In this case, like womens rights in the workplace, while you can find verses that support these notions in scripture, and I have no doubt that we now have 1-2 generations that firmly believe that these things can effortlessly be found therein because all their teachers and pastors said so, the reality is that there are no pro-gay-sex verses in the bible. Just verses that seem to mitigate anti-gay-sex rhetoric.

I think this is really well-said. If we're talking about a situation where gay folks are the targets of violence and discrimination, we're talking about a situation where the Bible does have a lot to say in their defense; if we're talking about a culture where you're living in fear of your neighbors because you are gay, then we're talking about a culture which Jesus does not approve of. And this seems really clear. But this has more to do with how we are to treat people regardless of their sin, and less to do with what is sin. So we've got to be really careful of making the move from "the Bible says someone's sin is not reason for you to treat them badly" to "we should not treat this person badly because the things they do are not sin."

And lest we forget, we all sin, and so this isn't just about how to treat a specific group of sinners, but rather how we ought to treat everyone because we are all sinners. I feel like part of the whole problem with Christianity's relationship to the gay community is this false dichotomy between "righteous" people and "sinners" as if there isn't any overlap. Groups of angry churchfolk filled with hate for the gay community are not demonstrating the fruits of the Spirit which identify them as Christians. The Bible is pretty clear on that. But if you're going to put weight on what the Bible says, you also have to be honest and admit that it really only seems to treat homosexuality as sin. If you're going to argue that same-sex marriages have equal standing before God as heterosexual marriages, you've got to realize that you're relying on believing that the revelation of God's will is ongoing as well as changing, and that you somehow have access to it without the Scriptures. You've got to be intellectually honest and just claim that that's the move you're making, and not that the Scriptures have just happened to have not been interpreted correctly throughout their entire existence. I don't know that that's necessarily an invalid move to make, but it's not hard to understand why it makes a lot of Christians uneasy.