No reason to sulk, Ake. I'm in fine fettle. You seem to be the one who is all flustered.

Interesting observations, Smedley.

"(c)   The Bible (that great & influential work of fiction) prohibits and condemns all kinds of behaviour & activities, yet same-sex love is the one which seems to trigger the most virulent response from conservatives/fundamentalist quarters in the USA. As a Brit, this intrigues me & I wonder why it is so."

This is because there are people in the conservative/fundamentalist quarters in the USA (but not confined to the USA, it's just that there seems to be a lot of them here, probably due, historically, to the immigration of Puritans a few centuries back) who compulsively fasten less on the positive aspects of religious, but on the many prohibitions the can dredge up out of "cherry-picking" Biblical verses out of context. What it boils down to is that there are people in this world who stay up nights, pacing back and forth, repeatedly pounding one fist into the other palm and agonizing over the possibility that somebody, somewhere in the world, might be having fun!

Sex, being a most enjoyable activity, tends to be the focus of these sad folks. And unless sexual activity directly addresses the matter of procreation (after all, God commanded, "Go forth and multiply," so they can't forbid sex altogether), they feel they have a religious duty to attempt to prevent anything resembling "recreational" sex (sex for the fun of it).

Even in your country, this attitude at least used to exist. Sex was to be for procreation, and enjoying it was to be avoided, discouraged. Remember the admonition to brides on their wedding night to "Grip the headboard firmly and think of England!"

Since same-sex activity, by its very nature, cannot produce offspring, it becomes a major target for these folks.

I believe I noted somewhere above that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sinful ways. Those of a fundamentalist bent immediately leaped to the conclusion that, in Sodom at least, the Sodomites practiced homosexuality, even going so far as to call anal intercourse "Sodomy." Yet, nowhere in the Bible does it say anything about this! (Does that mean that "Gomorrahmy" is Lesbian sex?)

Evil to him who evil thinks!!

There are some interesting aspects in the Bible in this context. For example, Paul never explains the "thorn in his flesh" that gives him so much spiritual distress. An Episcopal bishop (retired) wrote a most interesting book on saving the Bible from fundamentalists in order to better emphasize the more spiritual and humane teaching of religious principles, such as caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, comforting the suffering, etc. The bishop notes that Paul was the major voice in the Bible to speak against homosexuality. Could it be, asks the bishop, if the thorn in Paul's flesh is that he knows himself to be homosexual, but is doing his utmost to repress it? The bishop has some fairly compelling arguments to support his thesis.

Don Firth