To start with I just want to say that I don't think any of this religious stuff is too important to the topic under discussion which I believe was based on the following sentence.
Queen Zeus wrote:Both types of relationships were wrong based on the religion of the men who made the laws, and that is the reason behind the same sex age laws.
Regardless of what religion the "Law-Makers" were at the time of the law creation our society is now secular (or atleast it has become more so in the time since the law was written). This means that right now religion should not enter into the creation of any law since not everyone shares the same religion or beliefs. Therefore the consent law at this point in time should be based only on what age a person can reasonably consent to sex, which may be different for male/male sex for non religious reasons.
In any case, Here is a little bit analysis of the text from the passage out of Romans - not mine, but interesting none the less. I will include the URL at the bottom.
First here is the whole passage out of Romans (I believe this is taken out of the NIV):
"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 of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." (Romans 1:24-27)
In this passage, the Apostle Paul describes the regression of a rebellious humanity against God. Instead of worshiping their Creator, these pagans turned to worshiping the creature, both man and animal. Because this rebellion so displeased God, He allowed them to wallow in their depravity: since they wanted nothing to do with a holy and righteous God, He gave them enough rope to hang themselves, morally speaking.
As the pagans turned to the worship of various fabricated gods and goddesses, their forms of worship centered on the specific aspects of each deity. Some of these deities were fertility gods and goddesses, those responsible for ensuring bountiful crops, healthy childbirth, and the perpetuation of love in its various (and usually erotic) forms. Thus, the forms of worship associated with these fertility gods and goddesses involved sexual activities, which were meant to arouse the deities with passion and encourage them to do whatever it was they were supposed to do.
The worship of these pagan idols occurred in temples dedicated to specific deities, with priests and priestesses serving the worshipers. In essence, the worshipers would enter the temple, give their offerings to the priest or priestess on duty, and then engage in sex acts with them. As most depraved activities go, this spiraled downward and became more outrageous as time went on. Eventually, the male shrine prostitutes (priests) engaged in self-castration and began dressing as women. The female shrine prostitutes (priestesses) began dressing like men and even went so far as to wear satyr pants equipped with replicas of male genitalia. This cross-dressing was quite functional, since it allowed the priest or priestess to have sex (literally or symbolically) with any worshiper, regardless of gender. This type of activity was not limited to one-on-one encounters, either, since groups of worshipers and prostitutes were just as likely to engage in wild sex orgies.
As we might imagine, the sight of these orgiastic escapades were quite shocking to an outsider from another culture. Such was the case with Paul. When he wrote his letter to the Roman church, he was staying in Corinth, a hotbed of paganism and the international center of worship of the love goddess Aphrodite and the "he-she" god Dionysus. It is clear that there was a lot more going on than what he described, since he was writing to an equally depraved Gentile culture in Rome and assumed they didn't need elaborate explanations of the situation. The fact that there was so much cross-dressing may have confused Paul's understanding of who was doing what to whom, although homosexual acts were no doubt taking place alongside heterosexual ones.
Much has been said about Paul's use of the words "natural" and "unnatural", usually in the context of proving that homosexuality is both unnatural and immoral. However, a study of the Greek words Paul uses, and a comparison to other texts using the same words, reveals that Paul is probably not referring to natural law, but rather that which is normally or customarily observed, or that which is the norm.
He uses the same words in 1 Corinthians 11:14 when he describes the appropriate length for a man's hair, indicating that it is unnatural for a man to have long hair. Now, common sense tells us that a man's hair will naturally grow as long as a woman's if it is not cut, and I'm sure Paul was well aware of this, having associated with Nazirites who took vows not to cut their hair for certain lengths of time. What Paul appears to be saying is that it is not socially acceptable (in his culture) for a man to have long hair.
We need to remember that Romans 1:18-32 does not describe homosexuality as an orientation or lifestyle, but rather concentrates on sexual activity solely within the context of hedonistic pagan idol worship. Paul's exposure to and knowledge of homosexuality was probably limited, if not non-existent. Homosexuality was against the Jewish law, and all healthy males were expected to marry and father children, regardless of their orientation. If there were gay Jews no one ever talked about them. In contrast, homosexuality was widely accepted in Greek culture, which was new for the Apostle. Nowhere in any of Paul's writings is there any wholesale condemnation of homosexuality as an orientation or lifestyle, except as it pertains to pagan idol worship.
Here is the site, although I have coppied most of it. Atleast the parts pertaining to the discussion at hand.
http://www.casadecristo.org/Darkness/unnatural.htm
I will admit that this analysis comes from a church which is known to accept gay members, and thus may be reaching for an explanation to allow them in the congregation.
