalist” Karl-Maria Kertbeny. Not exactly a product of Victorian society.
The Bible calls this act “the sin of Sodom”.
Yes, but sodomy is a homosexual’s way of life.
Rom 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Rom 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
Rom 1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Rom 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Rom 1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Rom 1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Rom 1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Through most of its existence, Christendom assumed that anybody might be tempted by this sexual sin, perhaps under certain circumstances (e.g. in all all-male environment, such as prisons, barracks, work-camps, boys' schools, monasteries)--- and that such behavior is forbidden for all. There was no concept of "gay" or "straight".
The Bible doesn't say a word about "homosexuals." It's the act of perverting sex which is condemned.
Actually, in Victorian times, e.g. in the writings of Freud, homosexual, simply meant of the same sex, was an adjective not a noun, and had nothing to do with erotic activity, unless the noun to which it was applied gave it that denotation. The Victorian word would have been sodomite, though I think the word homoerotic might have gotten currency back then in more academic circles.
The Bible condemns what was traditionally in English called sodomy or buggery, but not in those words, and it is only by textual analysis (done in the patristic era and part of the common understanding of all Christian confessions until the lunacy of the past few years) that what is condemned as an abomination in Leviticus and by St. Paul, whose word arsenokoitai parallels the LXX text of Leviticus, is identified with the sin of Sodom and given the name sodomy — which name never appears in the Scriptures.