Difference between "sodomy" and "homosexuality"

Difference between "sodomy" and "homosexuality" · With an Orthodox Priest on Lenin, Putin, KGB and the Orthodox I Met · With Aristobule Adams

Status of an Orthodox Deacon, Aristobule Adams:

Classical Christianity : Byzantine Law on Homosexuality
Monday, September 12, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment
http://classicalchristianity.com/2011/09/12/byzantine-law-on-homosexuality/

My comment directly to status*:

"For there will be no relaxation of enquiry and correction so far as this matter is concerned"

This may have been the reason why Byzantium and Russia have been more plagued by Sodomy and such than the Latin West, at least during the middle ages.

However, as for the rest, I see the same case I made about De horrendo scelere can be made also about this one: it does NOT forbid people plagued by Same Sex Attraction to contract real marriages.

As for the use of the word penance, indeed, celibacy might be one such. BUT when Inquisition inquired in Provence about Albigensians, some former heretics seem to have done penance by "iit in matrimonium" - now these heretics had indeed also heterosexual perversions, but in their agenda to avoid procreation also sodomy was admitted, except by their perfects. So some of the knights who, making penance each "iit in matrimonium" before witnessing inquisitors, some might have been former sodomites.

One problem about the heading. It says "Homosexuality", but the text itself does not say "homosexuality", it says "sodomy". In other words the living out of homosexuality. This latter word also means same sex attraction, and as far as it is not lived out, the text by Justinian has NOTHING to say about it.

Two things follow, pastorally:

• 1) a man should if returning from the base illdeed of sodomy usually have the choice between celibate chastity and marriage;
• 2) no man should be barred from marriage only due to a rumour about same sex attraction.

Some clergy today have some difficulty in understanding that this is NOT tantamount to the gay agenda. Some seem to presume that with people plagued by same sex attraction, OF COURSE "marriage" must be a misnomer for the equally misnamed "gay marriage". No, marriage in my above statement means precisely marriage, as instituted by God in Eden and in Cana. One man, one woman.

By "rumour about same sex attraction", I am not referring only to wild rumours, but also including "medical" or pseudo-such diagnoses about it.

If a priest sees a man and a woman come along, and decides not to marry them, because a doctor claiming to be psychiatrist of the man has called him a homosexual, that priest is doing a very evil thing, and is fulfilling the prophecy of Saint Paul, at least partially, in which it says about "heeding doctrines of evil spirits" and "forbidding marriage".

Same if a pastor is confronted with a celibate man and warns every girl in the parish to keep away from him, because a doctor told him the man is "homosexual".

* Omitting my interaction with other commenters.