Love is an abstraction with many subsets of meaning and practice

I do not doubt the sincerity of all those who contributed to the debate. I am not a theologian and I seek advice on the views which I now express.

It’s my belief that the Bible is an anthology of texts written over a millennium. I, in my subjectivity (like many others) tend to use it like a recipe book.

Homosexuality is disapproved of in three texts (Leviticus Ch 18, 22 and Ch 20, 13) where the penalty proscribed is death and once in Paul (Romans Ch 1, 27).

Christianity evolved out of Judaism and Old Testament passages are cultural expressions of the ethnic Jewish people and their ritual practices or memes.

One interpretation on the condemnation of homosexuality is that the dissipation of sperm would pose an existential threat to the Jewish people.

Also worship of the God Maloch and its associated idolatry was taboo. Various gods of the Ancient World in H L Mencken’s phrase went “down the chute” when the Jewish Yahweh was worshipped as the one true God.

Paul, the Pharisee, competed with other cults eg., Isis and Mithras in the earliest days of the evolving Christian church and there is disagreement over his condemnation of homosexuality and whether it was context-bound or an absolute for all succeeding generations of humanity.

The Christian church in most of its denominations with esoteric emphases has evolved over centuries.

The doctrinal attitudes to usury, slavery and hellfire have all changed.

If a homosexual (male or female) says that he/she loves one of the same gender, they are either lying or telling the truth. Why should one doubt that the truth is being told?

Love is an abstraction with many subsets of meaning and practice. Aristotle said that love is two souls sharing the one body.

In 1 John ch 4,8 one reads: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” Do we face a future in Ireland of cultural Catholicism and moribund, plush-mahogany Presbyterianism?

George McNally, Limavady Road Londonderry