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Originally Posted by Ustwo
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24: Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26: For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28: And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29: Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30: Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31: Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
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So it seems that perhaps even if you ignore the old testament there is no love for homosexuality in Christianity.
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Look at those in context, including verses 21-23, and it's clear they don't condemn homosexuality. These people were lapsed Christians who had made and animalistic idols. They engaged in sexual fertility rites--orgies--and idol worship, and for this were punished by God by making them go against their heterosexual desires and engage in sexual practices that they, being heterosexual, would find repulsive.
They weren't punished for
being homosexual, they weren't, and they weren't punished for homosexual acts. The homosexual acts were the punishment, not the sin being punished.
I imagine that if these people had been homosexuals, forcing them into sex with the same sex would have been a remarkably ineffective form of retribution.
What about the "natural" part of it? These were heterosexuals forced to engage in homosexual acts, behavior that was against their nature. Homosexual acts wouldn't be unnatural for homosexuals.
These passages condemn sex orgies and idol worship in Pagan temples.
I've engage in a fair amount of homosexual sex in my time, but never as part of an idol-worshiping sex orgy in a pagan temple, so I'm pretty confident Romans 1:26-27 doesn't apply to me.
By the way, were the girl's mothers having idol-worshiping sex orgies in pagan temples?
Gilda