Dear Robert-I,

When I saw the emotion of your post I almost considered not replying.
I certainly have no desire to provoke or upset you and I don’t wish to rub salt into your wounds.

I know from my own experience what it is like to come up against well meaning Christians trying to set us on the “right path” without compassion, sensitivity or any real love. Who’s priority is standing by their doctrine over and above caring for the people their “doctrine” is instructing them to serve.

Two things made up my mind to reply.
Firstly, I am not one of those guys.
I can recognise and respect a gay couple when I see one. I don’t interpret Romans 1 in the manner in which your points above seem to be refuting, but I do have some differences with what you have said. I want to discuss these here.
Secondly, I believe you are open to discuss this subject. I come as one willing to learn, looking for answers and having much respect for your views and contributions thus far. If however, this is an overly emotive topic, causing you more distress than is helpful I’ll humbly step back from it.

Now to why I think Romans 1 is significant.
Firstly what I’m not saying.
I don’t believe that all homosexually oriented people are so because they are idol worshiping God haters. I don’t believe that is Paul’s point either.

In the early chapters of Romans Paul is making a case for the total depravity of man outside of a relationship with God. He shows mankind at its worst. He shows the depravity to which our sin and separation from God have taken us. I’m particularly thinking of his description in Romans 3 that begins “There is none good, not one”. He is working towards illustrating the need for a saviour and God’s amazing grace in providing one.
In chapter one Paul is showing that mankind is collectively under the wrath of God. The exact outpouring of this wrath is described as “God giving them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity” and “God giving them over to degrading passions”. The burning in lust which is illustrated in verses 26-28 is only one example of a whole list of sins (29-32).

This level of degeneration is true of all mankind collectively without Christ. Paul later goes on to discuss salvation by grace, where God saves us despite our sin. He even goes on to say that even in Christ we still have to struggle against the dead, but still powerful, sinful nature (Chapters 6-7) and the only means of overcoming is by the Holy Spirit (Chap 8).

The wrath of God is not metered out according to whom most deserves it. All fall under it. Sickness, death, natural disasters, human greed and lust, we all suffer under it whether we are saved or not. God shows no favouritism.

To single out homosexuals of any kind as being particularly under God’s wrath because of their own sin would be like singling out people with down’s syndrome or cancer or the blind or schizophrenics and saying that they are being directly punished for something they specifically did wrong. This would be a gross misunderstanding of God’s wrath.
What you put down to “evolutionary variation” I put down to the brokenness of a cursed and sin infested world. There was a perfect created order. It existed in the garden with Adam and Eve. But when sin entered into the world so too did God’s curses and many things became corrupted. Not the least of which were human relationships.

It is true that even unsaved people living under the curse and wrath of God are capable of loving each other at some level. To just pick one vice out of Paul’s list to make example of, it is conceivable that someone who was “disobedient to parents” may love his friends and partners very much. It would be a rare person that was so corrupt that evil emanated out of their every pore. Even people who have no respect for God whatsoever usually have some sense of morality and respect for someone other than themselves, most I venture, would probably have a lot.

My point is that Paul is not saying that the homosexual relationships he is describing are unloving. A relationship is a complex thing. That two people lust after each other does not exclude them from loving each other also. I’m confident that there are many heterosexual couples that are quite passionate for each other - in love. Just as I’m sure that there are many loving couples who have issues in their relationship of greed, envy, arrogance, even malice, insolence and moments of being unloving. That these contradictory things can exist side by side is merely testimony to our fallen natures. This is why patience, longsuffering, mercy and forgiveness are primary Christian virtues and reflections of God’s own character.

Paul is not concerned with condemning homosexuality in Romans 1, nor is he saying that homosexuals are incapable of loving relationships. He is merely pointing out that homosexuality exists in the world because of the curse brought about by man’s collective rebellion against God.

I will now make some comments on your specific points.
“Men and women who clearly COULD HAVE ENJOYED the "natural use" of the opposite sex had they not been idolaters "abandoned" that use (turned against it through an act of free will) and burned in ? love? no, there is no love here, is there?

What does this description best match, the loving gay relations of men who could never have enjoyed the "natural use of the woman" anyways?...

--OR --

the purely lustful surrogate relations of those who are turning to their own sex purely as a sexual entertainment in a society where loving relationships have been devalued?

Clearly the latter is a much better fit. Think about it.”

“Clearly could have enjoyed the opposite sex” this is not implied or stated in the passage; it is not clear at all. In fact there is no discussion of orientation in the Scripture that I can see.

“had they not been idolaters” I believe Paul’s point is that every man on earth is an idolater whether he bows down to little wooden bird statues or no. “There is none good not one, no one seeks God, they have all gone out of the way they have together become unprofitable” (Rom 3). Again the curse is not directly put on individuals for their specific offenses but is more collective in its outpouring.

“turned against it through an act of free will” I think the idea of a free choice is quite contrary to this passage. What man deliberately did was to reject knowledge of God. As a result their hearts and minds became “hardened” and “darkened”. Their will and judgement were clouded and deceived. Then God “gave them over” man’s choice was taken away. No one could have resisted God’s judgement. God moved and none could resist Him. The result was not an act of freedom, but a binding into slavery to sin as Paul states in Romans 6.

“and burned in? Love? No, there is no love here, is there?” The fact that homosexual relationships can be loving shows to me that love is not excluded from these verses as I have already discussed.

“does this description ... match, the loving gay relations of men who could never have enjoyed the "natural use of the woman" anyways?” It could do. If Paul is saying that mankind has been moved away, by a curse, from God’s created order then the fact that the relationships are loving or that gay men may be incapable of enjoying being with a woman is irrelevant.

This brings me to my final points.
You suggested that when Paul speaks about what is “natural” he has in mind what is “sensible”.
Whilst I agree with you that it is not sensible “for straight men to defile their marriages by going out and getting some young male ass for recreation (surrogacy)” and “neither is it sensible for gay men to mislead women into thinking they are straight and then becoming botched and false husbands” I nevertheless contend that being sensible was NOT Paul’s point.
I do believe Paul envisions a created order in which heterosexual marriage was the exclusive provision for human sexuality. This is strongly reflected in 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul (clearly reflecting on Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19 since he references to it) posts it as the path to avoiding sexual immorality.

This is my whole reason for referring to Romans 1 as a clincher passage. Paul (in my opinion), in saying that the practice of homosexual sex was “against nature”, is saying that it is outside of God’s created order. It is outside of it no matter how loving or committed the relationship may be.
All the world is corrupt, all the world is under the sway of the evil one, all mankind has rebelled against God, the corruption in its many forms effects every person who walks the earth. We all need the Saviour and the grace of God He brings. We all look forward to the day our corruptible bodies become incorruptible, our brokenness becomes healed and sin is done away with for good.
God have mercy on us all.

Blessings
Cat.