I thought about first distinguishing the sin of Sodom (inhospitality to strangers) from the modern-day meaning, which helps reduce the force of Jude 7, as it would imply that only rape was meant there. I would then discuss the first commandment by God to His creation - "Be fruitful and multiply" and go from there to show how all Hebrew laws on sexuality derive from that source. Onan's sin is not providing a son for his brother. Everything else on sexuality is about making sure that the children are healthy (not sleeping with relatives), rape, or Jewish concepts of purity (the blood of menstruation making one ritually impure).

Then I would say Christianity changed this injunction slightly by shifting the emphasis of one's relationship. I would note that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality, and when asked what commandments one should follow (by the rich young man), he mentions only the big ones - do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery, honor your father and mother, do not bear false witness. Jesus came to fulfill the law, which means that the spirit of Christ is the sole arbiter by which everything written should be understood.

The problem is then one gets to Paul. Paul repeats the injunctions on homosexuality from the Old Testament in Romans 1:27. He then goes on a long tirade against allowing sexually immoral people into the church - essentially, you can consort with "man-screwers" (a word he makes up in 1 Corinthians) in your everyday dealings (not dealing with immoral people would force you to leave the world altogether, Paul notes) but you can't let them into your Christian community any more than you can let in adulterers, those who consort with prostitutes and those who commit other sins of sexuality because they are violating their body. Sexual indiscretion is singled out as particularly bad in 1 Corinthians 6:13-20. Homosexuality (as I mentioned, "man-screwers" in Paul's phrase - arsenokoitai) is specifically mentioned.

I think that it would be possible to then take Jesus's encounter with the adulteress in the Gospels to show that Paul's injunction that we should "never" allow them into Christian community is meant to apply to unrepentant sinners only. Indeed, the language in Romans talks about ongoing immorality and the unrepentant nature of such immorality.

The farthest a church could theoretically go without simply disregarding the passages in question (which I have, for the record, stated I don't mind as long as they're honest about it) is to say the following: "We believe that, from the context in which Paul's statements were made he is condemning a lifestyle of sinfulness of which sexual indiscretion is only a part. People who follow Christ's path who are non-promiscuous and do not engage in the 'queer lifestyle' but who are homosexual will be permitted to be members of our church on the grounds that we are not certain that they are violating Christ's commandments as we understand them. We are thus withholding our own judgment and leaving the matter to God's mercy."

However, to then say that such a person can actually LEAD just goes too far. It is a step beyond simply expressing that the church does not feel that, when one reconciles all the passages that are potentially applicable, the church cannot reject someone who wants to be a member. It is about whether or not the person in question is worthy of being an example for others. Given how thin the ice is already with respect to homosexuality even if you take such an attenuated reading of Scripture, you are pretty much too far by any means (unless you go back to the Bible as a flawed scripture and say that it represented human opinion in all these matters).