Uri Derelicti

The Christian congregation had slaves. Slaves in the Roman empire were property and could be used for sexual gratification by their masters and their masters’ friends. Were male slaves used by their masters for sexual gratification not allowed to be part of the congregation? Were they not baptized by Holy Spirit in the first century? Would that not be partial against someone due to his circumstances rather than his heart?

If a male slave never had sex with another man before entering the congregation, and then was used — as a slave — for sex by another man, would he be removed? “Neither height nor depth nor any other creation can separate us from God’s love.” The master is part of God’s creation. How could he separate the slave from God’s love, from the congregation, from the Kingdom?

Male slaves were encouraged to not run away (1 Cor. 7:21–24) — and therefore to submit to homosexuality if required of them by their master. Therefore some men in the Christian congregation had sex with other men, with impunity. Assume then that the restriction was narrower than an absolute prohibition. Where was the line? Was the sex allowed by virtue of slavery alone? Does slavery bestow on two wanting lovers a righteousness not found in the relationship of two free men who love each other?

Jesus provided the illustration of men who would choose to be eunuchs for the Kingdom. He compared them to men born eunuchs and to men who were made eunuchs by men — a second group imported for sexual purposes. These were not celibate men. They were created as a category for sex with men.

Jesus said some men chose to be eunuchs for the Kingdom after referencing this sexually active group. What was the illustrative purpose of including them, if men were to avoid all homosexuality? This was precisely the moment to add a limiting commandment. None was added. Instead: “Let the one who can make room for it make room for it.”

Jesus also blessed two men in a loving relationship when he healed the Centurion’s pais — a word denoting a beloved companion, not merely a servant. The Centurion’s faith was commended. Their relationship was not censured.

The ministry holds that David and Jonathan had the greatest romance described in the Scriptures — and that both were approved by Jehovah, who described Jesus as the second David. Jonathan chose David and waited for him years, planning to stand at his side when he ruled. They risked their lives to embrace and kiss each other. Jonathan could not complete an archery ruse before abandoning it to hold the man he loved as himself.

The Biblical pattern was for sex to not be commented upon if it was not a matter of law. It was noted that David did not have sex with Abishag — because that affected her legal rights. There is no equivalent note about Jonathan, because there was no legal matter to record. No law existed between them: not the Canaanite prostitution custom, not porneia, not the rape laws mirrored in Leviticus 18, and not the broad prohibition on sex with animals — which was written broadly and clearly. The Bible has no broad prohibition on homosexuality written to parallel that one.

“Your love for me was more wonderful than the love of women.” Not that David loved Jonathan more than his wives — but that Jonathan’s love was greater than what women could provide. It was sexual, and more. The record has no law against it.

Arsenokoitai references Leviticus 18 and 20 — specifically anal sex in the context of idolatry and temple prostitution. Paired with malakoi, the temple prostitutes, it is a precise reference to a specific practice, not a blanket prohibition on all sexual contact between men. For female homosexuals, there is no parallel word at all. If female homosexuality is not condemned by any word, the basis for condemning male homosexuality collapses.

Paul’s Corinthian audience was well familiar with mutual masturbation and intercrural sex between men. He did not name it. He did not name masturbation at all — not in prostitution, not in idolatry, not in adultery — even though his audience explicitly included homosexuals. That gap was not oversight. It was the logical necessity of an audience that included homosexual men who lacked the gift of singleness.

Paul then said: “In whatever state each one was called, let him remain in it.” He added that he was not casting a noose. The freedom he left is the one he did not prohibit.

Love is following Jehovah’s commandments. Jehovah’s commandments are to love. The commandment, from the beginning, is to love. Two men making love is, therefore, following the law — where no contrary law exists.

“Pleasing God is not complicated. All that he requires of us can be summed up in a single word: love. That has always been — and will always be — the essence of true worship.” (Draw Close to God, “Which Commandment Is First of All?”)

Jehovah is not partial (Acts 10:34–35). He does not create men homosexual, deny them the gift of singleness, and then condemn them for their existence. The men who die rather than continue without a mate demonstrate that Jehovah did not grant them that gift. That is not a failure of self-control — self-control is a fruitage of the Spirit and we are given what we need. It is evidence of a need Jehovah created and did not extinguish. To leave such men burning — with no mate, no gift of singleness, and no mercy — is the counsel of men, not of Jehovah.

Slaves were part of the congregation and encouraged to not run away.

Slaves in Rome were available for sex by their master (or whoever the master provided them to) whenever the master desired. A type of eunuch was a slave, castrated outside the empire and imported in with a high tariff so that the males would stay boyish—an expensive slave bought specifically to satisfy the owner's sexual preference.

Was a male slave not allowed in the congregation if his master did have sex with him despite the slave not having agency? Was he removed from the congregation if his master, on a whim, had sex with him (or a guest of the master did)? Then creation separated him from God's love, which cannot be.

Or was he allowed in the congregation even if he had sex with his master because he has no agency? Then homosexuality was allowed for some Christians.

Since some in the congregation practiced homosexuality, the question then is where the line was drawn between the acceptable and unacceptable practice of homosexuality.

If allowed only where there is no agency: slavery sanitizes a sexual relationship between two loving friends. I.e., the slave and master could have a loving relationship and desire sex with each other, enjoying their sex. Or was the line drawn at enjoying sex, and that is what makes it immoral—if the slave enjoys sex with his master? But some men cannot change their desire for sex with men; that is not something God takes away from them. That is on God then, who did not deaden the body members, as He is the one with a choice in it, not the slave. So God is responsible for immorality? That cannot be. So it cannot be if the slave enjoys the sex he has with his master.

Where then is the line for homosexuality when it is not agency or desire? The line must be a clear commandment if crossing the line is immoral, for immorality brings death and removal from Jehovah. The line is provided in other Scriptures.

Lesbianism is a violation of no clear command. I.e., not all homosexuality is condemned; some homosexuality is condemned—but less than heterosexuality.

What commandment would a husband violate if he had sex with his two wives at once? What commandment would be broken by two of Solomon's wives having sex?

Immorality is defined as what violates a clear commandment. By definition, homosexuality is not immoral per se, just as heterosexuality is not. By principle, conscience matters are determined—not judgments. Homosexuality is a personal judgment matter. A throuple was free to have sex together if they wished.

⇒ Not all homosexuality was prohibited.

Some men are born eunuchs and some choose to be for the Kingdom. These men do not have a wife and kids.

In addition, Jesus included another group of eunuchs who were eunuchs for sex—the precise opposite of celibacy. Jesus added this group to illustrate the point: these homosexual men do not have a wife and kids, and some men will choose to be like them. The additional point was that they were homosexual. The celibacy point was already made. Some men have no sexual desire, some men only have sex with men, and some men will choose to be like them for the Kingdom.

Jesus chose to not add any prohibition on homosexuality, nor did he imply one.

Those who follow Jesus's commandments will be loved by him.

Therefore, one can follow Jesus's commandments, choose a life like a eunuch made a eunuch by men, and be loved by him.

Therefore, some could choose a sexual relationship like some eunuchs had.

⇒ A life with chosen homosexuality was acceptable.

Leviticus 18 and 20 list Canaanite and Egyptian customs the Israelites were to avoid—both chapters are bookended by this comment.

The Canaanites practiced male temple prostitution, as is recorded in the Scriptures. It is the only example of such a custom which Jehovah preserved for instruction.

Women could be taken for sex. If married, the man would be killed. If a slave, she would be provided the concubine relationship. If free, she was provided a husband.

If a man was taken for sex, he was only protected by Leviticus 18 and 20.

The Law protected a man being taken by another man for sex. No man had a right to another man's sex, so taking it was covetousness, which is idolatry. It was similar to adultery and treated as such.

This is the symmetric protection of males expected from Jehovah. Men were raped in Canaan and Egypt; it was a taboo for the Hebrew people—something not to be done—and Jehovah listed it with the other sexual abuses the nations did which they were to avoid.

The scope was narrow and consistent with the rest of the chapter.

If God wished to have a broad condemnation of homosexuality, He would have known how to do so—He broadly condemned bestiality in the very next verse. Verse 23 demonstrates His competence and that verse 22 was not a broad condemnation of all homosexuality—certainly not between women, and not all sex between men either.

The scope of the commandment is critical if someone was going to be put to death using it. The scope was a man who took another man to penetrate him, as he might have done with a goat in the next verse, and with the same outcome. Specificity is consistent with the laws in these chapters, such as the list of prohibited incest. There is no condemnation of all homosexuality, just as there is no condemnation of all heterosexuality.

In the case of the slave in the first-century congregation, was a slave in the congregation still under the Law and Lev 18, 20? There was a period between when Jesus gave his last commandment and Paul first used the word arsenokoitai in which the Mosaic law was nailed to the stake. How would the elders in the congregation have grasped through the miasma to hold onto a clear command in the Law while rejecting the others that would allow some slaves in a mutually loving relationship with their masters to be disfellowshipped while others were not? If Lev 20 is to read such that the penetrated slave should be killed and therefore would be disfellowshipped from the congregation because being penetrated is still immoral, then creation (the penetrator) removed the slave from God's love. Again, if being a slave was critical then a man could be penetrated by one lover and not disfellowshipped as long as it was his owner but then disfellowshipped if he was penetrated by another lover that he could say no to; slavery was a whitewash for two lovers. What commandment from Jesus would these elders have been relying on for their judgement? Because if they understood Lev 20 as a male temple prostitute and the men hiring them as worthy of death then they could understandably disfellowship either of those parties from the congregation under idolatry.

⇒ Some homosexuality was prohibited (though not as exhaustively as heterosexuality), but not all.

The Law concerns rights. Two men making love didn't necessarily violate anyone's right.

The two-eyewitness claim made consensual sex between two men impractical to prosecute.

There was no wronged party to bring a claim.

The Canaanite custom of Ashtoreth worship, with public sex on the high places, would have had witnesses of the orgies. The public high places are where menstrual blood was used for magic and how it was prosecutable.

⇒ Unlawful and prosecutable homosexuality was very narrow. Practically speaking, either the abused male needed another witness to testify to his rape, or the sex was public.

Sex was normally private but became public when law was violated, as in the case of David's adultery.

If their romance could have been unlawful from sex, it would have been stated that no crime was committed—as in the case of Abishag.

A great deal of text was used to describe their great romance—for instruction. No comment on sex between them indicates it was a conscience matter and not a matter of Law (immoral).

If any sex between them would have brought the death penalty, then sex would have nullified the transfer of power for those that believe Jonathan did transfer his right to the throne. It would be unrighteous to benefit from the crime—to have a throne due to an unlawful sexual relationship.

⇒ A covenant relationship with two men seemingly would not include prohibited sex.

Some men who are told they cannot choose a life with love with other men kill themselves. The drive is more innate than the drive for self-preservation. It is demonstrably the case that some men cannot live a life abstaining from love with other men. The point is repeated across culture: homosexuality can be pushed to universal but never to zero, regardless of how high the cost is.

Those who drive these men from Jehovah stumble little ones. This is inconsistent with worship of Love himself.

Adding to the law is immoral.

Sacrificing to a false religion, philosophy, or antichrist is immoral.

⇒ Those that cost men their lives or relationship with Jehovah commit an extreme, immoral harm (including the men that allow this to be done to them).

Arsenokoitai and malakoi are commentaries on already disinherited groups. They do not "add a further burden." Unquestionably, what specifically is and isn't covered by the words is not clear and certainly could refer to the sexual abuse of men if that is what alone Leviticus referenced, rather than anything more broad.

Paul did not smuggle a prohibition into a vice list.

The word may have meant sexual abusers. It is still assuming the conclusion that all homosexuality is covered rather than some homosexuality. Leviticus inarguably does not cover all homosexuality.

These fools conflated homosexuals with homosexual pedophiles to condemn them all in their ignorance when they rewrote the Scriptures into modern conceptual frameworks; the comprehension of translators in this subject is in question. Using the word "homosexuality" is an unjustified and inherently incorrect reframing. There is no honest bridge from these two words to a condemnation of every sex act between two people of the same sex.

Indeed, these words have no defensible stretch to cover sex between two women (such as two of Solomon's wives). They do not cover every act of sex between two people of the same sex, and it is not clear what is or is not covered from these two words alone; clarification is from the other Scriptures which Paul was referencing when he made this comment.

⇒ These are not commandments but comments on commandments and should not be tested as binding law.

Romans 1 is a commentary on idolatrous people. Magic sex is immoral whether heterosexual or homosexual. The Ashtoreth cult arguably being described involved the females' use for unnatural sex (penetrating castrated men).

Lesbianism is not a reasonable inference, as heterosexuality can logically equally be valid—and all homosexuality would be concerned no more than all heterosexuality is.

The claim is made that all non-procreative sex is unnatural and unnatural is immoral. Yet there is no commandment here, and the comment is unclear. This Scripture clearly would need to be twisted to make some line where kisses between lovers became unlawful.

As with arsenokoitai and malakoi, Romans 1 does not add any further restriction on which homosexual acts would be immoral, as idolatrous sex acts are described—whether with same or opposite sex, they are immoral.

It is inexcusable to claim homosexuality is not part of God's design. Indeed, the 'poetry' of God's design makes it clear to naturalists that creation is vast and creatures have a very complex array of sex practices amongst the animals and sea creatures. Homosexuality—to use the crude word—is a common stanza in the poetry of Jehovah's design, including in the poetry of man. So irrepressible is the love of men in some men that no weight can be levered on them to suppress it; only death can allay the burning of not having the love of another man—a quality Jehovah wrote into their kidneys, and a large body of evidence makes it clear that Jehovah does not remove it, no matter how fervent are the prayers for Jehovah to rewrite His poem.

Men were 'made in God's image'... to love. The fundamental nature of some men requires making love with other men such that they literally die without it, choosing death over an unbearable celibacy.

It is inarguably the nature of some men to love other men.

⇒ Magic sex is immoral.

Sodom was a story with gang rape. The Benjamites gang-raped women. Gang rape is a problem.

Since slaves were in the congregation even though they were liable to have sex at their master's whim, homosexuality was practiced by first-century Christians. What homosexual acts were grounds for removal? Not between two women, as there was no clear commandment prohibiting it. And without a commandment, it is a conscience matter for each to decide for himself.

Like sex between males and females, some is immoral, some is not, and some is actively good for a good life. Taking a man for sex (rape) is immoral. Idolatrous (magic) sex is immoral. Fatal sex (murder) is immoral. Beyond this, Jesus gave no commandment, no further burden was added, no condemnation given. To give a new commandment against homosexuality is fatal and usurps the Christ's authority.

The immorality of rape would hardly be disputed. The disagreement comes from those foisting asceticism on others—effectively, by those saying one cannot eat meat sacrificed to idols. Or in this case, one cannot eat. Some recognize this evil for being Satanic, and some pretend to speak for Jesus in their denunciation of these little ones.

The condemnation of oral sex and anal sex tips the hand that homosexuality was not the philosophical enemy per se, but non-procreative sex was. Pleasure for the sake of pleasure (instead of sex only to make babies) was the enemy.

Their imaginary philosophy, sometimes called the Edenic standard when applied to sexual asceticism, cracks at Proverbs 5:18. The dishonesty is revealed when a couple has non-procreative PV sex for the love of it. These straight men allow themselves sex with their wives regularly while depriving others, perversely policing what should not have two witnesses (as required for punishment). Their philosophy equally rests on prohibiting masturbation, anal sex between men, and PV sex when the wife is pregnant or post-menopausal—and yet do they restrain themselves to only procreative sex in their marriage? It is a burden even they do not keep. For them, it is good to not be depriving each other of sex. For them are the Scriptures. For others, it is the philosophy. It would be better if they would emasculate themselves than put burdens on others—which they could not bear—in order to call themselves righteous. It is a burden not even beneficial for a little. It is wicked, cruel, and deadly.

Usurping the Christ's role by adding to the Law so as to stumble little ones (some to the point of death) is clearly immoral—unlike homosexuality in general. Because some slaves in the congregation had sex with their masters, at their masters' whim. Some men chose a eunuch-like sex life (for the Kingdom) just as some chose to eat meat—quietly. Some women had sex together with a clear conscience. Because the limit was covetousness (which is idolatry and includes rape) as well as false religious practices (Ashtoreth / Magna Mater cult). It was an apostasy when these self-righteous athletes of asceticism infected the congregation with their Greek philosophies. To follow them today is immoral because sacrificing sex to false religion is idolatry.

The demons came down to Earth out of envy for men. They fashioned male bodies for themselves and took women for sex. Eating, drinking, sex—these gifts from God were given to men, and the demons took them, and it characterized that age of man. Now a "teaching of demons" is asceticism—that men should deny themselves the pleasure of food, of drink, of alcohol, and of sex. They teach their lie as a religious sacrifice—that someone sacrifices alcohol and oral sex for greater spirituality. But this sacrifice is made to the demons, to feed their covetousness. They want the pleasures man was made to have, but they also want to rob man of those same pleasures. —1 Timothy 4:1-3, Jude 6, 2 Peter 2:4

For the love of God—make love, love food, love drink, love one's work, love one's possessions, and fill the futile, short days with love—first for God, then oneself, then those closest—all the while fearing to displease Love himself with the demonic teachings of the gnostics, Catholics, stoics, ascetics, or any other lot of refuse.

Porneia
-"to sell," in the feminine; references a woman selling herself for sex (prostitution). In the Greek Septuagint, the word is used when translating the OT for "whoring." The return can be money, power, position, or nothing (a prostitute for no pay).- Ezekiel 16:33-34

- It did not refer to the man hiring the prostitute, which is why Paul reasoned that men should not be "one flesh" [have penile-vaginal sex with] with a (female) prostitute if they are part of the body [congregation] of Christ. The two key characteristics: (1) penile-vaginal sex (2) outside of a marriage. The narrowness of the word is why Paul had to reason that the man paying her to do wrong was also wrong (although his line of reasoning included the fulcrum of "one flesh.")

Pornos [male prostitute], arsenokoitai ["man bedder"]
-Male prostitutes and those women who hire them. Parallels female prostitutes and those who hire them. The focus is not prostitution but penile-vaginal sex outside of marriage. Again, they were used to reason around porneia (which is directly condemned) to clarify who was committing immorality as the word porneia itself does not clearly make the point.

-Neither were applied to homosexuality for more than a millennium.
-Neither are of the many words that referenced homosexuality in Greek. "Homosexuals" is not a defensible translation, even as a footnote; it would be more defensible to translate most of Lev 18 as condemning "heterosexuality."

Malakoi

-Literally soft; "moral weakness" in the Liddell-Scott Greek-English Lexicon.

-Compare to the cowards in the list of condemnable people in Revelation, where John chose a different word than Paul did.

-It cannot mean "effeminate" and comprehensibly apply to women; nor is it very comprehensible for a man to not inherit the Kingdom because he's effeminate.

Arsenokoitai

-Literally "man bedder."

-In the context of the Scriptures and the abandoning of marriage after penile-vaginal sex, women hiring male prostitutes (generally, women willing having PV-sex without marriage) would be missing, arsenokoitai is present, and one clear meaning of arsenokoitai is the one having sex with a man. Again, the Scriptural pivot is around PV-sex: in porneia, in the man hiring her; in the consummation of marriage; in the dissolution of marriage.

-Adulterers were added in these lists of condemned because they include other sex acts not otherwise covered, which would be redundant if all sex outside of marriage was condemned. These sex acts "adulterate" the marriage bed.

-A married man having sex with a female prostitute was not committing adultery under the Mosaic Law. He was not committing adultery if he took a concubine. Today, the word 'adultery' has the sense of adulterating the marriage bed with sex outside of marriage, but that was not the usage in the OT.

-A married man having oral sex with someone not his wife may break the agreement they have with each other but it isn't grounds for divorce any more than his murdering someone- treacherous to be sure, and a violation of the commandments to love, but it does not result in a divorcing. This is consistent with the Mosaic Law, which was moved forward in principle. The man is certainly not being righteous but it doesn't follow that his marriage is dissolved.

-The commandment against porneia is threshed out to mean the abandoning of the marriage arrangement when PV-sex occurs. As in: a mate steps out and dissolves the marriage by PV-sex; the two people that have PV-sex ignore the marriage obligation to each other and the potential child born from the union; or some combination of both happening.

It is an oversimplification to say "all sex outside of marriage is immoral." It's more precisely "all one-flesh sex that abandons a marriage covenant formed by one-flesh sex is immoral."

- Never mentioned in the Bible, let alone condemned.

-In Romans 1, "females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature" references heterosexual sex in which the women penetrated the castrated men. The castrated male prostitutes longed to be penetrated by other men and women.

-Paul's commentary was on a group that abandoned Jehovah for creature worship; he was not giving a new commandment nor was one stated. The people were condemnable for idolatry, including covetousness.

-Lesbianism is neither stated nor implied; the conclusion has to be assumed to get to that rationale, which is in direct contradiction to Jehovah's invisible qualities being clearly seen (homosexuality is widely used in His design, in creatures that never "fell").

-If an individual reader wishes to take the commentary as a reason for himself or herself to avoid homosexuality, then that is the individual prerogative. But there is certainly nothing here that would allow a righteous person to judge another for making a different decision.

-Lev 18:22 — If Jehovah wanted a broad condemnation of homosexuality, He could have phrased it as he phrased the commandment against bestiality in the very next verse. Rather, it intentionally does not cover sex between women and therefore it does not cover homosexuality broadly. If someone claims this chapter condemns homosexuality then it should be noted that it condemns heterosexuality much more clearly and numerous times.

- Anti-homosexuals will sometimes be more honest and note it can only refer to penetrative sex rather than all homosexual acts, as is the historical understanding.

- The verse acted to protect men from being taken, as a woman might be taken, for sex. A female slave or prisoner of war could be taken for sex, but she would be protected in the concubine arrangement. Men otherwise had no such protection. If the woman was married, even if a slave or captive, having sex with her was adultery and the man would be killed. Again, this Scripture is the protection of a married man against rape by another man. It also protected male children from being similarly used.

-Note: the Mosaic Law protected rights (such as Jehovah's right to exclusive devotion). Adultery was committed by a married woman and a man (whether he was married was not relevant)- affected was his right to raise his own children and not another man's, a child to be born to a family of his parents, and a man's correct genealogy. It also protected a man's right to not be sexually exploited.

Abomination/ taboo

- The commentary on it being a taboo softens the commandment by noting it wasn't something they were going to do in their culture rather than something intrinsically moral. The Law was written for a specific nation after all. And the Israelites were to grow the population into the sands of the sea. When the men abandoned their wives for male prostitutes, we see how they also kept sex from their wives.

- The taboo was important then but not now. Same with eating shellfish — these taboos are not relevant today, just as their dress and grooming standards are not.

-To claim the sin of the Sodomites was homosexuality requires believing gang rape was insignificant and not worthy of condemnation, and that the sex of their *attempted* victims was all that mattered.
They went after strange flesh — the flesh of angels — not the flesh of men, which was the most familiar flesh. The attempted gang rape of even angels showed how far from hospitality they had strayed, for which they were punished.

-The historic usage of the word referred to all non-procreative sex, which was viewed as for pleasure rather than the ascetic stoic function of just making people. Asceticism is condemned in the Scriptures for being contrary to them; sex should be enjoyed without any procreative obligation.

Before the AIDS epidemic, the organization held a rigid, technical view of "sexual immorality" (porneia) that explicitly excluded homosexuality as a scriptural ground for divorce. In a "Questions from Readers" article, the Watchtower ruled that while they considered homosexuality a "perversion," it did not constitute porneia because it did not involve a "one flesh" union with the opposite sex.

The Consequence: A wife whose husband was having sex with other men could not scripturally divorce him. She was required to remain in the marriage because, technically, the marriage covenant had not been broken by "immorality."

By June 1981, the first cases of what would be called AIDS were reported by the CDC. As the media began reporting on the "gay plague," the organization's rhetoric became increasingly severe. The Awake! magazine began calling it a "crime worthy of the death penalty" and heavily misapplied the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Just as the fear of AIDS transmission was peaking, the organization formally redefined porneia to be all-encompassing, specifically targeting "perverted acts" (such as oral and anal sex) even within marriage. This effectively closed the theological "loophole" they had established in 1972.

Shortly after, the organization explicitly linked AIDS to homosexuality in its publications, enforcing a "bitter harvest" narrative that positioned the disease as a divine punishment for a "reckless, hedonistic" lifestyle.

In 1986, Awake! published articles characterizing the entire "homosexual life-style" as miserable, disease-ridden, and promiscuous. They cited the "1,100 partners" statistic to characterize all gay men as reckless. The fundamental error was conflating promiscuity and drug use (which spread disease) with homosexuality itself.

The Dungeons & Dragons Parallel

Just as the organization retrofitted its theology to align with the AIDS panic, it employed a similar reactionary strategy against the board game Dungeons & Dragons during the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s. Unable to find a direct scriptural prohibition against a board game, they contrived reasons based on the fallacy of consequences—such as arguing that searching for imaginary gold violated biblical counsel against "materialism" (a logic that would ban Monopoly).

By officially condemning the game as "demonic" and "materialistic" in their literature, the leadership ensured a chilling effect. No Witness could play it without facing judgment or judicial action. This mirrored the AIDS policy perfectly: a cultural panic was used to enforce stricter behavioral control through fear and shame, rather than through clear scriptural direction.