Grammar aside, nopardons is simply dead wrong about lesbianism not being mentioned in the Bible.
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
(Romans 1:26, 27)
Great big honking fact, fyi.
Dan
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. If I remember the context, it sounds more like homosexuality there was a punishment rather than a sin itself.
In Old Testament times, I would expect that lesbianism--in at least some forms--would have been considered harmless provided that the women also made themselves available to their husbands. Indeed, if a man happened to have two wives, I can imagine he might appreciate one wife 'warming up' the other for him. By contrast, especially given the lack of modern hygene facilities, a man who engaged in sexual relations with other men and also had relations with women could cause what would then have been nasty infections. Although the nature of diseases has changed, the above biological distinction still largely applies.
As for the more general moral issues surrounding sexuality, I would suggest focusing on a few main points. When broken down to the essense, I think these points are hard to rebut; not all people will believe them, but I suspect most will.
- The societal norm used to be that people would get married, form a household, and have children, in that order. Things didn't always work out perfectly, but the stability of families was far superior to what exists today.
- Children develop best when raised by a married man and woman; the male and female roles in child rearing are different, and a child who does not have both a mother figure and a father figure will be at a disadvantage. To be sure, this isn't a perfect world and sometimes children can't be raised by a mother and father, but that does not imply that any child should be deliberately put into a situation which is inferior to other possibilities (blood counts for a lot, IMHO, so placement with a gay relative may be preferable to placement with a pair of married strangers, but that should not by any means be taken as a general endorsement of gay adoption)
- If the net birth rate for any particular group averages less than one per person (two per couple), that group will be doomed to extinction unless trends change.
Not everyone should have children. Indeed, some important functions are probably best performed by childless people, and some people have good reasons for not having children. But deciding not to have children for selfish and hedonistic reasons is, well, selfish and hedonistic.