When the Fight for Morality Turns into a Fight Against People

Every time the subject of LGBT comes up in public discussion, particularly in connection with another Pride march, the reaction from certain parts of the Christian community becomes fairly predictable. Social media fills with alarming posts, pastors and preachers issue statements about society’s moral decline, calls for protests begin to circulate, and some particularly zealous defenders of Christian values start confronting anyone who fails to condemn what is happening strongly enough.

Sometimes I get the impression that the mere mention of LGBT causes roughly the same excitement in certain religious circles that Beyblade toys once caused among teenagers. The only difference is that the teenagers at least understood what they were competing for.

Still, some progress has apparently been made. While particularly emotional messages and accusations used to appear mainly in public discussions, some people now prefer to send them privately. At least a basic understanding of communication etiquette seems to be developing. Although the content of those messages still raises quite a few questions.

I would like to make my position clear from the outset, because experience suggests that otherwise this discussion will inevitably turn into yet another debate about whether my faith meets someone else’s standards.

I am a person of faith, I adhere to a traditional religious understanding of sexual ethics, and I do not consider it necessary to support the LGBT movement or participate in its events. At the same time, I recognize other people’s right to human dignity, safety, and protection from discrimination. And I see absolutely no contradiction between these two positions.

Moreover, I believe that a Christian can disagree with certain views on sexuality, marriage, and family without turning that disagreement into a public campaign of humiliation.

But apparently, for some representatives of the religious community, making such a distinction is simply too difficult.

After all, declaring another crusade against other people’s beliefs is considerably easier than examining how one’s own religious convictions ought to be expressed in relationships with others.

How Well Do We Understand the Society We Live In?

Let us begin with something fairly obvious.

The LGBT movement ceased long ago to be a local social phenomenon associated exclusively with certain Western countries. Today, questions of sexual orientation, gender identity, civil rights, and social recognition are discussed internationally and are present in politics, legislation, education, culture, and the media.

People can have different attitudes toward these developments. They can criticize particular political demands, disagree with certain ideological positions, or consider some social changes incompatible with their religious convictions.

But it would be naive to assume that everything happening is merely the result of a conspiracy, mass deception, or a well-organized propaganda campaign.

Naturally, every social movement involves political interests, financial resources, communication strategies, and organizations interested in advancing particular agendas. The LGBT movement is no exception.

However, reducing support for its demands entirely to manipulation means ignoring a very real social reality.

Many people support LGBT equality not because someone has deceived or forced them, but because they genuinely understand these issues in terms of freedom, human dignity, and the rejection of discrimination.

And this is something we have to acknowledge, regardless of how closely those views correspond to our own.

This raises a question: what exactly do religious organizations expect to achieve when they organize aggressive campaigns against LGBT people?

Do they hope to persuade society to abandon views that have already become established? Force people to change their sexual orientation? Convince the state to regulate citizens’ private lives according to the theological beliefs of a particular denomination?

Or is it primarily an opportunity to publicly demonstrate their own religious principles?

I suspect the last possibility deserves considerably more attention than people are generally willing to admit.

Why Aggressive Opposition Sometimes Helps the Very People It Targets

There is a fairly well-known phenomenon in public communication: attempts to suppress or discredit a particular position can sometimes produce precisely the opposite result.

The more emotional the accusations become, the more offensive the language grows, and the more aggressively people try to silence others, the more attention they attract to the issue itself.

In some cases, this reaction even increases sympathy for those being criticized.

Imagine a perfectly ordinary situation.

A Pride march is planned in a city. The organizers announce the event, explain its objectives, and invite people to participate.

Then religious activists appear and begin publicly insulting the participants, spreading frightening warnings, organizing aggressive counterdemonstrations, and portraying the event as practically the beginning of society’s final moral collapse.

How does this look to someone who belongs neither to the LGBT community nor to a religious organization?

Quite possibly, that person had no intention of attending the march and had little interest in the subject.

But now they see one group of people asking to be treated with respect and another group publicly insulting them.

And one does not have to agree with every position held by the organizers to feel sympathy for them in such circumstances.

Of course, it would be incorrect to claim that every criticism of LGBT automatically increases support for the movement. Public reactions are considerably more complicated, and calm, well-reasoned discussion may produce a very different outcome.

Nevertheless, aggressive religious rhetoric can indeed become a form of advertising for the very ideas it is intended to oppose.

Advertising for which the movement’s organizers do not even have to pay.

It is particularly strange to see this coming from pastors and religious leaders who, one would think, should understand the significance of public speech and responsibility for its consequences.

The result is rather curious: a person believes they are defending Christian values, yet their behavior encourages others to see Christianity as a religion of aggression, intolerance, and constant interference in other people’s lives.

And then we wonder why younger generations increasingly distrust religious organizations.

Are Believers Obliged to Constantly Rebuke Others?

At this point, a fairly predictable objection usually appears.

What about the biblical commandment to rebuke one’s neighbor? Isn’t a believer obliged to speak openly about what they consider wrong?

The book of Vayikra, or Leviticus, 19:17, does indeed contain the commandment: «You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.»

But before using this passage as a universal justification for public religious campaigns, I think it would be worth examining its meaning more carefully.

First of all, the commandment concerns relationships with one’s neighbor. It does not grant an individual unlimited authority to supervise the moral life of an entire society.

Furthermore, the same verse prohibits hatred toward one’s brother in one’s heart, while the following verse commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

In other words, rebuke cannot be separated from the way we treat another person.

Jewish tradition discusses this question in considerable detail. The Talmud, in tractate Arakhin 16b, examines the limits of rebuke, including the prohibition against humiliating another person. Tractate Yevamot 65b also presents the idea that just as there is an obligation to say something that will be heard, there is an obligation not to say something that will clearly not be accepted.

Naturally, these teachings belong to their own religious and legal context and are not ready-made instructions for modern public debates.

But the underlying principle deserves attention.

What is the point of rebuking someone if the only result is their humiliation and an even greater alienation from religion?

Do we really believe that someone will reconsider their convictions after being publicly insulted, declared morally inferior, or threatened with divine punishment?

I can certainly imagine that in some religious communities such methods are regarded as expressions of spiritual courage.

But I find it difficult to understand what this kind of courage has to do with responsibility for one’s words.

After all, explaining one’s convictions to someone who genuinely wants to hear them is one thing. Imposing those convictions on strangers who have never asked for religious instruction is quite another.

What If Silence Is Interpreted as Agreement?

There is another argument I have repeatedly encountered in discussions like these.

If Christians do not publicly protest against LGBT, people might assume that the Church supports what is happening.

But why must expressing disagreement necessarily involve insults?

Is it really impossible to explain a religious position calmly, without turning it into yet another public conflict?

Can a church not simply state that it adheres to a traditional understanding of marriage without declaring people of a different sexual orientation enemies of society?

And why should a religious organization constantly have to prove its loyalty to God by publicly condemning others?

If a church genuinely has an established theological teaching, its substance should not depend on the number of protest signs, the volume of public speeches, or the number of offensive social media posts.

I am not suggesting that religious communities abandon their beliefs in order to gain public approval.

But it seems to me that between faithfulness to religious principles and demonstrative hostility, there is considerable room for reasonable human behavior.

And it is precisely within that space, in my view, that meaningful discussion should take place.

As for those who prefer to behave like religious street thugs, I would at least suggest that they stop presenting their own manner of communication as the obligatory standard of Christian conduct.

What Really Happened in Sodom and Gomorrah?

Now I would like to turn to one of the most popular biblical arguments that almost inevitably appears in discussions about homosexuality.

I am referring, of course, to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Within Christian circles, these cities have long become a kind of universal symbol of sexual immorality. The moment a conversation about LGBT begins, someone is almost certain to bring up the destruction of Sodom.

Sometimes one gets the impression that the entire history of these cities can be reduced to this single issue.

But does the biblical text really justify such a narrow conclusion?

Let me clarify something immediately: I am not suggesting that the story of Sodom contains no element of sexual violence, or that traditional religious views on sexual ethics lack their own textual foundations.

However, the story of Sodom in biblical and Jewish tradition is considerably broader than the question of sexual behavior.

And if we want to draw moral conclusions from it, it would be reasonable to consider more than just those elements of the narrative that are convenient for contemporary social debates.

In Genesis 18, the Almighty speaks of the great outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and the severity of their sin.

The very mention of an outcry deserves attention.

Who exactly is crying out? What is happening in these cities? Why has their moral condition become the subject of such severe divine judgment?

Later, in Genesis 19, we encounter an account of the men of Sodom attempting to commit collective sexual violence against Lot’s guests.

And here it is important to notice something that often disappears from popular religious discussions.

This is not a story about consensual relationships between adults. It is an account of threatened violence, the collective humiliation of outsiders, and a profound violation of the obligations of hospitality.

Reducing this episode exclusively to sexual orientation means ignoring the very nature of the crime being described.

But what makes the story particularly interesting is that Jewish tradition presents an even broader understanding of Sodom’s moral condition.

A City Where Helping the Poor Became a Crime

In Midrashic literature, Sodom is portrayed as a society in which cruelty and indifference toward those in need had become part of the established social order.

For example, Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 25, contains a tradition about a young woman who secretly helped a poor man by bringing him food.

The inhabitants of the city noticed that the beggar, contrary to their expectations, was still alive and decided to investigate.

When they discovered that the young woman had been feeding him, they subjected her to a cruel punishment. According to this tradition, her suffering and her cry became one expression of the injustice that reached the Almighty.

The details of this story differ across Midrashic versions. And, of course, we should understand that this is not a historical chronicle but a religious tradition intended to illuminate the moral meaning of the biblical narrative.

Nevertheless, consider the remarkable understanding of social evil that emerges from this story.

The city is not guilty merely because some of its inhabitants commit crimes.

The problem is that society itself begins to regard cruelty as normal and compassion as a violation of the established order.

Helping a hungry person becomes dangerous.

Showing compassion means breaking accepted rules.

And someone who tries to save another person from death becomes a criminal in the eyes of those around them.

To me, this presents a considerably more disturbing picture of moral corruption than many familiar religious interpretations of Sodom.

Because evil here is no longer limited to individual human actions.

It becomes a social system.

A system in which people not only stop helping one another but begin persecuting those who still retain the capacity for compassion.

And this raises a question I would particularly like to address to religious people.

Are we really certain that such a moral condition can be judged exclusively by society’s attitudes toward sexuality?

What Did the Prophet Ezekiel Say About Sodom?

The book of the prophet Ezekiel offers a remarkably direct explanation of Sodom’s moral condition.

In chapter 16, verse 49, we read:

«Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness were in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.»

The following verse also speaks of arrogance and the commission of abominations before the Almighty.

It would therefore be incorrect to claim that Ezekiel reduces Sodom’s sin exclusively to social injustice.

But it would be equally incorrect to ignore the fact that he explicitly identifies pride, material excess, and indifference toward those in need among the principal expressions of its wrongdoing.

Notice this detail.

We are talking about a society in which people possess wealth, enjoy relative prosperity, and have the means to help others, yet choose not to do so.

And the problem is not simply a lack of charitable giving.

Behind it lies a particular understanding of human relationships, according to which another person’s suffering does not deserve attention, while the prosperity of the powerful and wealthy carries no responsibility toward the vulnerable.

Now let us bring this moral question into the present.

What happens when a religious organization demonstrates extraordinary enthusiasm for discussing other people’s sexual lives while barely noticing poverty, violence, corruption, abuse of power, and violations of human dignity?

What happens when a pastor can devote several hours of preaching to condemning LGBT people while preferring to overlook financial misconduct within his own congregation?

Or when religious activists are prepared to organize a mass demonstration against a Pride march but show nothing like the same enthusiasm for protecting people who have suffered cruelty, exploitation, or injustice?

Of course, I am not suggesting that all Christian communities behave this way. Many believers genuinely engage in charity, help refugees, support those in need, and protect people from violence.

And that is precisely why I find it particularly unfair when the public image of Christianity comes to be defined by the most aggressive representatives of the religious community.

But the question remains.

Why do some people examine the moral shortcomings of others so carefully while showing such remarkable leniency toward their own?

When Religious Conviction Becomes a Convenient Form of Hypocrisy

There is one feature of these public campaigns that personally raises quite a few questions for me.

Condemning someone who belongs to a different social group is relatively easy.

Especially when that person is not a member of our congregation, has no influence over our lives, and cannot demand any real accountability from us.

One can make a dramatic public statement, receive approval from like-minded people, collect hundreds of supportive comments, and feel that another victory in the struggle for morality has been achieved.

And yet this kind of activity requires almost nothing from the person engaging in it.

They do not have to reconsider their own behavior, acknowledge mistakes, address difficult problems within their community, or confront influential religious leaders.

All they have to do is identify a social group that does not fit their understanding of how people ought to live and make it the target of another campaign.

But how much does this activity really have to do with spiritual responsibility?

If we look carefully at the moral demands of the biblical prophets, we discover that much of their criticism was not directed at people outside the religious community.

The prophets repeatedly addressed their own people.

They spoke about unjust courts, the exploitation of the poor, corrupt leaders, hypocritical worship, cruelty, and indifference toward the vulnerable.

In other words, their concern was first and foremost the responsibility of those who already considered themselves part of the people of the Almighty.

For some reason, this aspect of prophetic teaching is far less likely to become the central subject of modern religious protests.

Perhaps because fighting other people’s beliefs is considerably easier than changing one’s own behavior.

Why Does the Story of One Young Woman Matter So Much?

I would like to return once more to the Midrashic account of the young woman who helped a beggar in Sodom.

At first glance, it is a fairly simple story.

One person saw another person in need and decided to share some food.

No extraordinary heroism. No grand declarations. No attempts to transform the city’s political system.

Just an ordinary human act that, in a normal society, should not have attracted any particular attention.

Yet it is precisely this act that exposes the moral condition of the entire surrounding society.

Because where compassion becomes a crime, the problem is no longer simply one cruel individual.

The problem is that society has lost the ability to distinguish good from evil.

And I think this is where one of the most important meanings of the tradition can be found.

The moral condition of a society is not determined solely by the laws it proclaims or the values it publicly claims to defend.

It is also determined by how people treat those who are weaker, poorer, more vulnerable, or simply different from the majority.

We can talk endlessly about defending traditional values, but if we stop recognizing another person as a human being, a perfectly reasonable question arises about what those values actually mean.

And it is not necessary to agree with another person’s way of life in order to recognize their right to respectful treatment.

Indeed, it is precisely in situations of disagreement that such treatment becomes especially meaningful.

After all, respecting someone who shares all our views is relatively easy.

It is much more difficult to preserve human dignity in our relationships with those whose beliefs or actions we consider wrong.

But isn’t that where the true substance of our moral principles becomes visible?

The Question Is Not Whether We Support LGBT

I understand perfectly well that after everything I have said, someone will once again want to establish whether I support LGBT, whether my religious convictions have changed, and how closely my position corresponds to the expectations of particular Christian organizations.

So I will repeat myself once more.

I do not consider it necessary to abandon a traditional religious understanding of sexual ethics. I have no intention of persuading believers to participate in Pride marches, and I certainly do not deny the right of religious communities to publicly explain their teachings.

But I also do not believe that religious convictions give anyone the right to humiliate others, spread false information about them, justify aggression, or turn disagreement into hatred.

And I find it even harder to accept the idea that such behavior represents some exceptional form of spiritual maturity.

After all, if we genuinely want to speak about biblical morality, it would be reasonable to consider it in its entirety.

Not only those passages that are convenient for condemning other people’s behavior.

But also those that demand justice, compassion, honesty, responsibility for our words, and the ability to recognize the suffering of others.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah, it seems to me, illustrates particularly well the danger of approaching Scripture selectively.

We have become so accustomed to using these cities as symbols of particular sexual sins that we sometimes completely overlook other aspects of the biblical narrative.

Pride. Cruelty. Excess. Indifference toward the poor. Humiliation of outsiders. The transformation of injustice into an accepted social norm.

All of these belong to the story of Sodom as well.

And if we intend to use that story as a warning to contemporary society, it would be worth remembering all of them.

I think the religious world would generally benefit from being a little more cautious about its habit of constantly searching for moral threats outside its own communities.

Because sometimes far more serious problems can be found among those who speak most loudly about their own spiritual purity.

And perhaps, before organizing yet another campaign against people whose private lives do not correspond to our beliefs, we should ask ourselves a fairly simple question.

What is happening to our own capacity for compassion, justice, and respect for human dignity?

In the Midrashic account of Sodom, the young woman does not die for violating sexual prohibitions. She is punished because she showed compassion to a hungry person.

And it is her cry that becomes a testimony to the moral condition of an entire city.

So the next time someone wants to remind everyone about the sins of Sodom, I would suggest first remembering how the inhabitants of that city treated people who needed help.

Perhaps then our conversation about morality would take on a somewhat different meaning.

Because condemning someone else’s life is considerably easier than taking a careful look at our own.