Days of Lot: in one generation, homosexuality went from being viewed as a vile practice to societally accepted

I wrote the other day about the prophecy in the Olivet Discourse where Jesus referred to His second coming and said the conditions on earth will be as the Days of Noah. That essay is here. In Luke, Jesus made a different reference. It was to the situation at Sodom, when He said that the conditions prior to His second coming will also be like they were in the Days of Lot. Lot loved at Sodom, that infamous city of homosexual sin. He said,

"Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed." (Luke 17:28-30).

Lot and the story of Sodom is in Genesis 19.

Jesus is emphasizing that mankind will be deep in sin, unaware of the looming catastrophe their sins have wrought upon them. In referring to the days of Noah, the specific sins were not mentioned, except to say that man was evil all the time, and that the Nephilim were on earth in those days. (Genesis 6:1-8).

In the case of Lot, we know that he was living in Sodom at the time of the judgment upon that city and the four other cities ruined that day. (Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, Deuteronomy 29:23). Jude 1:7 mentions Sodom,

“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire…”

And Peter mentions Sodom-

“if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; (2 Peter 2:6 )

And Revelation mentions Sodom, comparing its great sins to end time Jerusalem:

“And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.” (Revelation 11:7-8)

There is no doubt that Sodom stands as an example of judgment upon ungodly behavior- and the ungodly behavior at issue here is homosexuality, carnality of the most perverse kind.

Jesus said that the end of days would be like the days of Lot. So....has the sin of Sodom permeated many cultures, as homosexuals party unaware of the looming judgment upon them? Yes.

This week, New Zealand politicians have voted in the gay marriage bill, making New Zealand the 13th country to allow same-sex couples to marry. It wasn't even close. The "Marriage Equality Bill" passed 77- 44.

Right, François Elluin, "Sodomites provoking the wrath of God, from Le pot pourri de Loth, 1781"

New Zealand is not the only nation dealing at a Parliamentary level with the homosexual agenda. Ireland also made some movement toward 'marriage equality' this week. This article from the Christian Science Monitor states,

"Ireland, a famously conservative country with a government dominated by the center-right, has taken a step toward legalizing same-sex marriage, following several other Catholic nations into what some say is belated equality – and others claim is murky legal and moral territory. Ireland's Constitutional Convention, a body set up by the government to propose wide-ranging changes to Ireland's Constitution, voted Sunday, with 79 percent in favor of extending marriage rights to same sex couples."

South Africa recently held its first "traditional" gay wedding
"Two 27-year-old South African men, Tshepo Cameron Modisane (pictured left) and Thoba Calvin Sithole (pictured right), tied the knot Saturday in a ceremony that is being heralded as the nation’s first gay wedding, according to the Huffington Post. The couple was married in the town of KwaDukuza and stood before 200 guests as they exchanged their vows. On a continent that views homosexuality as vile lifestyle, both men were brave enough to proudly proclaim their love for one another in a public setting."

Vile indeed. Yet the vileness is wearing off and the lifestyle is becoming accepted.

Did you notice the change in language about homosexuality? I've written about 'softening' language before, and in this case note that we have gone from saying--

sodomy/sodomites,
to homosexual,
to gay.

We have gone from-
Sodomy
to homosexual union,
to civil union,
to gay marriage,
to marriage equality.

Interestingly, it always favors the proponent to be the first to claim the language they want, because they can then frame the argument on both the pro and the con side. And the Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Queers does have such a stylebook on 'recommended language' to use when referring to them in the public spheres. Therefore, someone saying "I'm for marriage equality" sounds nice. If you are against sodomites marrying, then you're against "equality" and you sound mean-spirited.

From Wikipedia, we learn,

"The Jewish historian Josephus used the term “Sodomites” in summarizing the Genesis narrative: “About this time the Sodomites grew proud, on account of their riches and great wealth; they became unjust towards men, and impious towards God, in so much that they did not call to mind the advantages they received from him: they hated strangers, and abused themselves with Sodomitical practices” "Now when the Sodomites saw the young men to be of beautiful countenances, and this to an extraordinary degree, and that they took up their lodgings with Lot, they resolved themselves to enjoy these beautiful boys by force and violence; and when Lot exhorted them to sobriety, and not to offer any thing immodest to the strangers, but to have regard to their lodging in his house; and promised that if their inclinations could not be governed, he would expose his daughters to their lust, instead of these strangers; neither thus were they made ashamed." (Antiquities 1.11.1,3[18] — circa AD 96).

There is a REALLY interesting 46-year-old video of a "CBS Reports" documentary, a precursor to 60 Minutes. The same Mike Wallace who had appeared in 60 Minutes, did an investigation of "The Homosexuals." The hour-long program ran in 1967 and according to Yahoo! News today, "took on the then-taboo topic of homosexuality in America. ...[NOTE: the article remains at the link but the video no longer exists. A different, presently working, link to the documentary is below]

 The report is "now impossible to watch without cringing," The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf wrote."

What they meant about cringing was, that the Days of Lot are here, because what America once thought of homosexuality as a lifestyle 46 years ago (vile, promiscuous, disgusting, and unacceptable, as well as more damaging to the societal fabric of America than adultery, prostitution, and abortion- and these are quotes) are attitudes America 'cringes' at now because America thinks homosexuality is just terrific. That happened in the space of just one generation.

In the documentary, the prevailing psychiatric position of the day was that homosexuality is a mental disorder, and a pathology. Now it's gay to be gay. Back then, the prevailing attitude was that homosexuals were to be rejected and shunned. Today they are embraced and honored. Days of Lot.

This was Wallace's conclusion to the report:

"The dilemma of the homosexual: told by the medical profession he is sick; by the law that he's a criminal; shunned by employers; rejected by heterosexual society. Incapable of a fulfilling relationship with a woman, or for that matter with a man. At the center of his life he remains anonymous. A displaced person. An outsider."

But today there are whole nations endorsing the lifestyle as normal by allowing marriage and other benefits that the bible states clearly should be denied people who engage in the behavior. The CBS Reports documentary is very interesting in using as a benchmark to see how far we have gone in ungodliness.

The documentary is below. And the Days of Lot are here.
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