/me slaps
mblase. Haha! I can outgun you on biblical interpretation.
The two references you mention, Leviticus, and Paul's letter to the Romans, are the two major references used by Bible literalists to condemn homosexuality. Putting aside the fact that many Churches, including the Catholic one, don't pretend to interpret the Bible literally, there are MUCHO MAJOR dissenting interpretations on the Letter to the Romans.
Let's first lay aside the reference to Leviticus (it also contains prohibitions relating to eating pork, blood, etc). All Christians do this because Christ explicitly replaced the commandments of the Old Testament (or so it is interpreted). "Mandatum novum do vobis", a new commandment I give unto you, said Christ, love one another as I have loved you; so in this spirit let us examine Paul's Letter with:
John Boswell
John Boswell was a Catholic, and a former Jesuit priest (yes, one of the hardcore). For completeness, let me quote the appropriate part of the
Bible:
"God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men committing indecent acts with men…"
John Boswell has this to say:
"the persons that Paul condemns are manifestly not homosexual: what he condemns are homosexual acts committed by heterosexual persons. The whole point of Romans 1, in fact, is to stigmatize persons who have rejected their calling, gotten off the true path they were once on. It would completely undermine the thrust of the argument if the persons in question were not 'naturally' inclined to the opposite sex in the same way they were 'naturally' inclined to monotheism. What caused the Romans to sin was not that they lacked what Paul considered proper inclination, but that they had them; they held the truth, but in unrighteousness because they did not see fit to retain him in their knowledge."
The argument espoused by Boswell rests on the word physin in
Greek, interpreted as "nature", or "natural function" as in the the Bible bit above. In "What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality" by (Fr.) Daniel Helminiak, he mentions several other places that the word physin is used: in the Letter to the Romans, Paul speaks of those who are
Gentiles by nature (physin), and in the older Greek: 'by nature' (physin) and the Gentiles act as is consistent with the kinds of persons they are...
Through this and other references, Helmeniak concludes that nature, (physin) refers to personal nature. This distinction is important because it means that "the immorality Paul condemns is not homosexual activity (but that of) purposefully suppressing ones nature".
Et Voila! You now have an (almost) spotless Bible vis a vis homosexuality.
May I say, I am no longer a Christian, and I certainly never believed in Biblical Literalism when I was one. Therefore the point is sort of moot.
In another totally related noted, John Boswell's major book is
Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality published by the
University of Chicago Press in 1980. He passed away in 1994 from complications related to
AIDS.
Interestingly enough, he was cannonised by the Ecumenical Catholic Church, an organisation I know nothing about except it is probably another modern splinter Catholic church.