Reply #106: The original text is always authoritative over a translation.

[okasha]

If you are going to insist that this passage be read to refer to the mob's demand for same-sex relations with the guests, you're going to have to explain why "yadha" is used for homosexual intercourse in this one, single instance out of almost 1000 occurences of the verb in the Old Testament. Have at it.

There are similar problems with the passage in Jude. The Greek gives the sin of Sodom as pursuing "sarkas heteras," "strange (or possibly foreign) flesh." The probable reference here is to a Jewish legend of the 1st. century CE that tells how the <i>women</i> of Sodom had sex with the angels, echoing an earlier passage in Genesis in which such a mis-mating resulted in the birth of the "giants."

And yes, interpreting these passages in the classic fundie fashion--in fact, insisting that they refer to same-sex activit--is homophobic.