Larry and Sergey have no idea what you're talking about.It means 'the whole world', as in 'yes, I certainly believe that rather than just taking the world as what it is we should strive to transfigure and redeem it, but I've known gay couples who are a lot more transfigured and redeemed relative to the stuff that went down between people of the same sex back in the day than some straight couples I could mention relative to other bans.'
such as...[/quote]
'Homosexual' may not be the word we're looking for here, mainly because of the second part*, but it's relationships like David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, or that one centurion and his
pais that I'm referring to. Romantic friendship, if you have any interest in it (I doubt so, but one never knows) is a fascinating concept, arguably a lot healthier than most modern sexual relationship scripts, gay or otherwise.
homosexuals – sexual = homos
…they're still gay
[/quote]
If they're not having sex? Well, yes, they're still gay, but they'd also be gay if they were married to and having sex with people of other genders so I honestly don't see what the problem is even if one takes into account the simultaneously literal and broad (as opposed to literal and narrow, or figurative and broad; I can't think of any figurative and narrow reading that I've ever heard of) reading of the verses we're arguing about.
*The concept that I'm referring to is more like romantic friendship; I don't actually think that's the acceptable ne plus ultra of relations between members of the same gender necessarily, but I'm willing to concede to your reading of the parts of the NT at issue merely for purposes of this conversation as long as we're clear that that's what I'm doing at this stage