Arsenokoitai means something along the lines of men sleeping together (its a compound of men and bed).
Romans 1:27
This passage seems to be talking about men and women abandoning marriage in order to pursue homosexual relations. I can't get anything else out of it.
That passage refers to acts of homosexual sex in temple idol worship, not all gay people as a whole. This is pretty clear when it's put into context:
Romans 1:22-25 - Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
It was common for male and female shrine prostitutes to be the receiver of seed for the idols, and women were also used as vessels for the idol worshiping men. And note that they were inflamed with lust for one another, which does not describe loving committed relationships.
I think that's really a stretch. If this was simply a reference to temple prostitution, then why are men committing shameful acts with other men singled out? Why doesn't it mention men committing shameful acts with female temple prostitutes?Because Paul was specifically addressing the Romans, whose cultural norms were very different from those of the modern West. "Gay" and "straight" did not really exist at this time; it was expected of Roman citizens to have relations with both genders, and those who were intimate with only one sex were considered odd or abnormal. That practice began, centuries earlier, as a religious obligation, and had grown into a custom/expectation that eventually became a vehicle for unbridled lust. In earlier times, people engaging in the custom would undoubtedly have been uncomfortable engaging in sexual relations with someone to whom they had no natural attraction. Paul basically said that God had just given them over to it, enabling them to completely disregard their natural attractions.
That is the historical context, but I think Romans 1:23 makes quite clear what Paul was referring to. Today's homosexuals are not "exchang[ing] the glory of the immortal God" for images of mortal beings and animals. Certainly not any that I know of.
Many things in Europe were considered moral or immoral until the modern era. Scripture has to be interpreted by the time in which it was written. I would surmise that homosexuality had likely been rejected wholesale for its association with pagan Rome, but this does not imply that God condemns committed relationships between people of the same sex. Jesus didn't speak a word on it.
