Gen 2:18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”

Some advocates of same-sex sexual partnerships appeal to this text.

For example, Matthew Vines (author of God and the Gay Christian) says:

‘In Genesis 2:18, God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” And yes, the suitable helper or partner that God makes for Adam is Eve, a woman. And a woman is a suitable partner for the vast majority of men – for straight men. But for gay men, that isn’t the case. For them, a woman is not a suitable partner. And in all of the ways that a woman is a suitable partner for straight men—for gay men, it’s another gay man who is a suitable partner. And the same is true for lesbian women. For them, it is another lesbian woman who is a suitable partner.’

Simillarly, David Gillett (who would regard himself as an ‘affirming evangelical’) suggests a reading of this passage in which Adam’s experience of seeking a ‘suitable helper’ becomes ‘everyman’s’ experience.  Thus a gay man might find himself presented with various possible partners, all of whom are unsuitable.  Finally, he is presented with a ‘suitable’ candidate who happens to be another man.  At last, he is able to exclaim: “This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!”  And ‘they can become one.’

Gillett concludes that

‘there are various ways to inhabit God’s story in the Bible. As this happens we can reach out to our LGBTI+ sisters and brothers in a wholly new way.’

Gillett’s approach is helpful because it focuses on a foundational text, and seeks to recognise that text as inspired Scripture.  However, it is hermeneutically flawed, in that the text is interpreted by personal experience, rather than personal experience being shaped by the text.

Andrew Goddard (summarising Ian Paul) points out how this interpretation neglects

‘the importance of the unusual Hebrew phrase ezer kenegdo to refer to a helper who is different, opposite or matching; the shape of the narrative in which something other than another adam is sought; the goal of the narrative as an explanation specifically of the male-female form of attraction and union in marriage.’

Goddard points out that Gillett’s interpretation not only flies in the fact of the immediate context in Genesis 2, but also of the wider canonical context.  A male-female structure for nuptial imagery is evidence from Genesis to Revelation.  Moreover, in the teaching of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 19 and Mark 10,

‘the text is not understood as to be interpreted in the light of each individual’s way of inhabiting the story by reference to whatever way their own, unchallengeable subjective experience mirrors that of Adam when presented with Eve.  Rather, explaining the focus in the Christian tradition’s reading of Genesis, for Jesus the narrative of Genesis 2 is set alongside and seen as tied to, perhaps even rooted in, the objective, bi-polar ordering and structure of God’s human creature as male and female set out previously in Genesis 1.  In short, according to Jesus, the social practice of marriage is not to be rooted in our personal pattern of desires. Nor in how we believe we find them to be fulfilled.  The social practice of marriage is to be rooted in the created nature of human beings.’