Side-A-B-X-Y: What Romans 1:26-27 Really Says
Short answer: Side-A-B-X-Y is a set of labels for Christian positions on same-sex relationships, ranging from full affirmation to the traditional reading. It is not in the Bible; it is a modern shorthand. The debate turns on texts such as Romans 1:26-27, where Paul writes that God gave people up to dishonorable passions and that women exchanged the natural function for what is against nature, and men likewise burned in their desire toward one another. Historically, the church has read this as naming same-sex intercourse as sin; some contemporary readers argue the passage targets excess, idolatry, or exploitation rather than a faithful same-sex union. This study lays out the text and the positions honestly.
The modern labels and what each one means
The Side-A-B-X-Y framework is a set of pastoral labels that has become common in conversations about sexuality and the church. It is not a biblical term and appears nowhere in Scripture. Side A generally describes the view that same-sex relationships can be holy and are therefore fully affirmed, including ordination and marriage. Side B holds to the traditional teaching that sexual activity belongs within heterosexual marriage and that Christians with same-sex attraction are called to celibacy. Side X historically described attempts to change orientation, a position many have abandoned. Side Y is used in some spaces for those who hold the traditional sexual ethic but are uncertain how to apply it or who hold the doctrine without rejecting the person. The labels are shorthand for arguments debated elsewhere.
Because these letters are recent, they carry no authority of their own. They are useful only if we remember they are descriptions, not doctrines. A person may fit no label neatly, and no label captures a whole life or a whole church tradition. What matters is whether the underlying arguments match the biblical text. The labels can also harden into tribal identities, which is the opposite of what a careful Bible teacher wants. The moment a label replaces exegesis, we have stopped studying Scripture and started sorting people. The task in what follows is to look at the words of the primary passage and ask what they actually say, then weigh the labels against it rather than the reverse.
Christians who disagree on this subject often agree on much else. They agree that all people bear God's image, that every believer is called to holiness, and that the church must treat people with compassion and honesty. The disagreement is genuinely about what the text teaches and how it applies. Some readers approach Romans 1 convinced the church must keep the traditional reading, and they are careful and prayerful people. Others are equally careful and convinced the passage does not address the question modern Christians are asking. A faithful teacher states that both camps exist, names the arguments accurately, and refuses to pretend the question is simpler than it is.
The labels also carry pastoral weight. People do not experience debates about Side-A-B-X-Y as abstractions; they experience them as questions about whether they belong, whether they can serve, and whether they must live alone. That does not settle the exegesis, but it should shape the tone. Paul tells Timothy the law is good when used lawfully, which means careful handling, not careless handling, whether the conclusion is affirming or traditional. Whatever position a church lands on, it must not become an excuse for cruelty, mockery, or the exclusion of people from ordinary fellowship. The stakes are high and the text deserves unhurried attention.
What Romans 1:26-27 says word by word
Romans 1:26-27 (WEB) reads, For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature. Paul begins with the phrase for this reason, tying what follows to the idolatry described above. The words rendered God gave them up describe a judicial handing over, not a random accident. The passions are called vile, and the example given is women who changed the natural function into that which is against nature. The verse does not explain every detail of the practice; it states a departure from a created order and treats it as a consequence of a prior exchange of truth for a lie.
Romans 1:24-28 (WEB) supplies the surrounding frame: Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves. The paragraph runs from verse 24 through verse 28, repeating the handing-over pattern three times. The phrase dishonored among themselves draws attention to the body as the place where this handing over becomes visible. Paul's argument is part of a larger indictment that reaches every reader, not a single group. By the time he reaches chapter 3, his conclusion is sweeping: all have sinned. Anyone who uses this passage as a weapon rather than a mirror has not finished reading Paul's argument.
The word rendered against nature is debated by careful readers. One side argues it names a fixed, creational order that same-sex acts violate, which is why the passage keeps speaking of exchanging and of the natural function. The other side argues the phrase reflects the ancient assumption that all people were naturally attracted to the opposite sex, so it cannot describe a modern person with a stable same-sex orientation. Both sides quote the same words; they differ on what the words presuppose about nature and about human experience. The text in verse 26 speaks of women's practice while verse 27 speaks of men, so the traditional reading sees a deliberate pairing of male and female examples.
Verse 27 (WEB) continues the thought, describing men who burned in their desire toward one another and received in themselves the due penalty of their error. Two features stand out. First, the desire language is intense: this is not a bloodless category but a consuming passion. Second, the phrase due penalty has been read either as judgment in the present or as a natural consequence. Romans 1:26-27 is therefore a text about disordered desire and its consequences inside a larger argument about humanity's rejection of God. Nothing in the vocabulary suggests exploitation is the sole concern, nor that Paul is only describing a temporary cultural pattern. The plain sense has been read as prohibiting same-sex intercourse for most of church history.
How the Side-A argument reads the passage
Those who take a Side-A position do not usually set Romans 1 aside. Most engage it carefully. Their central claim is that Paul is describing a specific ancient situation: people who exchanged the knowledge of God for idols, and whose resulting behavior included sexual excess that violated their own nature. On this reading, the paragraph addresses idolatry and its fallout, not two people of the same sex committing themselves to one another in a faithful relationship. The argument draws on the surrounding verses about creation worship, not only on verses 26 and 27, and it insists that reading the passage in isolation distorts Paul's point.
A second strand of the Side-A reading focuses on the word nature. If nature means ordered creation as God made it, the argument runs, then the text speaks of a departure from that order. If nature instead reflects what was assumed about sexual orientation in Paul's world, then a person whose attraction is toward the same sex has not changed a natural orientation; the phrase would then not fit. These are not frivolous arguments, and serious traditional scholars have interacted with them. A fair presentation says plainly that this is how many Side-A readers handle the text, and that their case rests on claims about nature, culture, and what Paul could assume.
A third strand is canonical. Side-A writers point to Jesus' silence on the topic, to the possibility that Old Testament prohibitions address cultic contexts, and to the broader biblical themes of love, justice, and welcome. They argue that Scripture's center is the gospel, and that the question of same-sex unions is not decided by a single verse but by weighing all of Scripture. Traditional interpreters respond that Scripture interprets Scripture and that the whole canon includes Leviticus, Romans, and 1 Corinthians, not only the passages they find congenial. This is the real shape of the disagreement, and naming it does not endorse either side.
[The Side-A case also emphasizes the cost of getting it wrong. If the traditional reading is mistaken, then the church has burdened people with a rule God never gave, with serious pastoral consequences. That concern is legitimate and should not be dismissed. But the same logic cuts the other way: if the traditional reading is correct, then affirming what God calls sin harms people in a different way. Both sides should argue from the text rather than from fear of consequences alone. The labels can help map the terrain, but they cannot decide the question; only careful handling of the words can, and here the words of Romans 1 are the words under dispute.
What Leviticus and 1 Corinthians add to the discussion
Leviticus 18:22 (WEB) says, You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. That is detestable. Leviticus 20:13 (WEB) says, If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon themselves. The penalty attached in chapter 20 belongs to Israel's civil code, and Christians have not applied that penalty, but the moral prohibition itself is stated plainly and repeated. Side-A readers often argue these laws sit within a holiness code tied to ancient Israel's identity and cultic purity. Traditional readers respond that the surrounding chapters also prohibit practices the New Testament continues to reject, so the category cannot simply be dismissed.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (WEB) reads, Or don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God's Kingdom? Don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals. Paul is not writing a systematic ethic here; he is listing practices that characterized the Corinthian past, and he immediately says that some of the Corinthians were these things but were washed, sanctified, and justified. That concluding note matters: the passage is about transformation, not contempt. Whatever the terms mean, they are placed in a list with adultery, theft, and greed, and the remedy is the gospel, not exclusion from the church's welcome.
The two Greek terms in that list are debated. One term is often translated as male prostitutes or as the passive partner; the other is sometimes rendered as those who lie with males or in a broader sense. Some argue the terms refer specifically to exploitative or cultic practices rather than to a consensual relationship. Others argue that in ordinary usage the terms denote same-sex intercourse generally. Lexical debate is real, and honest teachers say so. But the traditional reading holds that the terms are broad enough to cover the practice Paul condemns in Romans, and that reading has strong support in the history of interpretation.
Genesis 19 is often pulled into the discussion, though it should be used carefully. The men of Sodom surround Lot's house and demand that the visitors be brought out, intending humiliation and violent abuse. The sin of the city includes arrogance, cruelty, and inhospitality, and Scripture elsewhere names those sins explicitly. To make Sodom only about same-sex attraction flattens the account; to make it only about hospitality also flattens it, since the specific demand is sexual. The passage is not Paul's argument, and Paul does not cite it here. It is background to later biblical teaching, not the primary ground for it, and faithful teachers should be clear about that.
Pastoral application for both positions
Whichever conclusion a Christian reaches, several duties remain. The first is honesty: if a church teaches the traditional view, it should say so plainly rather than hinting. If a church affirms same-sex unions, it should also say so plainly. Vague statements that let people assume either way are not kindness; they are confusion. Romans 1 itself is not vague, and churches should not be more vague than the text they claim to follow. Clarity also allows people to decide whether they can worship and serve in a given congregation without being surprised later.
The second duty is compassion without compromise. Timothy is told the law is good when used lawfully, which forbids using a text as a club against a person. Nobody should be mocked, excluded from ordinary friendship, or treated as a project. If the traditional reading is true, it calls for chastity and a community that supports it, not for contempt. If the affirming reading is true, the traditional side still owes its neighbors kindness. Christians on both sides will give an account for how they treated people who disagreed with them, quite apart from which of them had the better argument.
The third duty is humility about secondary conclusions. The Side-A-B-X-Y labels cover real disagreements among people who love the same Lord and read the same Bible. Where faithful Christians differ, it is not dishonest to say so. A teacher may hold a position firmly and still admit that the other side has thoughtful advocates with arguments from the text. What is dishonest is pretending the opposing view is stupid or that it is held only by people with bad motives. Both positions are held by serious believers, and the argument should be conducted as if that were true, because it is.
The fourth duty is to keep the gospel central. Paul's argument in Romans does not end at chapter 1; it moves through judgment to justification by faith, and it ends in doxology. A person is not saved by getting this debate right. The church's message to every person is the same: repent, believe, be washed, be sanctified, be justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. That is the sentence Paul writes immediately after his list in 1 Corinthians 6. Any discussion of Side-A-B-X-Y that makes the labels the gospel has already lost its way, regardless of which label it defends.
Biblical fidelity check
What Romans 1:26-27 establishes is narrower and wider than people often assume. It establishes that Paul names same-sex intercourse, both female and male, as a departure from the natural function and as a passion God gave people up to within a larger indictment of idolatry. It does not establish that this sin is uniquely worse than others; the same paragraph and the same letter include envy, strife, and unbelief. It does not establish that people with same-sex attraction are beyond grace, since the letter's whole point is that righteousness comes by faith to those who have none. It also does not settle every modern question about orientation, identity, or how a church should structure its welcome, because those categories did not exist in Paul's world.
A common misreading is to treat Romans 1 as the only relevant text and to use it as a complete sexual ethic. That is wrong because it ignores the surrounding argument, which moves from the sin of humanity to the salvation of God, and because Paul himself approaches the subject again in 1 Corinthians with a different list and a different emphasis. Another common misreading is to insist the passage has nothing to do with same-sex practice at all. That is also wrong, because the language of women exchanging the natural function and men burning toward one another is specific and cannot be reduced to generic excess without emptying the words. Faithful reading takes the text seriously in both its severity and its scope.
Other passages that speak to Romans 1:26-27
The surrounding argument in Romans matters for how this paragraph is applied, and several studies trace the wider context. For a close look at how Paul frames unity and the gospel in the same letter, see What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, and for the theological foundation underneath his appeals, see What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. To see how the letter opens with calling and unity, read 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord, and for warnings about freedom and holiness in the same letter's later chapters, see 1 Corinthians 10: Warnings and Freedom.
Frequently asked questions
What does Side-A-B-X-Y actually stand for?
These are modern pastoral labels, not biblical categories. Side A generally means full affirmation of same-sex relationships, including marriage and ordination. Side B means a traditional sexual ethic combined with celibacy for those with same-sex attraction and a commitment to belonging in the church. Side X historically described efforts to change orientation, a position many have set aside. Side Y is used by some for those who hold the traditional ethic but remain uncertain about pastoral application. The labels are shorthand for broader arguments and are not found in Scripture.
Is Romans 1:26-27 about all same-sex relationships?
Traditional readers say yes: the words describe women and men exchanging the natural function, in a passage that fits any same-sex intercourse, so the prohibition is general. Side-A readers say the passage targets idolatry and the excess that followed it, and therefore does not address a faithful, consensual union. Both readings take the text seriously; they differ over what the words presuppose about nature, about ancient assumptions regarding attraction, and about how the surrounding argument controls the application.
How should a church treat someone navigating this question?
Whatever a church teaches about this passage, a person asking honest questions should be treated with patience and respect. The church should be clear about what it believes and why, provide real friendship rather than a program, refuse mockery or pressure, and keep pointing people to Christ. Where faithful believers differ, honesty about the disagreement is better than pretending it does not exist. Paul's own pattern after listing sexual sins is to name washing, sanctification, and justification, which sets the tone for every conversation.
