CHRISTIAN TRADITION IS INHERENTLY ANTI-HOMOSEXUAL ACTS
2 Corinthians 10:5 says that the apostles including Paul have succeeded in hearing and facing and dealing with all objections to their message which comes from God. They are able to capture every thought and offer it to Christ. This rules out anybody claiming to have discovered that gay sex and gay marriage can be sacred before Jesus. Those claims would be novelties.
Before we look at a Church report on how tradition condemns same sex sexual activity, we must remember that LGBT "Christians" who see the alleged silence of Jesus as permission are not making sense. They are reinforcing the conservatives who oppose homosexual practice on religious grounds. How? Because you need good reasons. Because it looks like they are using Jesus and his silence as an excuse. The "Christian" LGBT will not say, "Jesus said nothing about rampant same sex orgies so they are okay." Whatever this is, it is the LGBT person going out for themselves and pretending to care about LGBT in general.
The Bible speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed for sin. Jude the near relative of Jesus in the New Testament writes in his brief letter verse 7 that they "acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust."
Ezekiel 16:47 condemns Sodom for detestable practices and depravity. Incredibly one complaint in a later verse was that Sodom was haughty. Was gay pride around then? And did detestable things "therefore I did away with them as you have seen." It is clear from this that sexual sin was what made this "God" take action more than anything else.
The Genesis story says nothing about the people of Sodom threatening rape. They probably expected the males in Lot's house to be willing. If they were going to rape why did they ask Lot to ask them to come out?
Bans on anything but straight marriage is clear from this, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the [marriage] bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4 NKJV).
Jesus said that whoever claims to be his follower and a true prophet will be known by the fruit in their own lives. So a person who is disobedient to Jesus is to be disregarded. Nothing indicated that anybody living with a person sexually of the same sex was an exception.
Tradition follows the Bible and bans gay sex.
Tradition presupposes that gay sex is wrong which is why you don't hear instructions to two people of the same sex to love each other. In other words, if gay sex were ever okay there would be a theology of love about it and guidance.
Here is an article I found somewhere.
Early Teachings on Homosexuality
Some argue that neither the Bible nor apostolic tradition condemns the practice
of homosexuality. Passages such as Leviticus 18:22–30, Romans 1:26–27, 1
Corinthians 6:9, and Jude 7 serve as ample proof that Scripture indeed condemns
homosexuality. Below is ample proof from tradition. The Fathers are especially
harsh against the practice of pederasty, the homosexual corruption of boys by
men.
The Didache
"You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not
commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you
shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not
murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born" (Didache 2:2 [A.D.
70]).
Justin Martyr
"[W]e have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked
men; and this we have been taught lest we should do anyone harm and lest we
should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not
only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And for this
pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit
unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of
these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your
realm. And anyone who uses such persons, besides the godless and infamous and
impure intercourse, may possibly be having intercourse with his own child, or
relative, or brother. And there are some who prostitute even their own children
and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they
refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods" (First Apology 27 [A.D. 151]).
Clement of Alexandria
"All honor to that king of the Scythians, whoever Anacharsis was, who shot with
an arrow one of his subjects who imitated among the Scythians the mystery of the
mother of the gods . . . condemning him as having become effeminate among the
Greeks, and a teacher of the disease of effeminacy to the rest of the Scythians"
(Exhortation to the Greeks 2 [A.D. 190]).
"[According to Greek myth] Baubo [a female native of Eleusis] having received
[the goddess] Demeter hospitably, reached to her a refreshing draught; and on
her refusing it, not having any inclination to drink (for she was very sad), and
Baubo having become annoyed, thinking herself slighted, uncovered her shame, and
exhibited her nudity to the goddess. Demeter is delighted with the
sight—pleased, I repeat, at the spectacle. These are the secret mysteries of the
Athenians; these Orpheus records" (ibid.).
"It is not, then, without reason that the poets call him [Hercules] a cruel
wretch and a nefarious scoundrel. It were tedious to recount his adulteries of
all sorts, and debauching of boys. For your gods did not even abstain from boys,
one having loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another Pelops, another Chrysippus,
another Ganymede. Let such gods as these be worshipped by your wives, and let
them pray that their husbands be such as these—so temperate; that, emulating
them in the same practices, they may be like the gods. Such gods let your boys
be trained to worship, that they may grow up to be men with the accursed
likeness of fornication on them received from the gods" (ibid.).
...
"In accordance with these remarks, conversation about deeds of wickedness is
appropriately termed filthy [shameful] speaking, as talk about adultery and
pederasty and the like" (The Instructor 6, ca. A.D. 193).
"The fate of the Sodomites was judgment to those who had done wrong, instruction
to those who hear. The Sodomites having, through much luxury, fallen into
uncleanness, practicing adultery shamelessly, and burning with insane love for
boys; the All-seeing Word, whose notice those who commit impieties cannot
escape, cast his eye on them. Nor did the sleepless guard of humanity observe
their licentiousness in silence; but dissuading us from the imitation of them,
and training us up to his own temperance, and falling on some sinners, lest lust
being unavenged, should break loose from all the restraints of fear, ordered
Sodom to be burned,
pouring forth a little of the sagacious fire on licentiousness; lest lust,
through want of punishment, should throw wide the gates to those that were
rushing into voluptuousness. Accordingly, the just punishment of the Sodomites
became to men an image of the salvation which is well calculated for men. For
those who have not committed like sins with those who are punished, will never
receive a like punishment" (ibid., 8).
Tertullian
"[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature, and are
impious toward both [human] bodies and the sexes, we banish, not only from the
threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much
as monstrosities" (Modesty 4 [A.D. 220]).
Novatian
"[God forbade the Jews to eat certain foods for symbolic reasons:] For that in
fishes the roughness of scales is regarded as constituting their cleanness;
rough, and rugged, and unpolished, and substantial, and grave manners are
approved in men; while those that are without scales are unclean, because
trifling, and fickle, and faithless, and effeminate manners are disapproved.
Moreover, what does the law mean when it . . . forbids the swine to be taken for
food? It assuredly reproves a life filthy and dirty, and delighting in the
garbage of vice. . . . Or when it forbids the hare? It rebukes men deformed into
women" (The Jewish Foods 3 [A.D. 250]).
Cyprian of Carthage
"[T]urn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored, of another kind
of spectacle. . . . Men are emasculated, and all the pride and vigor of their
sex is effeminated in the disgrace of their enervated body; and he is more
pleasing there who has most completely broken down the man into the woman. He
grows into praise by virtue of his crime; and the more he is degraded, the more
skillful he is considered to be. Such a one is looked upon—oh shame!—and looked
upon with pleasure. . . . Nor is there wanting authority for the enticing
abomination . . . that Jupiter of theirs [is] not more supreme in dominion than
in vice, inflamed with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders . . . now
breaking forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put
the question: Can he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? Men
imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes
become their religion" (Letters 1:8 [A.D. 253]).
"Oh, if placed on that lofty watchtower, you could gaze into the secret
places—if you could open the closed doors of sleeping chambers and recall their
dark recesses to the perception of sight—you would behold things done by
immodest persons which no chaste eye could look upon; you would see what even to
see is a crime; you would see what people embruted with the madness of vice deny
that they have done, and yet hasten to do—men with frenzied lusts rushing upon
men, doing things which afford no gratification even to those who do them"
(ibid., 1:9).
Arnobius
"[T]he mother of the gods loved [the boy Attis] exceedingly, because he was of
most surpassing beauty; and Acdestis [the son of Jupiter] who was his companion,
as he grew up fondling him, and bound to him by wicked compliance with his lust.
. . . Afterwards, under the influence of wine, he [Attis] admits that he is . .
. loved by Acdestis. . . . Then Midas, king of Pessinus, wishing to withdraw the
youth from so disgraceful an intimacy, resolves to give him his own daughter in
marriage. . . . Acdestis, bursting with rage because of the boy’s being torn
from himself and brought to seek a wife, fills all the guests with frenzied
madness; the Phrygians shriek, panic-stricken at the appearance of the gods. . .
. [Attis] too, now filled with furious passion, raving frantically and tossed
about, throws himself down at last, and under a pine tree mutilates himself,
saying, ‘Take these, Acdestis, for which you have stirred up so great and
terribly perilous commotions’" (Against the Pagans 5:6–7 [A.D. 305]).
Eusebius of Caesarea
"[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the
union of women with women and men with men, he [God] adds: ‘Do not defile
yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were
defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I
have recompensed [their] iniquity upon it, and the land is grieved with them
that dwell upon it’ [Lev. 18:24–25]" (Proof of the Gospel 4:10 [A.D. 319]).
Basil the Great
"He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under discipline for the
same time as adulterers" (Letters 217:62 [A.D. 367]).
"If you [O, monk] are young in either body or mind, shun the companionship of
other young men and avoid them as you would a flame. For through them the enemy
has kindled the desires of many and then handed them over to eternal fire,
hurling them into the vile pit of the five cities under the pretense of
spiritual love. . . . At meals take a seat far from other young men. In lying
down to sleep let not their clothes be near yours, but rather have an old man
between you. When a young man converses with you, or sings psalms facing you,
answer him with eyes cast down, lest perhaps by gazing at his face you receive a
seed of desire sown by the enemy and reap sheaves of corruption and ruin.
Whether in the house or in a place where there is no one to see your actions, be
not found in his company under the pretense either of studying the divine
oracles or of any other business whatsoever, however necessary" (The
Renunciation of the World [A.D. 373]).
John Chrysostom
"[The pagans] were addicted to the love of boys, and one of their wise men made
a law that pederasty . . . should not be allowed to slaves, as if it was an
honorable thing; and they had houses for this purpose, in which it was openly
practiced. And if all that was done among them was related, it would be seen
that they openly outraged nature, and there was none to restrain them. . . . As
for their passion for boys, whom they called their paedica, it is not fit to be
named" (Homilies on Titus 5 [A.D. 390]).
"[Certain men in church] come in gazing about at the beauty of women; others
curious about the blooming youth of boys. After this, do you not marvel that
[lightning] bolts are not launched [from heaven], and all these things are not
plucked up from their foundations? For worthy both of thunderbolts and hell are
the things that are done; but God, who is long-suffering, and of great mercy,
forbears awhile his wrath, calling you to repentance and amendment" (Homilies on
Matthew 3:3 [A.D. 391]).
"All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26–27] . . . were vile, but chiefly the mad
lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored
than the body in diseases" (Homilies on Romans 4 [A.D. 391]).
"[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful
thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who
ought to have more shame than men" (ibid.).
"And sundry other books of the philosophers one may see full of this disease.
But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but that they who
received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears. For these are
treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or rather their plight is
more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse, even if lawless, is
yet according to nature; but this is contrary both to law and nature. For even
if there were no hell, and no punishment had been threatened, this would be
worse than any punishment" (ibid.).
Augustine
"[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought
everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do
such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God,
which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way"
(Confessions 3:8:15 [A.D. 400]).
The Apostolic Constitutions
"[Christians] abhor all unlawful mixtures, and that which is practiced by some
contrary to nature, as wicked and impious" (Apostolic Constitutions 6:11 [A.D.
400]).
NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004