This chapter is for anyone interested in the moral rationales that can be identified for the prohibitions of same-sex relations that we find in Christian scripture.  These reasons may overlap with the moral reasons that are considered ‘natural’ or ‘simple’ or otherwise apparent to everybody (see §2).  It does not include those reasons that depend on a specifically Christian understanding of marriage (§4) or theology (§5).

As usual, we’ll be asking at the end (§4) how they apply when we do not consider same-sex orientation and same-sex marriage, and then what happens when we do.

In §3.a (Scripture), we described basic Evangelical biblical interpretation.  Suppose we understand scripture to express God’s mind or will, at least as ‘he’ has chosen to express it through a religious tradition over time.  Still, if we don’t know the reason behind a certain principle or command, then we can’t know whether we are really obeying it – or just the first thing that comes in to our modern mind when we read it.  James Brownson makes this point well in Bible, Gender, Sexuality (2013):

It is only when we know why scripture prohibits the charging of interest on loans to fellow Israelites that we can judge whether granting or receiving a home mortgage between Christians today is right or wrong (see Exod. 22:23; Lev. 25:36–37; Deut. 23:19–20; Ps. 15:5; Ezek. 18:8ff.).  We need to understand why Paul says that nature teaches that it is disgraceful for a man to wear long hair (1 Cor. 11:14), if we are to make appropriate moral judgements about length of hair among men today, or even if we are to make sense of other biblical passages where some men were commanded not to cut their hair (Num. 6; Judg. 13:2–5; 1 Sam. 1:11).  (p.259)

When we think about the biblical prohibitions of same-sex intercourse, moral reasons come first mind, before those drawn from nature or from popular or systematic theology.  Romans 1:31 almost poetically sums up the charges advanced against the gentiles – asynetous, asynthetous, astorgous, aneleēmonas – foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless!  There’s no doubting that moral failures are foremost in mind.  So we need to understand the moral reasons for these.  Reasons that are theological, such as appeals to God’s created order, will follow in Theology (§5).

Because the biblical references were mostly made in passing – especially in sin lists – we’ll also consider a number of Jewish and Hellenistic writers from the same period as the New Testament, and see how they used the same themes.  Philo and Josephus were Jewish authors.  Plutarch was a Neoplatonist, so he held to somewhat theistic beliefs, and Dio Chrysostom was an Greek orator with Platonist and Stoic tendencies.  Covering these at the start will clear the ground for thinking through the more complex and substantial matters that follow in marriage and theology.  The issues that arise there may be moral also.  Here we’re considering those issues that are simply immoral in themselves, rather than in light of any particular understanding of marriage or theology.  They may be quickly summarised as:

For the sake of argument I will assume that all these possible reasons were present in the minds of the biblical writers and all of them reflected God’s own mind also.  They may well have been and there is in each case some possible connection with the New Testament text.  It makes, though, surprisingly little difference to our discussion of same-sex marriage.

As may be already apparent from this list, these concerns are inapplicable, in virtually all cases, to same-sex marriages as they exist today.  This is unlikely to be a grave concern to Evangelicals who will think that other, complementary reasons are more than sufficient to move from the particular evils of ancient Rome or Canaan, to general and universal morality grounded in (§4) marriage, or (§5) Christian theology, whether creation, purpose, or fall.  And we will continue with those topics next.

The first reason  why scripture condemns same-sex intercourse are promiscuity and unfaithfulness to marriage.  These may approximately be considered fornication and adultery, or simply as “sex outside of marriage” in the Evangelical vernacular.  If we were to say “this can’t be marriage because it’s sin,” and also “this must be sin because it’s not marriage,” then we would be arguing in circles.  So I will treat same-sex intercourse within a same-sex marriage as sex within the bounds of marriage, in order to evaluate its moral status without presupposing that it would be fornication or adultery.  This assumption will fail if it is not confirmed in the chapter that follows.  There are several reasons to think that the condemnations of same-sex intercourse substantially overlap the condemnations of fornication and adultery.  In the cultures to which Romans and Leviticus were written, the social obligation of heterosexual marriage meant that same-sex intercourse would involve unfaithfulness to a spouse in the majority of situations.  While it was more than adultery—that is, while it was condemned for other reasons as well—it was typically not less than adultery, which may be why they appear together in biblical vice lists (1 Cor 6:9–11; 1 Tim 1:8–11), and in Leviticus, which gives them identical penalties (Lev 20:10,13).

Of course, if we are assessing a same-sex marriage between otherwise faithful Christians – that being, after all, the fundamental question – neither promiscuity nor unfaithfulness are any more to be presupposed than they are in a heterosexual marriage.

Even though men are generally more promiscuous than women, this would balance out between gay and lesbian marriages.  And while the gay male community is more promiscuous again, comparing promiscuous singles with people who have committed to marriage ignores precisely the crucial distinction between them.  Of course, for many same-sex oriented people the desire to marry has been precisely the desire that their commitment to be faithful to their partner should be just as much acknowledged as anyone else’s.

In this and other ways, the practice of same-sex marriage seems to work against both promiscuity and adultery.  If a same-sex oriented person can undertake a relationship that fulfils the sexual and romantic attraction that they actually have, that would resolve the temptation toward adultery that would exist in a marriage where their sexual and romantic attraction could not be fulfilled.  Additionally, the hope of having someone to keep themselves for in future would equally serve as a bulwark against fornication; certainly in the Evangelical case in which chastity is seen as, in part, preemptive faithfulness; both respecting the exclusive, bodily sexual unity that will exist in the future, and also establishing the habits and patterns of thought that faithfulness to that partner will demand.

A second reason  for condemning same-sex relations, at least in the view of first-century Jewish writers, are that they neglect family and procreation to the detriment of society.  Philo goes so far as to suggest that:

the man who is devoted to the love of boys … as far as depends upon him … would make the cities desolate, and void, and empty of all inhabitants, wasting his power of propagating his species, … because, like a worthless husbandman, he allows fertile and productive lands to lie fallow, contriving that they shall continue barren, and labours night and day at cultivating that soil from which he never expects any produce at all.

Philo, Laws III. 39

It is reasonable to think that in antiquity the great uncertainty of reproduction and raising children to adulthood, as well as guarding whole societies from depopulation through plague and war made this a much more concerning issue than it is today.  We discuss this a little further in §5 (Marriage).

While the financial necessities of having children would be a pressing concern to Christian families in the New Testament, this would likely not be pressing concern when same-sex relations were morally assessed.  Christians were much more congenial to not marrying.  The judgement that those relations were sexual immorality in the Old Testament would figure more prominently for them.  And, consequently, the neglect of love and devotion between the husband and wife themselves, modelling Christ’s character (see ), would be a more obvious betrayal.

A third reason,  sexual compulsion or intemperance, appears in Rom 1:27, where men, forsaking women, became “consumed with passion” for one another.  Temperance was emphasised by Jewish writers of the period as a point of commonality with philosophical emphases on discipline and self-control, most especially in the Stoicism with which Pharisees like Paul most naturally found common cause.  We will see this especially in Philo, who links illicitness directly with obsessiveness in those pursuing same-sex intercourse.  As we quoted above, under Neglect of family and reproduction (§2.b):

he spends his labour night and day on soil from which no growth at all can be expected

Philo, Laws, III.39

I will take it as self-evident, or else readily discoverable, that contemporary same-sex marriages are not more susceptible to excesses of passion than heterosexual marriages are.  So, that this offers no reason for condemning same-sex marriages.  Yet even if they were, a high level of marital passion is not considered problematic in Evangelical thought.  We have not inherited the Augustinian and Platonic concerns that sexual passion is only hedonē, wrong in itself and only commended by the duty of procreation.  Rather, sexual fulfilment and happiness is integral to a modern Evangelical ideal of marriage and one of its sources of strength.  This will be addressed in more detail when we come to marriage (§4).

Paul’s argument in Romans 1 proceeds from idolatry to heterosexual immorality to homosexual immorality.  This parallels a passage in Dio Chrysostom.  He has considered the argument that prostitution keeps respectable houses safe from lechery, of which he is unpersuaded.  Describing widespread adultery, Dio Chrysostom writes in his Seventh Discourse or Euboean Oration:

For men do grow weary of what is excessively cheap and freely permitted, but pursue in fear and at great expense what is forbidden simply because it is forbidden.  (140)

But the desire for novelty is never satisfied:

… Now then, in a city where the girls’ condition is as bad as we have described, ¹⁴⁹ what are we to expect the boys to be?  What education and training should we expect them to receive?  Is there any possibility that this lecherous class would refrain from dishonouring and corrupting the males, making their clear and sufficient limit that set by nature?  Or will it not, while it satisfies its lust for women in every conceivable way, find itself grown weary of this pleasure, and then seek some other worse and more lawless form of wantonness? ¹⁵⁰ Yes, the seduction of women — especially, one might almost say, of the freeborn and virgins — has been found easy and no task for a man who pursues that kind of game with money; and even against the highly respected wives and daughters of men really respected, the libertine who attacks with the device of Zeus and brings gold in his hands will never fail. ¹⁵¹ But the further developments, I presume, are perfectly evident, since we see so many illustrations.  The man whose appetite is insatiate in such things, when he finds there is no scarcity, no resistance, in this field, will have contempt for the easy conquest and scorn for a woman’s love, as a thing too readily given — in fact, too utterly feminine — and will turn his assault against the male quarters, eager to befoul the youth who will very soon be magistrates and judges and generals, ¹⁵² believing that in them he will find a kind of pleasure difficult and hard to procure.  His state is like that of men who are addicted to drinking and wine-bibbing, who after long and steady drinking of unmixed wine, often lose their taste for it and create an artificial thirst by the stimulus of sweatings, salted foods, and condiments.⁠ (148–52).

Dio’s concern here is principally with the sexual exploitation of youths, first young women, then young men, as a game or challenge.  But additionally, he regards this as peculiarly corrupting of future leaders and against natural limits.

In §3.a (Scripture), we considered whether scripture’s references to same-sex relations could be limited to those that were abusive, concluding it could not.  Then, in §3.b (Romans), we discussed Greek and Roman ‘homosexuality’, and how it featured in Paul’s letter.  Sexual abuse and exploitation were endemic and widely accepted in both Greek and Roman cultures, especially prostitution, the abuse of slaves, and the abuse of minors.

This involved a power imbalance between the partners; the younger were of lower social status, disposable when they lost their youthful looks, and prone to both abuse and exploitation.  Sexual abuse particularly characterised the Greek and Roman treatment of slaves.  Seneca the Elder, a contemporary of Paul, wrote a book of legal cases and arguments, in which a colourful lawyer named Haterius defended a freedman accused of conducting an affair with his patron.  His reply was that “Losing one’s virtue is a crime in the freeborn, a necessity in a slave, a duty for the freedman.”  (Controversiae 4, 1.431, emphasis added).  This sends a little chill through the New Testament instructions about slaves submitting to their masters, “not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh” (1 Pet 3:9).  A Roman slave had no legal standing to resist homosexual abuse by their master, and could be executed for running away.

Same-sex sexual abuse features prominently in Gen 19 and Jdg 19, in Sodom and Gomorrah and in Gibeah, respectively.  Threats of same-sex rape displayed how far each city had departed from basic morality in general terms, but in particular, from its positive obligations to hospitality to both Israelites and strangers.  This neglect may be referenced by Ezekiel:

Ezek 16:49–50.  Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.  50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me.  Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

The term malakos in 1 Cor 6:9 may also connote male prostitution, as a pejorative reference to the penetrated, and thus ‘passive’ and ‘womanly’ role taken by the partner of lower social status.  It is unnecessary to comment at length on New Testament views of prostitution, other than to note that it occasioned one of Paul’s extended comments on sexual ethics: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?  Never!  … you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.”  (1 Cor 6:12–20).

Male temple prostitution may have been a part of the concerns about Canaanite behaviours addressed in Lev 18 if the Hebrew qedeshim has that meaning (Deut 23:17;1 Ki 14:24, 15:12, 22:46; 2 Ki 23:7).  Similar claims about the first century, for example that Ephesus was famous for this practice, have proven harder to substantiate.  But whether this is part of the background to the biblical condemnations or not, a condemnation of any kind of prostitution has no more relevance for same-sex marriages than it does to heterosexual marriages.

For still the best background study on this subject, see Martti Nissinen’s Homoeroticism in the Biblical World (1998), Craig A.  Williams’ Roman Homosexuality (2010), or for the best short summary, William Loader’s opening chapter in Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church (2016).  I would be labouring the obvious to remark that none of these three reasons, neither feminisation, prostitution, nor exploitation and abuse, are applicable to same-sex marriages.

A sixth reason  for condemning same-sex relations comes from the word that is usually translated ‘effeminacy’ (malakos, literally ‘softness’) in 1 Cor 6:9.  Paul’s Jewish contemporary Philo interpreted Leviticus 18 and 20 in terms of their contemporary experience of Greek and Roman homosexuality, which he portrays as feminising:

³⁷ Moreover, another evil, much greater than that which we have already mentioned, has made its way among and been let loose upon cities, namely, the love of boys, which formerly was accounted a great infamy even to be spoken of, but which sin is a subject of boasting not only to those who practise it, but even to those who suffer it, and who, being accustomed to bearing the affliction of being treated like women, waste away as to both their souls and bodies, not bearing about them a single spark of a manly character to be kindled into a flame, but having even the hair of their heads conspicuously curled and adorned, and having their faces smeared with vermilion, and paint, and things of that kind, and having their eyes pencilled beneath, and having their skins anointed with fragrant perfumes (for in such persons as these a sweet smell is a most seductive quality), and being well appointed in everything that tends to beauty or elegance, are not ashamed to devote their constant study and endeavours to the task of changing their manly character into an effeminate one. ³⁸ And it is natural for those who obey the law to consider such persons worthy of death, since the law commands that the man-woman who adulterates the precious coinage of his nature shall die without redemption, not allowing him to live a single day, or even a single hour, as he is a disgrace to himself, and to his family, and to his country, and to the whole race of mankind. ³⁹ And let the man who is devoted to the love of boys submit to the same punishment, … being a guide and teacher of those greatest of all evils, unmanliness and effeminate lust, stripping young men of the flower of their beauty, and wasting their prime of life in effeminacy, which he ought rather on the other hand to train to vigour and acts of courage; … ⁴⁰ And I imagine that the cause of this is that among many nations there are actually rewards given for intemperance and effeminacy.  At all events one may see men-women continually strutting through the market place at midday, and leading the processions in festivals …

Philo’s Laws III.37–40

This can also be seen in On Abraham 135–136, while Josephus also assumes it in his account of Sodom in Antiquities 1.200.  None of this, of course, relates to same-sex marriages, or to same-sex oriented people generally.  Making young men look and act like women would presumably improve their appeal to heterosexual men.

It doesn’t require too much emphasis that this has nothing to do with same-sex orientation or marriages.  The stereotype of gay men as effeminate has faded with better awareness of orientation.  Transgender may be distinguished from transvestism by the point that transgender expresses an inwardly perceived gender identity, whereas transvestism cross-dresses for a range of other purposes, so that this has nothing to do with trasngeder either.  And sexual subcultures which engage in kink or dominance or any similar activities today take considerable pains to emphasise their consensual nature.  What Philo describes is an exceedingly foreign-sounding problem, to virtually any modern western ears.

A seventh reason for condemning same-sex intercourse is possibly alluded to in Rom 1:27, when Paul writes that those involved “received in their own person the due penalty for their error” (or received “among themselves”, en heautois is ambiguous).  Personal harm is in view, and it must in some plausible way be connected with same-sex intercourse, but there are several options here.  One is the contemporaneous Jewish idea that captivity to sin is a judgement already, for “one is punished by the very things by which one sins” (Wis 11:16).  This fits the context of Romans, for example being “handed over” to a depraved or darkened mind as judgement, or more generally by the alienation, addictivity and proverbially diminishing returns that accompany sin.

Philo of Alexandria refers disparagingly to Plato urging pederasty, on the grounds that it engenders a “female disease.”  The envisaged consequences are a loss of male virility and potency, as well as the practical loss of procreative opportunities as a husband’s ‘seed’ is sown on ‘barren ground’.  If he thought that men became impotent from same-sex relations, that would account for his otherwise strange concern that the cities of the Empire might become depopulated.  He writes in On the Contemplative Life that,

vulgar, promiscuous love, which takes away from the soul courage, that which is the most serviceable of all virtues both in war and in peace, and which engenders in it instead the female disease, and renders men men-women, though they ought rather to be carefully trained in all the practices likely to give men valour.  (§60)

A sense of patriarchal shame in being the ‘feminine’ partner in the act of intercourse may also be in view; this would entail that the punishment is present in the shame or degradation of the act.  Corresponding, for the penetrated partner, it may be a reference to straightforward physical pain.  However, Paul does not appear to be referring just to the active or passive partners.  Paul’s “males with males,” which does not distinguish the active or passive partners, or his malakoi and arsenokoitai (1 Cor 6:9), which, if it refers to sex roles, condemns both, is quite indifferent to a person’s involvement.  All these options—depravity, effeminacy, dishonour—apply whether the “penalty” in mind is seen as a consequence of violating the natural order, or as a divine judgement.  However, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) seem to offer a more direct connection with the thought of judgement upon immorality.  Genital ulcers including herpes, as well as gonorrhoea, scabies, and genital warts are described in classical texts (e.g.  Hippocrates, On Epidemics); these conditions are both painful in themselves and linked with promiscuity and prostitution.  It may be objected that such harm would be shared by promiscuous heterosexuals: wouldn’t Paul have more likely been thinking of some consequences more particular to same-sex intercourse?  However, in Roman antiquity the practice of same-sex intercourse was so widespread, especially among those wealthy enough to own slaves or pay for prostitutes, than could be accounted for by the random one or two percent who might be expected to have been same-sex orientated.  So it follows that promiscuous heterosexuals will have been the great majority of those involved in same-sex intercourse.  This of course fits with Paul’s description of progressive corrupted sexual desire in Romans 1.

These different options for understanding the “penalty” in Rom 1:27 appear equally inapplicable to same-sex marriages.  If escalating depravity is the punishment, that has been considered already as a progressive corruption of heterosexual desire.  This is inapplicable to orientation in an obvious way.  If the penalty was effeminacy, then that has been considered also, and while campness has been an aspect of gay subculture over time, any idea that this was a necessary consequence of same-sex relationships is by now clearly nonsense.  If the penalty was dishonour through taking on female passivity, as the inferior partner, then that can be discarded too, as it would be a rare same-sex relationship today that conformed to Ancient Roman views of class and status.  Finally, if the “penalty” in view is sexually transmitted disease or infection, then it is certainly not something that applies to faithful and monogamous relationships of any kind, so is not a reason for considering same-sex marriages to be immoral.

Aside.  Asking whether Paul would refer to disease as a ‘penalty’, raises the spectre of ostensibly Christian responses to AIDS in the 1980s.  Chaplains tell harrowing accounts of men abandoned to die alone in hospitals or hospices by Christian families, through fear of transmission, the social stigma of homosexuality, and sometimes the belief that AIDS was God’s judgement against homosexuals.  ‘Penalty’ in Rom 1:27 is the closest way in which Paul might be seen to support that idea, whether as consequence or punishment.  A painful but foreseeable venereal disease, whose avoidance is a matter of practical wisdom, is different in kind to a deadly and unprecedented epidemic, so no direct analogy seems justified.  Moreover, familial piety was not negotiable in the Pauline churches; 1 Tim 5:8 considers “whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  Paul certainly advocates refusing the society of Christian hypocrites: “you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler.  Do not even eat with such people” (1 Cor 5:8); but equally, “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  (1 Tim 5:8).  It is a long stretch to suggest this overrode familial piety in light of Pauline Christians living in mixed marriages with Hellenists (1 Cor 7:12–16).  A parable like Matt 25:31–46 pointedly connects compassion for the sick with God’s final judgement of a person’s faith.  Early Christianity especially seems utterly opposed to this kind of reaction.  Lucian of Samosata’s The Passing of Peregrinus (c.160 CE) shows how early Christians were mocked in society for their gullibility in believing in these kind of social obligations.

In the previous chapter (§3.b, Romans) I offered eight reasons why Paul was not addressing same-sex attraction as we understand it.  As a marquee of exhibit of the shamefulness of Greco-Roman culture, he condemned an attraction that was a perversion of heterosexual desire, arose from voluntary choices, and was shameful and degrading in itself.  We may add that it was a social pattern that far exceeded the natural prevalence of same-sex orientation, and had no necessary connection with it.

So his use of the term ‘unnatural’ describes behaviour that he is also saying is immoral.  In the case of women, that the exchange of ‘natural’ for ‘unnatural’ intercourse arises from degrading passions, and in the case of men, that it results in shameful acts (v.26–27), though each idea is presumably true of the other sex also.

These behaviours seem to go beyond normal immorality.  The framing language of “handing over” or abandoning gentiles to their sins (1:18) conveys a sense of extremity and abnormality; of a society whose guide rails have been removed.  And if Rom 1:24–25 and then 25–27 represent successive levels of descent into sexual immorality (“For this reason…”), then it describes not only a perversion, but one of an unusually twisted kind.

So, Paul definitely refers to a corruption of existing heterosexual desire that then feeds into other evils.  This might be why he thinks of it as perversely unnatural.  However, we can’t know if that is the only thing he means by ‘unnatural’, so we will continue to consider further understandings as we proceed.

William Loader writes, in Sexuality in the New Testament (2010):

It is very possible that Paul knew of views which claimed some people had what we would call a homosexual orientation, though we cannot know for sure and certainly should not read our modern theories back into his world.  If he did, it is more likely that, like other Jews, he would have rejected them out of hand … He would have stood more strongly under the influence of Jewish creation tradition which declares human beings male and female, to which may well even be alluding in 1.26–27, and so seen same-sex sexual acts by people (all of whom he deemed heterosexual in our terms) as flouting divine order.  (p 323–4)

We’ll consider this in §5.b (Creation).

When I use the term “Evangelical same-sex marriage,” I mean a same-sex union between two same-sex oriented Evangelicals, which they understand and enter into as a marriage covenant before God.  It is something they undertake as Christians with the considered intention of fulfilling every possible aspect of the biblical ideal, including romantic love and sexual intimacy.  I assume they recognise better than most that neither of them possess heterosexual attraction, and that they do not between them have any unaided capacity to reproduce.  This is the most important case we must think about in contemporary life.

Considering people we know, people born in our churches, helps to put aside all stereotypes of godlessness, promiscuity, or political antagonism.  It forces us to face up to our sharpest pastoral and missional questions.  Should a same-sex oriented Evangelical – your son or daughter, say – ever fall in love?  Should they have someone to care for them in old age?  Is the only a choice in front of them between lifelong celibacy and a half-heterosexual marriage?  (see §1.b).  Must a same-sex couple, should they come to Christ, actually break up their marriage and family on account of immorality?

That is say, if two faithful Evangelicals are same-sex oriented, can or should they then marry?  Why would this same-sex marriage immoral?

In recent public speech, Evangelicals have avoided the moral status of these relationships.  We’ve mainly argued that same-sex marriage will be harmful to the fabric of society, and that it poses risks to children.  In churches, we have mainly emphasised that same-sex relations must be biblically condemned, so cannot be faithfully endorsed by Christians.  In both cases, by appeals to danger and authority, we imply immorality without ever explicitly arguing for it.  People out there know that more-or-less everyone opposing same-sex marriage thinks that same-sex intercourse is immoral.  But we don’t say, “Here’s why this is morally wrong…” So Evangelical advocacy has been losing ground against a case built on love and equality, which are very clear moral values that almost everyone identifies with.  This is ironic if we consider the extent to which love and equality were Christian innovations in the structure of Western society between the second and the fourth centuries.

How strange is it that we do not argue this in moral terms?  Imagine what would happen if we faced a political movement to dignify and to legitimate adultery – which much more common, after all.  If this happened, wouldn’t we think that we could offer some obvious moral reasons against it – the heartache of betrayal and unfaithfulness, the loss of trust and consequent breakdown of families, and so on.  We’d know that appealing to common-sense morals would be more effective by far than a round of petitions.  Yet in the case of same-sex marriages, we haven’t done this.  Some of us might say that we want to be pastorally sensitive and avoid unnecessary condemnation.  But that doesn’t cover the political head-kickers for whom no insinuation of pederasty or predation or has been too low to contemplate.  In scripture same-sex intercourse is just as bad as adultery, yes?  Worse if anything, given the way same-sex relations are evidences of social breakdown in Genesis and Romans.  So why are we not arguing in public for this judgement of immorality?

Let’s take that question a step further: When Christian ministers in Australia have recently demonstrated for the rights of asylum seekers, they have almost delighted in getting arrested and posting the photos on Facebook, feeling very Martin-Luther-King about the whole experience, and thinking this would make the justness of their cause actually more apparent.  Why isn’t the feared “persecution” over same-sex marriage seen as a similar opportunity to claim the moral high-ground?  Why is the focus on preventing same-sex marriage legislation, yet then giving up once it passes?  – if there’s really a moral argument to be made?  More to the point, wouldn’t it be more biblical to argue this case morally?  Scripture does not condemn same-sex intercourse for being socially harmful per se, or even for being unbiblical, even though Paul, as we will see, is clearly building on Leviticus in Romans 1.  It calls it immoral, and gives reasons why.  I can find more than a dozen of these reasons, which I will outline in this chapter and §4.5 especially.  Is there a reason why we’re not using these to demonstrate the moral repulsiveness of same-sex intercourse?  Or is there some problem preventing us from arguing this way?

Isn’t it the case that Romans 1 expects gentiles – mere Hellenistic pagans of the Greco-Roman world – to know same-sex intercourse is wrong?  The things that Gentiles do that deserve death and judgement, are things that they do anyway (v.32), not in ignorance.  If the moral status of same-sex intercourse is not a special revelation kept aside for Jews and Christians, it is something gentiles ought to know, something that they can understand, something we should be able to argue publicly from common moral values.  Paul is writing to a church, but still he makes a publicly accessible argument in Romans 1.  Shouldn’t we do the same?

And finally, and most pointedly, from what is a non-Christian person in a same-sex marriage expected to repent, if it is not being pointed out to them that they have done something clearly immoral, something their own conscience should recognise, as Paul emphasises in Rom 2:14–15?  Can we say with Lot, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.”  (Gen 19:7)?  Can Evangelicals present a public case that is recognisably moral in nature?  Let’s see.

When Christian Scripture addresses same-sex intercourse, it is always presented as shockingly immoral, something utterly abhorrent in a simple way that anyone should realise.  This stands in sharp contrast to contemporary Evangelicalism, which treats it as immensely biblically immoral, but does not feel able to explain the immorality in public life.  This jumps out from the tiniest points, as when Paul writes ‘for even their women’ did so (ai te gar thēliai autōn, Rom 1:26).  Roman women were seen as moral guardians in society, idealised as morally purer than Roman men.  A commentator like Charles Hodge, writing with the sensibilities of pre-Victorian England in his Commentary On The Epistle To The Romans (1835), picks up this meaning immediately:

[Rom 1:26] Paul first refers to the degradation of females among the heathen, because they are always the last to be affected in the decay of morals, and their corruption is therefore proof that all virtue is lost.

The sheer strength and force of the biblical condemnations commit Evangelicals to upholding them.  But in other ways they make this difficult.  One problem is that the condemnations are frequently unexplained, which is problematic when we must apply them to a different situation.  Statements that same-sex intercourse is abhorrent or detestable, that it is dishonourable or shameful or degrading, that it is worthy of judgement or death or eternal destruction only tell us that scripture addressed itself to a deadly serious problem, but not why nor how it might apply to same-sex orientation.

When 1 Tim 1:9 forthrightly lists arsenokoitai (again, the ‘man-bedders’) alongside “the lawless and disobedient, … godless and sinful, … unholy and profane …” then we should neither soft-pedal these judgements, nor take a stand for them in ignorance, but rather juxtapose them thoughtfully with the young same-sex couple next door, and ask exactly how they may apply.  Biblically, why would a same-sex marriage between same-sex oriented people be immoral and abhorrent to such an extraordinary degree?  Why the descent into degradation we find in Romans 1?  Why the conspicuous public shame?  And how do we transfer that knowledge to contemporary cases?

To assess same-sex orientation and same-sex marriage we need to reason about the biblical condemnations.  God has no needs, so his moral commands cannot be for his own benefit, but rather ours.  There should be reasons for them based on our own nature or the nature of the natural and human world.  Paul in Romans 1 wrote that ancient pagans knew that their collective sins “deserve death” but practised and praised them regardless, and willfully ‘exchanged’ natural relations for unnatural.  If gentiles in antiquity are expected to know this, so should everyone today, where our social ethics are closer to Paul’s than to those of ancient Rome.  Moreover, if we do not understand these reasons, we cannot apply the prohibitions to arguably different situations, explain to others what is wrong with their actions, or show our position to be morally principled.  And we should certainly be able to do those things.

What then are the reasons for the biblical prohibitions?  At first glance, most do not have reasons attached.  They are mentioned in passing in sin lists or as the actions of particular evildoers.  However, we have at least three sources of moral logic here: Romans 1 makes a large, clear moral argument.  Some moral reasons are suggested by a closer reading of the other passages.  And others still are plausibly implied by knowing some historical background, especially what other writers of the time meant when they wrote the same sort of things.

First of all, homosexuality in antiquity was usually promiscuity or unfaithfulness and frequently both.  This would be especially so in Israel, given the universal expectation of both heterosexual marriage (ch.8) and faithfulness within marriage – for men and women equally – in the Old Testament (see ch.8).  Same-sex relations follow fornication and adultery in biblical vice lists (1 Cor 6:9–11; 1 Tim 1:8–11; Lev 18; 21:10, 13).  But while this connects them, it also shows them to be distinguishable concerns, so there is more to the problem.

Secondly, and relatedly, same-sex relations meant neglect of moral and social responsibilities toward family, marriage, and procreation.  The ‘barrenness’ of same-sex relations amplifies their perceived wastefulness.  (Philo.  On the Special Laws III.37–39; possibly implied by ‘the natural usage’ of men and women in Rom 1:26–27.

Thirdly, there are likely references to same-sex prostitution, including possible religious prostitution, in some Canaanite contexts (Heb.  qedeshim in Deut 23:17;1 Ki 14:24, 15:12, 22:46; 2 Ki 23:7).  This was formerly argued for Ephesus in the NT, though the foundational references in Herodotus are now disputed.  However, the remarks in about not living like the nations before and around them seem to indicate a broader practice, so, again, this is not the whole story.

Fourthly, same-sex relation sin antiquity were ordinarily forms of exploitation and abuse, including that of slaves/servants (same word, doulos), or adolescents (Gen 19; Jdg 19; 1 Pet 3:9 (?); 1 Tim 1:10 (?); Philo, loc.  cit.).  We saw in ch.3 (‘Romans’) that this concern very much fits Paul’s reasons for writing as he does in Romans 1; Roman slaves in his own churches had no legal recourse against such abuse.  However, we also saw that he wrote in much more general terms, so we cannot assume this to be the whole problem.

Fifthly, same-sex relationships in Greek and Roman times involved the feminisation of young men to make them appeal to older heterosexual men.  This was a central element of Philo’s critique of same-sex relations.  The term malakos or ‘soft’ can refer to luxury or effeminacy, and the juxtaposition with arsenokoitai suggests the latter.

Sixthly, Paul perhaps implies a state of mind we would now call sexual addiction or predation.  “Giving up the natural use of the woman they burned with passion for each other” (Rom 1:27)

And seventh is disease risk (possibly in Rom 1:27, a ‘penalty’ received in or among the male partners).  It doesn’t matter greatly that any promiscuity would run the same disease risk, since same-sex relations were seen as characteristically promiscuous.

This is just a list of strictly moral reasons plausibly present in scripture.  They should be comprehensible to almost anyone as moral arguments, and there is some likelihood that they sit behind the biblical condemnations.

Homosexuality in the Greek and Roman worlds fits all seven of these moral reasons.  Pointing this out was a slam-dunk for any Jewish or Christian writer telling off the pagans.  But notice that nothing in this list applies to same-sex marriages of same-sex oriented partners today.  The two closest ideas are the neglect of procreation and modern concerns for disease or infection:

The obligation to bear children for family, community, society, or nation was a pressing and urgently practical concern in antiquity.  It remained so until only recently in historical terms.  It was, as such, a prominent moral issue in those societies.  But we do not apply that reasoning to heterosexual Christians today, and so should not create double-standard for same-sex oriented people by saying it precludes same-sex marriages.

Also, while some disease risks are raised by anal intercourse in modern medicine, they are less significant than those of diseases that are transmitted by promiscuity, to which scripture would be referring if it is indeed referring to disease risk in Rom 1:27.  And in any case, such intercourse need not be and often is not practised by male partners; is within the range of many other disease risks we tolerate in society; and does not apply at all to lesbian partners.

Accordingly, these seven biblical rationales for the immorality of same-sex relations concerns alone cannot give us the full moral force of the biblical condemnations when we must address same-sex marriages as a response to same-sex orientation.