Roger Phillips (South China Morning Post, August 15) wants me, as a born homosexual, to be inculcated with guilt as a specialist sinner. Should I, or anyone like me, be grateful for Mr Phillips' concern? I look at other homosexuals my age (45) and find that most are well adjusted, and happy, considering all the extra trials that life has thrown at them since their teens. Some still sleep around, practising safe sex; others concentrate on relationships, some of many years standing, which like marriages, need continual attention to keep in good repair; all earn livings and pay taxes; and all pursue interests and pastimes as varied as any pursued by their heterosexual counterparts. In an ideal world they would ask that their sexual orientation should not even occasion remark. Mr Phillips is in error to see sexual orientation as a matter of 'bondage' - an unfortunate choice of words - for religious purposes. It is true that the Old Testament had some hard things to say about Onanism, and any sexual practice that was not directly aimed at procreation. In context, the times were bad - infant mortality rates were high, Malthusian checks appallingly effective, and life expectancy short. The struggle for survival for primitive tribes such as the Israelites depended on continual population re-supply. Even so, the Old Testament gives us the story of David and Jonathan, a homosexual relationship. The New Testament has a different message based on love - indeed the three Epistles of Saint John, written when the Early Church was facing desperate oppression, contains the message that those who love others are unlikely to oppress them. In regard to Our Lord, we note that he was unmarried and had, in 33 years, no close relationship with a woman. We note that he had the closest friendships with a group of largely uneducated young fishermen, who turned their backs on the convention of the time - marriage and child-raising - to proclaim a Gospel of God's love for mankind. By any analysis, the relationship between Simon Peter and Our Lord was a very deep one, far closer than mere friendship between two persons of the same sex. Mr Phillips puts homosexuals on the level of child abusers - paedophiles. He might - equally falsely - equate heterosexuals with such people since there are rather more adult heterosexuals interested in little girls, than adult homosexuals interested in little boys, as the fishball stalls in Mongkok bear daily witness. Those who abuse innocence are duly punishable by the criminal law, however the criminal law has no part to play when two of the same sex meet consensually in the bedroom. I am happy for Mr Phillips to have found love and consolation in the arms of Jesus; but profoundly angered that he seeks to peddle a message of guilt to those younger and more vulnerable than I, who because of the pressure to conform in society, may experience difficulties in coming to terms with the sexual orientation with which they were born. They deserve - and have from me every encouragement to be comfortable in their skins with what they are. NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
