One of the very interesting and helpful aspects of the otherwise deplorable and even frightening mess presented in the Frontline Report on the teenagers of Rockdale County has to do with our assessment of Paul's "tirade against homosexuality" in the first chapter of his letter to the Christians in Rome; for this is the primary New Testament underpinning to the categorical rejection of homosexuality as a life style on the part of the vast majority of Christian denominations.

The unacceptable aspect of a Roman orgy, and this is what Paul can easily be referring to in Romans 1 and this is what the Rockdale County young people had already begun to mirror in their immature probings, was the negation of human dignity in the unbridled pursuit of self-above-all, i.e., according to the principle of original value, namely "I count; and all others count only to the extent that they are serviceable to me". This principle contrasts dramatically with the Christian principle espoused by Paul in Romans of equally absolute, but still only derivative, personal importance, namely: "all people count; and so therefore, i.e., as a result of that, I also count." The former principle might be called that of Satan; and the latter that of Christ; and the one the antithesis of the other.

My many years of experience in the homosexual life style convinced me long ago that the self-centered attitude which characterized both, the full blown Roman orgy and the up-and-coming Rockdale facsimilie, is rampant among homosexuals. But this misses Paul's central point in Romans entirely, namely that it is not actions which are holy or unholy, but only the heart, i.e., the principle from which the action is derived. Consequently even though an orgiastic attitude might be prevalent in the homosexual community, still the physical act of homosexual lovemaking itself is morally as clean as any act among heterosexuals, e.g., cutting the grass.

This understanding is very important for a thoroughly productive grasp of Paul's message. Heretofore, given the assumption that the homosexual act itself were wrong per se, Paul had to be interpreted in this wise: all that is required is to love your neighbor as yourself (Romans 13:8-10), BUT you have to keep in mind that homosexual acts are not love (Romans 1, as interpreted); and: nothing is clean or unclean of itself, but only to him/her who thinks it so (Romans 14:14), BUT homosexual acts are unclean on their own and independently of opinion (Romans 1 again). These exceptions, necessitated by the habitual misreading of Romans 1 (due in turn and in part to our lack of information about Paul's thinking which has only now been rectified by the "straight" community of kids in Rockdale County), resulted in a message on the part of Paul which was fundamentally flawed and incoherent.

The importance of this understanding touches on much more than merely the homosexual question; for now, realizing that Paul had in mind the Roman orgy and not the physical act itself, we can bring perfect unity to his thought in Romans, namely it is not acts and things that make us close to, or remote from, God, but rather our hearts, i.e., the principles of our actions, namely: are they communal, where everyone counts; or are they self-centered, where I alone am important?

Once this truth is generally accepted (and it will take a while due to the reservoir of hatred that has been stored up psychically for the homosexual), we will find that the Christian Church itself is liberated and will be able to bless homosexual unions such that we will have a host of new communities which will not produce any children at all and yet which will be able to take on the responsibility of raising children. A timely gift for an increasingly crowded and needful world!

Our thanks and honor must go out to the children of Rockdale County, for in their truth, as painful as it might have been to impart to us, they have given the Christian church the opportunity finally to grasp the liberation which comes through Christ, a liberation so brilliant in its simplicity that it dazzeled Paul.