Cat, thanks for outlining your point of view with such care.

I think we are very much in an "agree to disagree" situation, at least for now. You either take the Garden of Eden as a literal creation story or you don't, and I don't. I take it as being a divinely inspired creation myth, rich in meaning but not the ultimate explanation for the cosmos. I can't see earthquakes and mosquitoes as elements of sin in nature. Male mosquitoes sip nectar and would have been very pleasant inhabitants of the Garden of Eden; am I to think that the females who take blood meals bear the curse of Eve? Biology says they have an advantage in obtaining extra nutrients for their eggs by feeding on blood. I kill a lot of life forms myself for protein and I'm not even raising young, so I can't call them sinners. Brokenness, like ugliness is in the eye of the beholder. The human-centric point of view about nature is something biologists lost many decades ago.

Yes, I interpret the phrase "abandoned the natural use of women" in the quoted passage to imply, not simply that the men were doing something outside of the picture of heterosexuality, but that they had personal access to heterosexuality and repudiated it (probably temporarily) for other pursuits. Here's the Biblos dictionary entry on "abandoned," if it helps (http://scripturetext.com/romans/1-27.htm )

αφεντες verb - second aorist active passive - nominative plural masculine
aphiemi af-ee'-ay-mee: an intensive form of eimi, to go); to send forth, in various applications (as follow) -- cry, forgive, forsake, lay aside, leave, let (alone, be, go, have), omit, put (send) away, remit, suffer, yield up.

An intensive form of "to go," in other words, to discharge. These people literally sent their own heterosexuality packing and went on to engage in pseudo-homosexuality.

And the bottom line is, I cannot be persuaded that love is sin, or that truly loving sexual activity with one's (human, non-incestuous, consent-giving) life partner can be separated from love in reality, even though it is easily done in abstract theory. There are far too many scriptures that defend the status of love as godly, even if none of them happens to mentions that extreme rarity in the ancient world (as I explained in one of my posts to Rainboy), a gay relationship.

The final judgment rests with "by their fruits you shall know them."

Christians are obliged to observe, not merely to assume, deduce and theorize.

Would you counsel someone who feels as you do about sexuality to take the path you have taken with it?