This reading was an interesting one. This is the first time I read it, or from what I can remember. I only attended Sunday school up to 4th grade, and I can imagine that they were not telling stories like this to 4th graders (or at least I hope not. I guess if they did it didn’t traumatize me enough to remember, which is a good sign). I am brutally disturbed that a man would take a stranger into his home and protect him by volunteering his daughter (adding in that she is a virgin) basically as a sacrifice or distraction? I can’t imagine doing this to anyone, let alone my own family or children for a complete stranger. It is disgusting that she died from her injuries. And since that wasn’t enough, they had to cut her up and send parts of her body to Isreal!
Getting past the horrific details of this story, I agree that the points of the story have been lost. Readers have gotten caught up in the genders of the human beings performing these acts of violence, instead of the violence itself. I agree with Dr. McGrath when he says that this was not a sexual act or display of sexual orientation, but purely an act of mob violence.