Since these passages are Old Testament texts, the key issue is the meaning of the underlying Hebrew word.
It should carry weight that there was not a shred of doubt in either the Jewish or Christian traditions, at least not until modern “revisionism,” that male homosexual acts were condemned by Scripture. I'm aware of the debate within Judaism about the status of women who in their past had committed female homosexual acts, but within the Christian tradition, Romans 1 of the New Testament clearly closes that door as well.
If I'm going to get into the exegesis of biblical texts at the level of the original languages and how individual words are to be interpreted, I need to cite unimpeachable sources rather than rely on what I post “off the cuff.” While I have studied Hebrew, Attic Greek, and Koine Greek, it's been a long time — decades, in fact — and those are not my areas of expertise. My Greek and Hebrew teachers were well aware those were not my best subjects.
However, I am confident saying that while we can debate whether the relevant texts are best translated as “male prostitutes,” “passive male partners in homosexuality,” or some other term, there is no way to make the underlying words look like anything other than references to abominable acts. I grant that some of the individual texts may condemn either broader things than homosexuality or more specific things than simple male homosexuality, and I grant that the issue of consensual sexual activity versus attempted rape of angels in Sodom is relevant, but even voluntary homosexual acts between committed partners are condemned when the totality of Scripture is considered.
Imagine a book written several thousand years ago which describes murder with a knife, murder with bare hands, and murder with a blunt object such as a rock to the head crushing the skull, condemns all of those acts, and also says more generally that killing people is bad. Would we conclude from the lack of specific reference to murder by overdosing the victim with sleeping pills that it is acceptable to murder via sleeping pills because it does not involve an act of physical violence?
It takes that sort of nonsensical interpretation to say that consensual homosexual acts in a committed relationship are okay because the Bible knew nothing of such relationships. Personally I'd argue that the biblical authors of the New Testament were quite aware of Greek homosexuality and the consensual relationships between older men and younger men or boys were precisely what the Apostle Paul had in mind when writing Romans 1, but even if that isn't true, it is crystal clear that both historic Christianity and Orthodox Judaism clearly condemn homosexuality based on the texts of Scripture.
There is no way around it. To get “gay affirming” views out of Scripture, it is necessary to radically reinterpret the text using principles of interpretation which no sane person would ever use for any secular document — except, perhaps, for the United States Constitution, where lawyers reinterpret the written text because just like some theologians do with the Bible, they want to make the text say things it does not say.
“If I’m going to get into the exegesis of biblical texts at the level of the original languages and how individual words are to be interpreted...”
If you’re going to teach people about the meanings of words in the Bible, especially that of sodomy, shouldn’t you know what the words mean? Especially if they may be speaking directly to you?
Again, the traditional definition of sodemy includes any unnatural sex act including anal and oral sex. This includes the modern Hebrew definition:
sod·om·y [sod-uh-mee]
noun
1. anal or oral copulation with a member of the opposite sex.
2. copulation with a member of the same sex.
3. bestiality
Anyone having oral sex is a sodomite every bit as sinful as the homosexuals.
Sure, it may be bothersome to us that other “unnatural” acts are condemned under the heading of sodomy, but you cannot dismiss or blather your way out of the fact that the bible may also be referring to you or me or others on this site who refer derisively to “sodomites”.
This doesn’t make it right, nor am I defending gay marrage or homosexuality, but rather trying lend perspective and maybe help the overly self-righteous among us reflect a little bit on the sinful state of man.