In light of that relational situation, what the Sodomites were doing by carrying out their attempted power play against Lot and his guests was that they were – to use the language of our ignominious period of American slavery – turning into “uppity slaves” who were trying to turn the tables on those whom they were meant to serve and who needed to be “put in their place” by the God whose business it was to enforce godly curses that established “right relationships” between various persons and peoples in the world (according to the tribal mindset of early Israel, anyway).