The only passage in the Bible where a same-sex act is portrayed as "violent and immoral" that I can think of is the one where the gang attempts to commit same-sex gang rape against the angels visiting Lot, and even in that case, it seems like the violent and immoral nature of this isn't the problem, since it's portrayed as acceptable for Lot to offer his daughters to the mob instead.
I think that there *are* a significant number of passages in the Bible that imply that God hates homosexuality. It's just that there are many others that imply that God is okay with it, and that imply that it's wrong for one person to condemn another over it. However, as someone who thinks that the Bible was written by many authors over centuries, I don't find it surprising that it would have multiple positions on an issue. I realize what I'm saying would create problems for someone approaching the text with the assumption that it had one unified message created according to one plan.
Here's the thing:
In Lot's culture, as I understand it, visitors were required to be given quarter and protection. They were expected, in return, to participate in family activities. In that culture, where honor was embodied in males and shame was embodied in females, it would have been considered more honorable for a man to take a woman than for a man to take a man. Since the girls embodied shame in any case, it would not have been more shameful to them to have been raped. However, for a man to be raped would mean that he would have taken shame upon himself, instead of honor. By offering his daughters instead of his visitors, Lot was preserving male honor, while doing his daughters relatively little shame.
There are two other passages in the OT that deal ostensibly with the homosexual act. Both are in Leviticus. In Leviticus 18:22, several sexual indiscretions are listed. They are, with the exception of the homosexual act, defined as "defiling." Only the homosexual act is listed as an "abomination." If I remember correctly, the term "abomination" is usually used as a cultural, not a moral injunction. In other words, while incest and bestiality defile a person, the homosexual act is, in that culture, an abomination -- that is, a cultural (not a moral) taboo. Additionally, since orientation was not even a concept in ancient times, the passage could not have been against homosexuality -- only against the act, itself. It's highly likely that the term relates more to rape than to loving, committed relationships.
The other passage, Leviticus 20:13, we find the same sort of thing. These are not acts of long-term, committed love. These are acts of rampant lust. Therefore, it is the
lust, and not the act, itself, that is prohibited.
There are three NT passages that deal with homosexuality. Romans 1:18-32 is an interesting passage. It's talking about knowing a thing and choosing another. It talks about people who knew God, but engaged in idolatry. As a corollary to that, it says that men and women
exchanged natural urges for unnatural urges. In other words, these were not people who were homosexuals in committed relationships. These were heterosexuals who, through unbridled lust, "went the other way." Again, not an injunction against homosexuality, but against lust.
I Corinthians 6:9 presents us with Sodomites and male prostitutes. As we've already determined that the events at Sodom were violence and not homosexuality, we can safely assume that the reference is to rape, not homosexual love. As for male prostitutes, the injunction is against prostitution, not committed, loving relationships, and may refer to the practice of selling young boys into sexual slavery.
I Timothy 1:10 also speaks of Sodomites, as above.
I just don't think that any of the passages speak against either the homosexual orientation, or homosexual
love. I think that's something that we, in our modern mind set, have projected onto the texts. In any case, for the Gentile Xtian, who is not bound to follow OT Law, the first three don't apply to him.
