Roger Pearse

The establishment in each case have arranged to do this. But they don't dare put it to a vote, or have it discussed in public, which rather gives the game away.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Johnny Skeptic

Don't dare put what to a vote? Give what game away?

You are in no position to claim that anyone does not dare to vote on something since you have refused to reply to a number of my requests for information, including where second century church fathers got their information from, and the criteria that you use to study ancient claims of miracles. You conveniently never want to answer tough questions.

Toto

Let's stay focused on Biblical Criticism here and avoid politics. Thanks.

The Dagda

Romans 1:26-27 For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Couldn't you make the claim that giving up women for men is not talking about a homosexual lifestyle. After all that would be bisexual. Personally I think he's talking about the Roman proclivity to see no shame in sex with men or women, for men or women. It isn't called a letter to the Romans for nothing.

gstafleu

It is probably about anal sex, a usual method of birth control in the Greco-Roman world. Notice that both men and women abandon "natural" functions. This segues neatly into homosexual sex, what is what Paul addresses next.

Perhaps you can shed some light on the Greek used here re "natural"? Does that carry our current connotations of "normal," "morally correct"?

Gerard Stafleu

Toto

There are various interpretations of what that passage refers to - female homosexuality, adultery, bestiality, or just recreational sex not intended for procreation. If this were a prohibition, you would expect it to be more explicit. But Paul is not saying that this sort of sex is prohibited, just that it is unnatural and a consequence of the bad behavior described just before that: Religious Tolerance discusses the varied interpretations and the likelihood that what is described is a pagan ceremony, not just a sexual relationship.

Ben C Smith

I do not know how this probability can be assessed in advance; lesbianism, bestiality, and other variations also existed.

I think it does; see especially 1 Corinthians 11.14, which appears to be completely social. And I think that Paul would certainly view bestiality as unnatural.

But let me be clear here. I do not think Paul would ever have approved of lesbian sex, be it consensual, far away from the pagan temples, monogamous, or all of the above. He probably would have disapproved of all possible variations, not necessarily because of what they were in themselves, but precisely because they were variations, that is, because they varied from what he would have seen as the divine mandate for sexual relations, to wit, one man and one woman; refer for example to 1 Corinthians 7 (polygamy, while certainly allowed in some strains of Judaism, was frowned upon by many Jews). Also, some of those variations were condemned in the law of Moses, but of course Paul had to be careful about simply carrying over Mosaic law for his gentile converts, whom he was not having circumcised! So he spoke more about nature than about law.

The issue here for me is purely intertextual; I suspect that Paul is drawing from Leviticus 18 in this section. That, and only that, is why I favor bestiality over lesbianism as an explanation; the point is not that Paul is disapproving of male homosexuality but approving of female homosexuality; rather, he is using catchphrases from Leviticus 18 to relegate all such variations to the category of things practiced by idolaters who have been abandoned by God.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

The Sexual Offenses Act was introduced in the late 19th century primarily to deal with brothels and the sexual exploitation of young people.
However, during its passage through Parliament an amendment was added criminalising sexual acts between males. The absence of any reference to sexual acts between females was felt by many to be inconsistent and the story arose that government ministers refused to accept a reference to women in this section of the act in order to avoid having to explain in detail to Victoria exactly what was being prohibited.

Andrew Criddle

premjan

Victoria in the movies at least had a bunch of ladies in waiting, I'm sure the thought of physical contact between them had not escaped her.

The Dagda

How dare you claim our Monarch had lesbian tendencies? She had 8,374,782 kids, and was very much proper; she never farted, and never needed to go to the toilet, let alone thought of messing with the opposite sex. Peasant.