Jude 1:7

This passage refers back to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Genesis.

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. (emphasis added)

The phrase in question has been translated “going after strange flesh” and “unnatural lust,” among other renderings. While to many modern day North Americans having been raised in a culture that downgrades and denigrates gay and lesbian people, it’s easy to see how “strange flesh” could be construed as homosexual sex. For the many people who’s sexual identity is oriented toward the opposite gender, the very idea of being oriented toward the same gender can be repulsive, queer, or strange. By the way, for those of us who are oriented toward the same gender, an opposite gender orientation appears just as queer and strange.

The understanding behind this verse is a legend that the women of Sodom engaged in sexual activity with male angels. This idea may have come from Genesis 6:1-4 which reads:

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days — and also afterward — when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

In Genesis, this was the last straw for God, and consequently God sent the flood to destroy the earth and start over. Some Jewish writers thought this was the same sin that led to the destruction of Sodom and other cities. But the “strange flesh” referred to here in Jude 1:7 is not homosexual sex. Instead, it is heterosexual sex with angelic beings. Many theologians, including religious conservatives, interpret this passage in this way.