Does God justify same-sex sexual relationships because of love?

Love is God! Where there is Love, there is God.

What kind of Love is God? In the New Testament, there is one Ancient Greek word that is used to describe that kind of love that represents God’s essential character, thereby justifying those human relationships where that kind of love is present as God in between them. That Ancient Greek word is Agápe (ἀγάπη). The meaning of Agape is an in-spite-of love rather than a because-of love. It primarily refers to an ideal love that is not romantically based. It can also be described as the feeling of being content, at peace, or holding one in high regard. 

Other Ancient Greek words denoting love are:

Éros (ἔρως), as passionate love, with sensual desire and longing;

Philia (φιλία), means friendship or affectionate love, also in Modern Greek; and

Storge (στοργή), means "affection" in Ancient and Modern Greek, as a natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.

None of the relationships, approved or characterized by God’s presence in them as Love-Agape, can be described as sexual, friendly, or even motherly, because all these relationships are rooted in nature, which humans also share with animal kingdom.  All kinds of love other than Agape (ἀγάπη) can be described as “because-of” love, which is experienced because of either physical attraction or psychological attachment or natural affection. These are manifestations of the laws of Nature through which God is revealed to us. Natural laws therefore in general represent the image of God.

Agape is the “in-spite-of” love, it is unconditional and selfless, it is not a bargaining love, it is self sufficient, seeking the good of others despite even the perils of death, and it is revealed to us as a love towards people in general, even to one’s enemies, and is even opposed to “philadelpheo” ("brotherly love"), which refers to love to other members of the body of Christ. 

We are called to brotherly love, but above all we are called to the Love of God, that is to love with the love that God loves with and such love is not sexually or naturally based. 

We are not called to love in the same way only as beasts do, following the laws of nature, even though we are also part of it, but we are called to love also as Jesus Christ loved, in order to be one in God.

Even when we love as natural creatures, we conform to the will of God in that we are following the laws of Nature, but as soon as we begin to pervert the natural laws thereby we pervert the image of God, revealed to us through the laws that govern the relationships of natural elements. 

Same sex sexual relationships are sensual and passionately affectionate by nature. Therefore, besides their not being based upon that kind of love that we call Agape, such relationships are at the same time a perversion of the other kinds of love, rooted in the natural laws, and thereby are at variance with the will of God in regard to the Nature and Man as part of it.

Does it mean that we cannot love those who practice same-sex sexual relationships? While certainly disapproving the activity itself, since it is clearly against God by deed, we are not to hate but to love such God’s creatures as God has allowed to be even as God Himself has loved sinners and died for them on the cross. 

The “love” on the part of such sinners is the “because-of” love, and that perverted, whereas the love with which we love them is the “in-spite-of” love, which is the love of Christ Jesus, and that is the Love of God.