comment: >
  
  Are you saying that the line condemning homosexuals to death is mistranslated? Do you have sources for that?
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  A good number of Christian denominations say that Jesus fulfilled the laws described in the old testament and now those laws no longer have to be followed. Under this interpretation of Jesus, which is argued by most mainstream Christian faith groups, Leviticus and other old-testament lists of laws are no longer relevant.
  Based on this view, you can accept homosexual people and still be in-line with the teachings of the bible and therefore be a good Christian >
  
  That seems like a cop out. Did Jesus ever say he was doing any of that? did Christians stop observing those laws after Jesus? or was this something made up 2 millenia after the fact to make Christians look less mean?
  And even if it were well-justified by the text, that would still mean any gay people before Jesus were wrong, and deserved to be oppressed, arrested, and stoned like they were. Do you believe that was right? >
  
  I can't access the text as I am not from the US.
  But those are different laws, presumably with different importance. The Bible specifies some pretty extreme punishments doesn't it? so those laws do not seem to be ones that are taken lightly.
  And what do you think of gay people who lived before Jesus? >
  
  If you look at a lot of many of the old testament laws, they have some basis in health, safety, etc.  Such as restrictions on foods that if not prepared properly can easily lead to health issues, and this could also have a basis in gay sex being far more likely to transmit certain diseases than heterosexual sex.  
  Another nuance with the mention of gay sex was that while they were to be put to death, it never said anything about if that particular sin would exclude them from heaven.  People can commit all sorts of sins and still enter heaven.
  So gay people before jesus who are outed would probably be killed, but they may still enter into heaven, only god knows for sure. >
  
  My question was whether you think people would be right, and whether they would be doing what God wanted, to execute someone for having gay sex before Jesus? If you think they should be executed, but they can go to heaven, that isn't much consolation. >
  
  I think if an eternal afterlife exists, dying and going there is an absolutely huge consolation. 
  It would be similar to how lepers were cast out of society.  being cast out of society on your own would often lead to a relatively soon death.  They weren't directly killing them, but they were still causing their death.  But the alternative would be risking an outbreak of leprosy sweeping through the population.  
  being killed for being a leper resulted in you being dead, but not banning you from heaven, so you have a pretty nice end result even if your final days are far from pleasant. >
  
  Gay people are not infectious and do not cause any kind of harm to those around them through being gay. Moreover, casting someone out is very different than executing them. There is simply no justification for executing people for being gay, in any time period. >
  
  Do you apply the same logic to other rules in Leviticus? >
  
  because I'm curious where you're going with that, let's say yes (I am not OP) >
  
  I'm an atheist but I don't understand these sorts of simplistic dismissals of Christianity or religion. It's a shallow view of how religion works in practice.
  Biblical literalism, as in, the belief that the Bible is a literal text that does not really contain metaphors and everything in it is to be taken literally and that it must be adhered to with as much precision as possible, is not a terribly commonly held position among Christians (it might also be impossible but never mind that).
  Therefore, the Bible having some passages which seems to make homophobia a rule Christians must follow is not really an argument against Christians, but an argument against Biblical literalism. Most Christians simply don't take the Bible at face value to that level of precision, most are smart enough to understand cultural and historical relativism and metaphor and coded language and translation and even interpretation errors across time. 
  There are many non-homophobic Christians and also gay Christians whether Biblical literalists  like it or not because most Christians are not biblical literalists. It's kind of as simple as that. Christians come in all sorts of tendencies.
  I mean, this could also be about how Biblical literalists are disingenuous or even just insane, because I think they are definitely the former. Leviticus also has stuff about not mixing fabrics and dietary restrictions if I remember correctly. They don't seem to follow that, therefore, they are hypocrites. But that's obvious enough and not a very effective condemnation of Christianity itself, mostly because the Bible often contradicts itself, which should be impossible if it was literally the word of God. At the very least you have to accept if it's the word of God, God put things in it that were contradictory, to confer some other kind of meaning. And homophobia contradicts with the morality of a lot of more important shit in the Bible, so, it's perfectly acceptable for Christians to not be homophobic.
  By the way, it's not the Bible that is 6000 years old, you're thinking of the approximate age of the Earth by certain wackjob creationists. I think that might be from Kent Hovind specifically in fact. >
  
  Jesus said to love our neighbors, point blank. He was asked if neighbors was literal, and He answered that the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the sick were your neighbors. So the one purity law that has been translated from Aramaic to Greek to Latin to whatever else before English doesn't hold a candle to the proclamation by God made flesh in Jesus to love and care for each other.
  So the options are to be a good Christian and be loving and kind no matter someone's orientation or to be a bad Christian and be hateful.
  The source there is reading the Gospels.