Like I said, I'm very sorry you were abused. I'm sure it was a horrible experience, and I'm not going to tell you what to feel because believe it or not, I can sympathize with you as one of my best friends was raped by her uncle and got pregnant, then had an abortion and had to live with that. Not to take away from your problems by any means, but yes I can sympathize because I was the shoulder to cry on.
If there's anything I've learned it's that almost everything is gray so don't tell me that I'm in a box.
Some would argue that S and G were destroyed because of inhospitality, cheifly. Some, like me, know when to separate fact and fiction and realize that the bible is pretty much mostly metaphor and symbolism. I believe in liberal Christianity and that people, so should they choose, interpret the bible for themselves. This is taken from wikipedia concerning S and G.
"Classical Jewish texts do not specifically indicate that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because the inhabitants were homosexual, or sexually deviant from what was recorded as God's law of natural order, but rather, they were destroyed because the inhabitants were generally morally depraved and uncompromisingly greedy. Though homosexual acts were an abomination, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of many other sins as well. Rabbinic writings affirm that the primary crimes of the Sodomites were terrible and repeated economic crimes, both against each other and outsiders[citation needed].
A rabbinic tradition, described in the Mishnah, postulates that the sin of Sodom was related to property: Sodomites believed that "what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" (Abot), which is interpreted as a lack of compassion. Another rabbinic tradition is that these two wealthy cities treated visitors in a sadistic fashion. One example is the story of the "bed" that guests to Sodom were forced to sleep in: if they were too short they were stretched to fit it, and if they were too tall, they were cut up.(compare Procrustes.)
The Talmud also recounts the incident of a young girl (some sources say it was a daughter of Lot) who gave some bread to a poor man who had entered the city. When the townspeople discovered her act of kindness, they smeared her body with honey and hung her from the city wall until she was stung to death by bees. (Sanhedrin 109a) It is this gruesome event (and her scream, in particular), the Talmud concludes, that are alluded to in the verse that heralds the city’s destruction: "So Hashem said, 'Because the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has become great, and because their sin has been very grave, I will descend and see...'" (Genesis 18:20-21.)"
And as far as us "abusing" the word gay, this is taken from wikipedia:
A passage from Gertrude Stein's Miss Furr & Miss Skeene (1922) is possibly the first traceable published use of the word to refer to a homosexual relationship, though it is not altogether clear whether she uses the word to mean lesbianism or happiness
You did not intend this to evolve into this discussion. It is your thread and if you want, I won't post here again because I have respect for your wishes as the creator. For the record you said you're game.
And I don't know what you meant by the "unhappy souls" bit. I'll assume it wasn't meant in a condescending manner and i'll give you the benefit of the doubt.