The Bible and homosexuality is a contentious subject which has a significant impact on how homosexuality and homosexual sex is regarded by Christians. The Bible is generally considered by believers to be inspired by God or to record God's relationship with humanity or a particular nation. Included within the Bible are ethical teachings which demonstrate which actions God considers to be good and which it considers to be sinful. The Christian Left sees the Bible as fallible, perhaps being in part divinely inspired, but suffering from the shortcomings resulting from being written, censored, translated, and revised by men other than Jesus. Conservative Christianity sees the Bible as infallible, or at least inerrant, not as existing in many versions due to differing translations, interpretations, and included texts, but as the literal word of God. Some non-Christians see the Bible as didactic folklore, which contains relevant and obsolete morality. The Eastern Orthodox regard the Bible as the deposit of the Apostolic Tradition, handed down from the Apostles who had personally known Jesus Christ.
The understanding of many Biblical interpreters is summarised by David Hilborn (2002, p.1) who argues: "It must be granted that direct references to homosexual activity in the Bible are relatively few. However, these more explicit texts belong to a much broader Biblical discourse on creation, love, holiness and human relationships - a discourse which goes to the heart of God’s purpose for humankind". Additionally, within Christian groups such as Catholicism these passages have traditionally been interpreted in light of other accepted revealed sources, such as the revelations to the mystic-saints, which often do contain more explicit and detailed descriptions clarifying the matter (e.g., St. Hildegard von Bingen's visions in Scivias). Protestant denominations generally do not make use of such sources.
The interpretation of these passages and their place within the religion's wider understanding of God's purpose for humankind therefore has important implications for homosexuality and Judaism, homosexuality and Christianity, and homosexuality and Islam. However, there are those who argue that reason, tradition and experience are also important elements in the interpretation of the biblical texts (see, for example, Richard Hooker). Some also dispute whether or not these passages refer to other forms of sexual behavior between members of the same sex (pagan rites, casual sex, pederasty, and same-sex rape, for example), or to all types of homosexuality as a general category like heterosexuality.
The American Psychological Association's removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders was based upon the work of Dr. Evelyn Hooker whose research, primarily done in the 1950s, was the first that was conducted on homosexual men with no history of treatment for mental illness in order to determine whether or not homosexuality is a disorder. Prior to her research, the work of Alfred Kinsey and others (see Kinsey Reports), suggested that homosexual sex acts were fairly common among American men. His continuum model of sexual orientation, the Kinsey Scale, is used by the APA today.
Lack of research showing that homosexuality is a disorder, and the support of the American Society of Pediatrics and American Medical Association for the adoption of children by homosexuals, has made it very difficult to condemn homosexuality from a purely scientific basis, leaving religious argument as the primary vehicle for its condemnation in Christian societies. Some of those opposed to the normalization of homosexuality continue, however, to try to join their religious objections with scientific fact. Some of those who are not opposed use either a purely religious perspective or a similar combination as well. For instance, Bruce J. Simpson, an archbishop of the Benedictine Order of St. John The Beloved (an old Catholic order that has been in schism with Rome for centuries, primarily due to their refusal to support papal infallibility) is openly gay and represents a sect that holds homosexuals as equal to heterosexuals in all respects from a religious standpoint.