“God created people in His own image, in the image of God He created them; He created male and female.”

This text celebrates God’s deliberate and equal creation of persons who are male and persons who are female. Such a sense of equal creation was not typical in the ancient wold.

According to Eastern Baptist Seminary professor Douglas J. Miller: “Crude natural law ideas are… read into… the early chapters of Genesis, … This view [supports] the ‘physicalist’ ethical model upon which heterosexism is built. … This view of creation is based upon the obvious anachronism of reading 13th century definitions of nature into ancient Hebrew texts.” Those who use Genesis 1:27 against homosexuals should note Paul’s statement in Galatians 3:28 in which he is emphatic that there is now no theological significance to the heterosexual pair “male and female.” According to evangelical Pauline scholar F.F. Bruce: “Paul states the basic principle here; if restrictions on it are found elsewhere … they are to be understood in relation to Galatians 3:28, and not vice versa.”