I think this thread has probably passed it's use by date and I haven't checked it since I wrote my last comment but now I see I have a couple of indignant replies - I only read the first.. The problem with Christianity is that it is very selective in its use of the texts, choosing words, manipulating them, to serve its beliefs (who exactly was Paul talking about!). How can you say I can't compare the abomination of eating shellfish, trimming fringes etc and homosexuality and then talk about "creation ethics"?! The creation stories are written by men, they are stories to explain how we came to exist and it is naive to think they are literal reality. Men get things wrong - they didn't discuss homosexuality in creation and they didn't understand it. The need to procreate was greater then, and first on their minds as child mortality was higher. Homosexuality, praciticed openly by the Greeks would have made them aware of different sexual desires and would have been viewed with negative judgement as it conflicted with their developing culture. How were they even to begin to understand that all men are not the same and all women are not the same? Homosexuality exists in animals, and humans too. We don't all look the same, we don't even look the same inside and we certainly have different levels of intellectual ability and think differently. We have different fears, different favourite colours.... Why should our sexuality be the same?

However hoping to convince Christians, who cling to book, documenting the history of thinking of Jewish and early Christian peoples, like a text book, is like hoping America will stop meddling in world affairs and Middle eastern politics - a hope that even the election of Obama has failed to fulfill.