It is a general rule that scripture interprets scripture. When you are unsure about what a certain verse means, then it is a good practice to take into account the other verses within the Bible that refer to the same subject you are trying to study. Therefore, when attempting to understand if the sin of Sodom was homosexuality, you should look up every verse in the Bible that mentions Sodom.

In Genesis 19:4 it says that the men, both old and young from the city of Sodom including all the people from every quarter of the city surrounded the house. Now, the sins of the people of Sodom were many and one of the sins was sexual sin. But, the sin was not homosexuality, the sin was rape.

According to verse 8, Lot offers his two daughters to the angry crowd to be raped. During that time in history rape was used as a tool for humiliation. Heterosexual men would rape other men in order to belittle them and treat them like women. This was not an act of lust.

Besides, if the men of Sodom were truly homosexual men, why would Lot offer them his daughters? It would have been far more fitting for Lot to offer himself or his sons-in-law to the men. In the same way, you wouldn’t offer a side of beef to a vegetarian because you know they don’t eat meat. Homosexual men are the same today as they were thousands of years ago. They didn’t want women then and they don’t want women now. I am sure that there were some homosexuals in the city of Sodom. Even today, there are homosexuals in every city and nation in the world. There is nowhere you can go that they won’t be there, but that is not the issue behind the story of Sodom. The destruction of Sodom had nothing at all to do with homosexuality. Homosexuality was never the issue. Careful study of all the verses within the Bible that refer to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah reveal that the cities were not destroyed due to homosexuality.

The sins that caused the destruction of Sodom were a lack of hospitality to strangers, violence toward strangers, injustice and idolatry among others. None of the Biblical references to Sodom and Gomorrah ever mention sexuality as a reason for the downfall of Sodom.

There are several verses in the Bible that make a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah. Here are a few.

Deuteronomy 29:22-27 refers to the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as idolatry.

“Now the generation to come, your sons who rise up after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, will say, all its land is brimstone and salt a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and His wrath. All the nations will say, why has the Lord done thus to this land? Why this great outburst of anger? Then men will say, because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they have not known and whom he had not allotted to them.”

Ezekiel 16:49-50 tells us the main reason why Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed.

“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.”