Greek tragedy is an understatement. The pain of leaving went on - and on - and on. My wife and I were pretty well out by the summer of 2001. Both airline pilots, we went back the first Sunday after 9/11 to say “we’re OK”. We still miss the ritual, the hymns, the closeness and welcoming openness of the congregations (especially around the holidays).
BTW: >> Lorraine Michels and Joan Van Ness << Despite the clear and stern condemnation of male homosexuality, you will be hard pressed to find any such prohibition of female homosexuality in the scriptures.
There's one, Romans 1:26
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones."
[Inthaihill, this is an example of we were talking about:]
The Bible has little explicit to say about many of these sexual issues ---concubinage, fetishism, sadomasochism, lesbianism, birth control pills, pedophilia, masturbation, condoms, sterilization, man-woman anal sodomy, polygamy, transsexualism via hormones and surgery, contraception via hormones and surgery, BDSM and all its variations --- but that doesn't make our moral judgment against these things uncertain.
First, the Bible has plenty to say about real marriage, as intended from the beginning, and none of the above lines up with real marriage.
Second, there are decisive Natural Law arguments against the above practices. This involves reasoning about the purpose of things, and the Bible more than once urges us to use "right judgment" and "right reason."
Third, all of the above practices (with the possible exception of polygamy) have historically been proscribed as against God's law by the overwhelming majority of Jewish and Christian people though the centuries. That in itself is a good reason for us to make the same judgments. The alternative is to believe that God would let His people go astray on this for 20 or 30 centuries --- which He promised us He would not do.