<p>1:26&nbsp;<i>For this cause God gave them up to vile passions</i>- &ldquo;Vile&rdquo; is s.w. &lsquo;dishonour&rsquo;, 1:24. The dishonouring of bodies by homosexuality and sexual immorality is a result of allowing &lsquo;dishonourable&rsquo; lusts / thoughts to be worked out in practice; the performing of mental fantasy in the flesh. Paul teaches that God propels those who wish to give free reign to their fantasies- He gives them over to their own lusts. Paul is using the example of homosexuality as part of a build up to a crescendo of demonstrating the depth of human depravity, and the subsequent depth of God&rsquo;s grace. He demonstrates the seriousness of human sin by showing that God pushes people downwards in a downward spiral of lust, if this is what they themselves truly wish- and Paul cites homosexualities as the parade example of this, whereby God so confirms sinners in their lusts that they even feel that what is truly &ldquo;against nature&rdquo; is in fact normal and natural.</p><p><i>Their women changed the natural use into that which is against</i> <i>nature- </i>These things are &quot;against nature&quot; (1:26); it is therefore impossible that by 'nature' some people are born with these &quot;vile affections&quot;. &quot;Nature&quot; is used in Romans in the sense of &quot;God's creative order&quot;. It would be inappropriate and even cruel of God to create men with natural desires and then tell them that these are in fact not natural, and He holds them guilty for having them. &quot;Nature&quot; (Gk.&nbsp;<i>physis</i>) was used in contemporary Greek in the context of the God-designed, natural intention for heterosexual relationships; Strong suggests it refers to &ldquo;natural production (lineal descent)&rdquo;- Paul may be referring to how homosexuals can&rsquo;t reproduce. Plutarch speaks of &quot;union contrary to&nbsp;<i>nature</i>&quot;; Josephus comments that &quot;The Law recognizes no sexual connections except for the&nbsp;<i>natural</i>&nbsp;union of man and wife&quot;.&nbsp;<i>Physis</i>&nbsp;is rendered &quot;by birth&quot; in Gal. 2:15 RSV. The homosexual is behaving &quot;against nature&quot;, against the way in which he was born. Seeing Paul makes no distinction between different types of homosexuality, it is clear that he presents homosexuality as &quot;against nature&quot;, against the order of our birth and the Genesis creation. This disallows the speculation that some people are born homosexual 'by nature'. If we accept this, we&nbsp;must&nbsp;see in Rom. 1 a distinction between different kinds of homosexuality. And yet this distinction is totally absent. It makes an interesting study to observe how gay 'Christians' wriggle on the hook of Romans 1. Their explanations are so mutually contradictory and logically flawed that it is evident that they are 'getting around' and 'explaining away' a passage which simply flattens their position. Thus some of them claim that in Romans 1 Paul is only condemning homosexual prostitution, because he was ignorant of any other kind of homosexuality. This implies that had Paul known of the concept of homosexual orientation, he would have written differently. This is a denial of Paul's inspiration, and as we demonstrated in the first section of this study, to reject the inspiration of the Bible is effectively a rejection of God. On the other hand, it has been claimed that &quot;nature&quot; in Rom. 1 refers to natural orientation, and what Paul is saying is that it is wrong for born homosexuals to change to heterosexism, and vice versa. However, this is assuming that Paul and the Bible are aware of the notion of homosexual orientation. In this case, the other Bible passages which condemn homosexuality outright do so in the full knowledge of the supposed 'fact' that some are born homosexual, and yet they make no reference to this fact (even if it is granted that Romans 1 does). If this were the case, these people are condemned for who they are by birth. The whole situation would then be morally and logically fallacious. We just have to accept that there can be no getting round the fact that the Bible does not recognize the concept of being 'born gay'. Homosexuals are behaving &quot;against nature&quot;, against God's intended order at creation, and are thereby perverts of His way. The Greek&nbsp;<i>para</i>&nbsp;(&quot;against&quot;) means just that. Thus Paul's accusers complain that he &quot;persuadeth men to worship God&nbsp;<i>contrary</i>&nbsp;(para) to the law&quot; (Acts 18:13); false teachers create divisions &quot;<i>contrary</i>&nbsp;(para) to the doctrine which ye have learned&quot; (Rom. 16:17).&nbsp;</p>