Back when Jesus and his apostles were hanging out with thieves and whores and such to spread the word about salvation and peace and acceptance, were homosexuals included in this? Excluded?
What of the general cultural opinion in that time frame in that area of the world (Romans)? Sorry if this question is better suited elsewhere. It's more of a biblical history question.
First of, as discussed many times in this subreddit, “homosexuality” did not exist as a category in the Classical World (Greece and Rome), as it does for us. They did not generally consider “sexual orientation” to be a ‘thing’, and didn’t think or identify in those terms.
[The next 4 paragraphs are a copy-paste from a previous comment of mine] Roman sexual mores are orientated on a different axis, and participants in sexual acts are not equal. Generally the two questions are: who is the 'active' partner, and who is the partner of higher social status? In general the higher social status partner will be the 'active' partner.
And by 'active' here I mean "performs the penetrative act". So in the case of anal sex, the one who is penetrating is fine. The one who is being penetrated is in a position of shame. Which is why most higher-status Romans, if engaged in homosexual sex, would perform this on someone of significantly lower status, slaves for example, who have no power/leverage to either reject the act or to do anything socially about it.
In the case of fellatio, we tend to think that the fellator is the active persion, the person fellated is the passive person, but the classical conception is reverse. The person being fellated is in fact the 'active' partner, because they are penetrating the other person's mouth. The same social dynamic exists as with anal sex.
This, of course, was why, if you were a relatively high status person, being accused of receiving anal sex or performing fellatio was an accusation of shame and dishonour. No one cared whether you liked/enjoyed that role in sexual activity, the functional category was the honour/shame of your participation.
So the main spectrum is active vs. passive and this is conceived in social status/honour and shame relations. There were not, in general, homosexual relationships of a type familiar in the modern West. Nor was something like “gay marriage” even a concept that could be considered, since marriage was much more a societal arrangement between families and their contingent networks, not a private arrangement of two isolated individuals.
In my view, Christianity takes over Judaism’s strong prohibitions against homosexual activity and applies them into a Hellenistic context. You see this in the NT in the few passages that discuss homosexual activity, especially 1 Corinthians 6, and Romans 1. Earliest Christianity rejects homosexual activity, but it has little to say about homosexual relationships, because they were not a conceptual ‘thing’ that would make sense to talk about, nor does it say anything about “committed monogamous homosexual couples” because, again, this is a conceptual reality that makes no sense to talk about within Graeco-Roman sexuality.
This is probably more my introduction to the topic than anything else, but let me pause there, provide my reading list, and invite further, more specific questions.
Relevant passages from the Bible would include:
Matthew 19. In this chapter, the author takes the teachings of Jesus on divorce from Mark 10, namely that a person cannot divorce their spouse, and if they divorce their spouse and marry someone else, that is adultery. However, Matthew adds this when the disciples say "if such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry."
Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.
There is controversy as to what this actually means. Our conception of LGBT people did not exist until around the 19th century. Therefore, if you want to find examples of pre-modern LGBT people, you'll have to analyze the subtext of what people say. However, this is a very tricky thing to do. Here is an essay on that passage, though I suggest you discover more interpretations for yourself.
Eunuchs also appear in the Acts of the Apostles, which is a later work, written by the author of the Gospel of Luke. In Chapter 8, Phillip finds an Ethiopian Eunuch, whom he converts and baptizes. Eunuchs are a very complex subject, so maybe someone who knows more about them can say how they were conceived in this period.
Back to Matthew, there is a passage where [Jesus heals the slave of a Gentile Centurion](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mt 8:5-13&version=NRSV). There have been theories raised that the centurion and slave had a sexual relationship. This is still very unclear, but there was an essay written on this topic called "Mistaken Identities but Model Faith: Rereading the Centurion, the Chap, and the Christ in Matthew 8: 5–13." If anyone wants the pdf and can't get it, I can provide it here.
Another interesting passage is in the beginning of Paul's letter to the Roman Church. This is a common "clobber" passage, used against LGBT-supporting people. In the passage, Paul derides a group of men and women for partaking in anal sex as a part of a pagan ritual. Paul then uses the examples of sin to deride the people he is writing to, saying they judge others, though they have no right to judge. A good essay is "Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Romans 1:18-32" by Dale Martin. He goes into how sexuality was conceived at that time: in the Greco-Roman era, sexuality was thought of on a spectrum of promiscuity. If you were at the end of the spectrum, that is, if you were the most promiscuous, then you would want to have sex with a man. It was like gluttony. A sign that you lusted so much, you'd have sex with someone you wouldn't ordinarily have sex with. If anyone wants me to provide the pdf, I can.
Other things you might want to read could include: John J. McNeill and his book The Church and the Homosexual, John Boswell (whose work has been somewhat controversial), and Robert Gagnon (who I thoroughly disagree with).