What Is an Abomination?
And Why Leviticus Isn’t Saying What You Think
Abomination. It’s a word that’s been used to condemn LGBTQ people for centuries. And it comes from two places in the Bible — Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 — which are essentially saying the exact same thing, just repeated twice.
But what does abomination actually mean in its original context? That’s the question worth sitting with. Because I think most people who quote these verses haven’t thought very hard about that.
The Shrimp Problem
Here’s a little thought experiment. Imagine a wedding between two men. They’re serving shrimp cocktail. They’re throwing a football in the parking lot. They’re wearing nice polycotton blend tuxedos.
Most Christians would have a problem with just one thing in that picture.
But here’s what’s interesting: all of those things — the shrimp, the football, the blended fabric — are listed in Leviticus, and they’re all called abominations.
The Book of Leviticus is filled with rules for priests and the people in their worshiping life. It’s rituals, purity codes, instructions for how to serve as a priest and what to wear. It’s actually a fascinating book, and you should read it. Most people, though, only read the two verses they can use to hit someone over the head.
The Hebrew word translated as “abomination” is to’evah. And to’evah describes things that are ritually impure — things that are off-limits for the way God was commanding this particular culture, in this particular time, to live and behave. No footballs. No shrimp cocktails. No working on Saturdays. No blended clothing. And, in this passage, men can’t have sex with men.
But there’s more to it than just that list.
What Was Actually Going On
In the time and culture these laws were written, there was a specific concern: male power hierarchies. The concern was about protecting lower-status men and slaves from sexual exploitation by men of higher rank.
This isn’t about consensual love between two people. The law is addressing a heterosexual man asserting dominance over another man. It doesn’t say anything about the identity of a gay man or a queer person as we understand those terms today.
That’s the problem when you just take the words off the page and copy-paste them from one culture to another. What was relevant then might be completely irrelevant now. And if you’re going to say “the Bible says” about this verse, you have to say it about all the others too. Every game of football. Every shrimp cocktail. Every cotton-poly blend.
I don’t see Christians getting up in arms about those things.
Dog Boots?
Here’s another way to think about it. Imagine you’re walking a dog. What’s on the dog’s feet?
Most of you said nothing. The dog just goes on a walk.
But if you live in New York City, there’s a good chance you put little booties on your dog’s feet. Why? Because to a New Yorker, a barefoot dog walking around the streets of New York and then jumping on your couch — that’s an abomination. The sidewalks are notoriously covered in things you don’t want tracked through your apartment.
These things mean one thing in one context, and something completely different in another. Cultural context isn’t a loophole. It’s just how language and meaning work.
So What Is This Passage About?
Leviticus isn’t actually talking about gay men. It’s talking about straight men who were abusing their power sexually. And honestly? That part might still be relevant today.
But it is not fair — and it is not accurate — to take this verse and use it to condemn queer people for simply being who they are. This passage is not about queer identity. It’s about the abuse of power.
And if you want to take these particular verses literally while ignoring the rest of the book? Well, that’s a pretty convenient reading. A selective one. The kind that lets you use the Bible as a weapon while still eating your cheeseburger on a Saturday in a cotton t-shirt.
If we want to take the whole Bible seriously, we have to do the actual work — recognizing where it came from, when it came from, and asking what it might genuinely be saying in our world today.
When you do that work with these verses?
They’re not saying anything about gay people.