Summary
In Romans 1:26, the “dishonorable passion” or “shameful lust” that is spoken of is clearly referring to homosexuality. Homosexuality is not the only sin falling into such a categorization (lusting after an already-married woman is much the same, e.g.), but it is most certainly what is in view in this specific context. That doesn’t stop people from trying to deny such in an attempt to rationalize their sin in this area, but they are simply wrong.
Content
In context here, the “shameful lusts” that God gave these people over to, these people who “neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him” (Romans 1:21), were:
- Their women exchanging natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
- The men abandoning natural relations with women, inflamed with lust for one another.
Romans 1:27 begins with the Greek word homoios (Greek: ὁμοίως), which is an adverb meaning, essentially, “in the same way” or “likewise.” We are not left to wonder what the “unnatural relations” engaged in by the women were (verse 26), for this word irrefutably links the unnaturalness to same-sex lust, since that is what is described of the men in verse 27.
To be clear, homosexuality is not the only “shameful lust” in the world, or altogether categorically different from, say, lusting after an already-married woman. It is merely the shameful lust being spoken of here in this context.
These verses are quite unambiguous. Both homosexual relationships between women and homosexual relationships between men are here said to be shameful and degrading, with no qualification whatsoever. This does not stop people from trying to twist the passage to come up with all sorts of arguments for explaining why 2 + 2 does not somehow equal 4, but the fact remains. Anyone who does not teach that this passage condemns homosexuality demonstrates low respect for the Bible, and therefore ought not be trusted in any spiritual capacity. In our times, how people interpret this passage specifically is not the only means by which one might identify people with low respect for the Bible (e.g., support for women pastors is another one, given the clearness of 1 Timothy 2:12), but it is an effective one, given the mounting cultural pressures to accept and even praise homosexuality.