I’m writing this article the day my wife and I sail to Naples, Italy. Mount Vesuvius is near the coast of the Bay of Naples. “Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft.) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.”

Buried in the ash and pumice are bodies frozen in time. There was no way to escape the rush of heat and volcanic ash. Archaeologists have been excavating the site for decades.

A story is floating around that reports that two of the encased bodies may have been “gay.”

“It is an iconic image which conveys the human dimension of one of the world’s worst natural disasters that still resonates 2,000 years later.

“Two bodies found wrapped in a poignant embrace in their final moments as they were covered beneath molten rock and layers of ash in the ancient city of Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius violently erupted in 79 A.D.

“The bodies were dubbed ‘The Two Maidens’ when they were first discovered but in a startling discovery this week scientists found the two bodies were actually male — raising speculation that they may have been gay lovers.” (The Telegraph)

You see, everyone was and is “gay.” You name a famous person in history, and most likely he or she was gay. If two men lived together for a time (e.g., Cary Grant and Randolph Scott)1, they must have been “gay.” By that type of reasoning, any two men or two women who shared an apartment in college or while starting out in the job market must have been “gay.”

In an address to the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a former student at Bob Jones University claimed that David and Jonathan (son of King Saul), had a homosexual relationship that was blessed by God. He goes further by claiming that David and Jonathan “were married.”

Homosexuals try to legitimize their sexual views by manipulating the biblical text of 1 Samuel 18. They assume that when two men express love for one another their relationship must be sexual. Does love always imply a sexual relationship? The homosexual says yes. The Bible says no. In the Bible, if sex is part of a relationship, it is stated openly (e.g., Gen. 4:25; 16:2, 4; 19:30-38; Matt. 1:25). For example, is there any doubt that David’s relationship with Bathsheba was sexual? Not in the least. “And David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her; and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, ‘I am pregnant’” (2 Sam. 11:4-5).

Even if — and it’s a gigantic if — the relationship between David and Jonathan was homosexual, this would not legitimize homosexuality. It would only prove once again that David was a sinner. David also committed adultery and was an accomplice to murder in the death of Uriah the Hittite. So we add to these his sin of sodomy. Are homosexuals ready to acknowledge that adultery and murder are also normative behaviors? Just because a Bible character — even one as great as David — does something, it does not mean the behavior is lawful.

Normalizing same-sex sexuality is moral culture shifting’s full time job. If it can be shown that history is full of “gayness,” it must be normal and embraced, and anyone who does not agree must be beaten into submission by the force of law.

But back to the Pompeii story. Two males are found embracing one another during a horrific pyric conflagration. I suspect that you and I would embrace what was near at hand. It could have been a dog, slave, servant, mother, brother, father, daughter, friend, milkman, the UPS delivery man.

The two men embracing could have been neighbor friends, just two young guys going about their lives like on any other day. It’s possible that one young man sought shelter in a friend’s house since he was far from his own home. “Professor Stefano Vanacore, head of the Pompeii research team, said it was impossible to determine the nature of the relationship between the two men.”

But no, the gay mythstorians must see homosexuality in every event and praise it, even one as tragic as the entombed bodies of Pompeii. By the way, it shouldn’t surprise us if the two young men were homosexuals since the apostle Paul clearly shows that same-sex sexuality was a reality at the time (Rom. 1:18-32; 1 Cor. 6:8-11; 1 Tim. 1:6-11). Because two people engaged in an immoral act nearly two millennia ago did not make it right then or now.

1. “[I]n 1980, [Grant] actually brought a defamation suit against comedian Chevy Chase, who was forced to issue a retraction of his joking reference to Grant as a ‘homo.’” (NY Post). [↩]