Great discussion, guys. I believe there does need to be a lot more thinking and prayer around how we respond to gay people/behaviour, way beyond whether it's 'wrong or not'.
ChandlerFan, I agree with you. Normalisation ie. "treating it as normal" is not what I was advocating. We must be clear that certain things are wrong in God's eyes. However, I'm not sure if I really want to compare that kind of 'discomfort' to being grossed out by someone chewing with their mouth open. There are potential problems with that:
1) Chewing food with your mouth open is a bad habit. Unless you have some kind of physical disability (and I don't think we'd be grossed out in that case), it's relatively easy to change. But for most gay people, being gay is part of their identity - something they can't change, or even if they wanted to, find extremely hard to change. Expressing affection for a person of the same sex, to them, is a beautiful thing. And many have suffered through abuse or rejection for identifying as gay. Being "grossed out" tends to obscure our view of all that.
2) That's not to say that it's not an abomination. As others have already pointed out, God calls
many things abominations. We often forget Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed not only for their homosexual acts, but also for neglecting the poor - a sin God
described as "detestable". However, we must ask ourselves why we do not compare many of those
other things to someone grossly chewing with their mouth open.
For example, I have a lot of friends who are de facto couples, sleeping together without being married. Most of us do. Yet when I see them hold hands or kiss in public, my stomach doesn't turn despite knowing that they have no current intention of relating to each other in a godly relationship. That's not because I think pre-marital sex is okay - it's not. It's partly because it doesn't surprise me anymore; partly because I'm someone who makes mistakes just like them; and partly because I see so much more of their personalities and needs beyond their sexual choices (doesn't it bother people that when we see a gay couple kissing, all we
automatically think about is their sexuality and how disgusting it is?)
To me, fighting the urge to be instinctively grossed out by gay PDAs is not the same as 'normalising' homosexuality. It's simply removing a potential barrier that prevents us from sympathising with them. Christians often say "all sins are the same" - and that's true. But judging by the relative lack of stomach-churning at other equally abominable sins, that's not what we're projecting. Our actions speak louder than words.