Romans 1:26 and 1:27 clearly says Homosexuality is forbidden.
HEY, lets play this game were you just say the same thing over and over is clearly stated, when the passage is anything but "clear" and what you are saying is untrue anyways.
Christians love to play that game. It is plainly sympomatic of what I just said....Your "faith" has caused you to get comfortable and lazy with simply parroting others interpretations so you dont have to face tough questions or try hard.
Ok. You wanted this.
"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: 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." - Romans 1:26-27
Because all scripture is given in a biblical cultural, doctrinal, historical, linguistic, literary and religious context, those factors must be part of our thinking as we seek to understand scripture. Romans 1:26-27 was given in a very clear context. YOU chose to interpret your own way, to justify your ignorant and hateful beliefs.
There is no cultural indication, no doctrinal indication, no historical indication, no linguistic indication, no literary indication, no religious indication, that Paul intended to blast lesbians and gays in Romans 1:26-27.
Instead, Paul chooses as his illustration, the worst possible transgression of pagan Gentiles, the sin of idolatry, so that the Jews in his reading audience will be saying, "Yes, Yes, they're guilty!" Then Paul will spring his rhetorical trap in 2:1 when he declares that Jewish idolatry is just as sinful as Gentile idolatry and therefore, in chapter 3:23, everyone is guilty. Here is how Paul puts his argument together.
The context of Romans 1 is pagan worship of false gods, particularly Cybele, known in the first century as Protectress of Rome or Magna Mater - Great Mother.
Early Christian writers like Aristides understood Paul to be describing Cybele worship. Paul has a particular goal in mind when writing to the church at Rome. That goal involved presenting the glorious gospel of Christ, Rom. 1:16-18.
The gospel reveals and declares the wrath of God against sin, that God punished Jesus for our sins when Jesus died, as us for us, as our Substitute. Yet no one gets saved until s(he) understands that s(he) is a sinner who has transgressed God's holy law for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Cybele as the Phrygian goddess had five temples in mid-first century Rome. As the consort of Jupiter, she also had another temple in Rome besides her five Cybele temples. Cybele was featured on Roman coins used in mid-first century Rome and throughout the empire.
Cybele was also called Magna Mater and Protectress of Rome. Paul illustrates idolatry by using an example with which all of his Roman readers would be familiar - Cybele worship. Yet his intention wasn't to attack lesbians and gays. His intention is to support his idolatry argument with easy to recognize illustrations so that his Jewish audience will be nodding along as they read, as a literary trap for his revelation later.
So in chapter 1 Paul indicts and condemns Gentiles for the sin of idolatry. In chapter 2 Paul indicts and condemns Jews because, says the apostle, you do the same things the Gentiles do. In chapter 3:10-23, Paul concludes that all are under sin, both Jews and Gentiles.
That is the historical context, the religious context, the cultural context and the spiritual context of Romans 1. Idolatry is the focus of Paul's argument, not gays and lesbians. The cultural and religious context is unfamiliar to some modern readers because many modern readers are unfamiliar with Roman history and Jewish history in the first century AD.
Early Christians like Aristides and Justin Martyr understood Paul to be condemning shrine prostitution. If Paul was not describing committed faithful non-cultic same sex partnerships in AD 58 when he wrote Romans, then it is wrong to insist that those verses are dealing with committed same sex partnerships now.
Christians need to do more reading and study before concluding that the first notion that pops into our head when we read Romans 1 is infallibly correct. Sometimes, the first thing we think when we read a verse of scripture is wrong. That is why we are encouraged to "Study to shew yourselves approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." -2 Timothy 2:15
