"their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened"
It's time to face down Romans 1, and what I find to be a difficult issue all by itself - even without the gay factor. Romans 1 was not written to condemn anyone. It just tells us how things are without Christ, or at least a sense of intentional creation with a purpose at large and a purpose and plan for each of us specifically. Left to our own desires and appetites, we make a mess of life. Like the universe around us, we tend to decay individually and corporately into 'unintelligence'; a state of un-human-ness, if I can borrow a page from Sarah Palin and invent a word.
In other words, we're not very good at math.
The problem with each of us being the center of the universe (the result of a self centered, pleasure driven worldview) is that the universe essentially becomes so small it can only contain oneself.
The Cause/Effect (read: wrath of God) nature of the Universe outside of this worldview makes the worldview itself untenable.
The result is the disaster described in Romans 1.
The solution is a worldview expressed in the remainder of Romans, which basically is faith in a God who created us and works in and around us throughout our lives to bring us into an eternal relationship with Himself.
God, that sounds churchy. How about this? A worldview that makes me bigger than myself and makes my impact and influence on the universe more important than my own pleasure. A worldview that allows me to be an integral part of something much more important, much more permanent than I could ever be in and of myself. A worldview that gives me a destiny other than dying some tomorrow in the not too distant future.
Romans 1 used outside of that context is erroneous. Period. Nothing there stands alone, but only introduces the doctrine of grace through faith, motivated by love and mercy of God. Romans is about justification, righteousness and transformation, not about condemnation.
In other words, Romans is about a better way to live. Better than what? Better than Romans 1. And Romans is not just about a philosophical, theoretical worldview. It is also about doing the math to make that worldview a reality. It is about being transformed by the renewing of our minds.
What does all of this have to do with a gay man who loves God and wants to find someone to share his life with?
Nothing.