He’s suing Zondervan for $60 million and Thomas Nelson for $10 million. I’m not sure why he picked those publishers, maybe because those are the ones his family uses or they are the biggest publishers. He’s suing because the references to homosexuality in the Bible that refer to it as a sin have violated his constitutional rights and caused him 20 years of emotional pain.blockquote>Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, claims the publishers are misinterpreting the Bible by specifically using the word homosexuals, which made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.
“These are opinions based on the publishers and they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life”

His problem is with 1 Corinthians 6:9. Here’s the KJV:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

I’m not sure what version he’s having a problem with but here’s the NIV (which Zondervan publishes):

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders

The original Greek word means: one who engages in same-sex activity, sodomite, pederast. It’s also used in 1 Tim. 1:10. Obviously the King James was referring to the activity without using the word since the word wasn’t even coined until the late 19th century (need I remind you that the translation for the King James Bible was completed in 1611).
Since the publishers have nothing to do with the translation (they don’t even own the rights to the translation, that’s retained by the society that translated it), he should be suing them, not the publishers.As Zondervan notes:

“Since Zondervan does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations we publish, we are not in a position to comment on the merits of how a word should or should not be translated,” said Powers.
“We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish. We only publish credible translations produced by credible biblical scholars,” she noted.

But I can’t see that he has a much of a case against the translators either since the word means what it does. They can’t do too much with that. Maybe he should take it up with the author 🙂