Richard Hays, in his discussion of homosexuality, urges that no discussion of the biblical material can rest content with the few texts which refer directly to it.

We must consider, he says, how Scripture frames the discussion more broadly.  At least the following factors should be taken into account:

(A) GOD’S CREATIVE INTENTION FOR HUMAN SEXUALITY From Genesis 1 onward, Scripture affirms repeatedly that God has made man and woman for one another and that our sexual desires rightly find fulfillment within heterosexual marriage. (See, for instance, Mark 10:2–9, 1 Thess. 4:3–8, 1 Cor. 7:1–9, Eph. 5:21–33, Heb. 13:4. The Song of Solomon, however it is to be interpreted, also celebrates love and sexual desire between man and woman.)…This normative canonical picture of marriage provides the positive backdrop against which the Bible’s few emphatic negations of homosexuality must be read.

(B) THE FALLEN HUMAN CONDITION The biblical analysis of the human predicament, most sharply expressed in Pauline theology, offers a subtle account of human bondage to sin. As great-grandchildren of the Enlightenment, we like to think of ourselves as free moral agents, choosing rationally among possible actions, but Scripture unmasks that cheerful illusion and teaches us that we are deeply infected by the tendency to self-deception. As Jeremiah lamented, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9, RSV). Romans 1 depicts humanity in a state of self-affirming confusion: “They became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but applaud others who practice them” (Rom. 1:21–22, 32). Once in the fallen state, we are not free not to sin: we are “slaves of sin” (Rom. 6:17), which distorts our perceptions, overpowers our will, and renders us incapable of obedience (Rom. 7). Redemption (a word that means “being emancipated from slavery”) is God’s act of liberation, setting us free from the power of sin and placing us within the sphere of God’s transforming power for righteousness (Rom. 6:20–22, 8:1–11, cf. 12:1–2). Thus, the Bible’s sober anthropology rejects the apparently commonsense assumption that only freely chosen acts are morally culpable. Quite the reverse: the very nature of sin is that it is not freely chosen. That is what it means to live “in the flesh” in a fallen creation. We are in bondage to sin but still accountable to God’s righteous judgment of our actions. In light of this theological anthropology, it cannot be maintained that a homosexual orientation is morally neutral because it is involuntary.

(C) THE DEMYTHOLOGIZING OF SEX The Bible undercuts our cultural obsession with sexual fulfillment. Scripture (along with many subsequent generations of faithful Christians) bears witness that lives of freedom, joy, and service are possible without sexual relations. Indeed, however odd it may seem to contemporary sensibilities, some New Testament passages (Matt. 19:10–12, 1 Cor. 7) clearly commend the celibate life as a way of faithfulness. In the view of the world that emerges from the pages of Scripture, sex appears as a matter of secondary importance. To be sure, the power of sexual drives must be acknowledged and subjected to constraints, either through marriage or through disciplined abstinence. But never within the canonical perspective does sexuality become the basis for defining a person’s identity or for finding meaning and fulfillment in life. The things that matter are justice, mercy, and faith (Matt. 23:23). The love of God is far more important than any human love. Sexual fulfillment finds its place, at best, as a subsidiary good within this larger picture.

Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament (pp. 389-391). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.