By Rollin Grams, Bible and Mission.
In setting up a law on sex for his proposed colony, the Athenian in Plato’s Laws forbids sex outside marriage between a man and a woman, mentioning in the course of his discourse breaches of this law in the form of adultery, incest, uncontrolled passion, pederasty, same-sex acts and orientations, and transgenderism. The reason for such a law is to keep people from ‘those desires which frequently plunge many into ruin’ (8.835).[1] His concern in having a law governing sex is not only that, without it, people will ruin themselves but also that they will injure the state. What a state allows regarding sex is not a private matter as sexual practices have many consequences (8.836).
Regarding same-sex sexual acts, he says that they are not natural (8.836). The Law should ‘follow in nature’s steps’ in opposing males having sex with males as with women.[2] In Romans 1.26-28, Paul is concerned with what is natural and what is against nature, that is, lesbian (Romans 1.26); cf. Plato, Laws 8.839d: ‘as applied to women, the practice is regarded as non-natural’) and gay (Romans 1.27) sex. The concept of ‘Nature’ is common between Plato (and many other writers) and Paul. As we shall see, Plato turns to the way animals behave as an example of what is ‘natural’, and Paul understands what is natural to be the way God created us. Thus, homosexual sex is an unnatural use of the genitals (Paul has the word ‘use’, which is better than the ESV’s ‘relations’ in 1.26 and 1.27). Plato says that sex of a depraved nature (tous tas physeis diephtharmenous) (same sex acts) is called ‘self-inferior’ (hēttous autōn) (8.841).