Steve Oh's diatribe about homosexuality is as predictable as it is depressing. However. I doubt he can justify his bigotry through Christ's teachings. Jesus had precisely nothing to say about homosexuality. That's right; nada, zip, zero. Go and look, it's not there.

What he did teach, however, was that the two central commandments for any Christian are to love God and to love your fellow man as yourself, and in that he drew on longstanding Jewish teaching notably the school of Hillel (c 150 BC). If nothing else, the commandment to love your fellow human beings as yourself ought to lead Oh to question the hate filled and deeply un-Christian language he uses notably:

"Many males resort to violence against gays because they feel that gays demean and have a negative impact on their manhood. I don't condone this criminal act, but it reflects the harm many males experience and react negatively." Not condoning isn't sufficient. As a Christian, he should explicitly condemn violence against other human beings, instead he gives 'gay-bashing' a veneer of respectability.

As for assertions like: ‘In Rome as in Sodom, gay orgies were a common feature of the social life of the decadent Romans, and that is why for 300 years Christianity was persecuted, because it offended the Emperor-worshipping and orgy-loving Romans. Oh is just making it up as he goes along. I'll challenge him here and now to produce any serious historical source in support of that claim.

Such evidence there is suggests that Christians were suspected of witchcraft, cannibalism (a misunderstanding of the eucharist) and incest, much of which reflected Christians' perceived secrecy and that until the reign of Diocletian, most Christian persecution came about through popular prejudice and not through political leadership.

Later Christians were persecuted for refusing to sacrifice to Pagan gods. Through most of the Roman empire, homosexuality was either outlawed or merely tolerated. I'd be surprised if he can find any evidence of gay orgies - homosexuality, so far as we know, was something Romans tended to practice privately. Moreover, orgies of any sort were entertainment for the ruling classes, not those who turned on Christians.

Furthermore, if he wants to get all historical on us, large scale persecution of Christianity by the state didn't really begin until around 250AD and ended in 313AD with the accession of Constantine.

St Paul was certainly appalled by homosexuality. However, he was a man from a rabinnical background travelling in the Greek world and coming face-to-face with a culture he was unfamiliar with. He also advised that women be silent in church and were there to be the glory of men. Having gone to war with gay men, perhaps Oh wants to upset just about every thinking and educated woman out there as well.

I could find dozens upon dozens of quotes from Paul's letters which are out of tune with our times and which reflect Paul's personal prejudices rather than Christ's teachings. Most Christians start by going back to the core of what Jesus taught and work it out from there - and what Jesus taught was love.

Try this one, Oh. From his photo you seem to wear your locks long, so if you're intent on taking every pronouncement of St Paul literally why not try 1 Corinthians 11:14 ‘Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?’ Listen Steve, St Paul is commanding you to get a haircut. Come on, jump to it.

There are many fundamentalist Christians of Oh's stripe out there. They pick and choose which bits of the Bible suit their arguments and ignore the rest. I expect Steve ignores those parts of Acts of the Apostles that describe how those who knew and followed Christ gave up personal possessions and held their property in common.

Frankly he commits a far greater perversion than any of which he might accuse a gay person. He has taken a gospel of love and though his selective reading of it turned it into a gospel of hate. That's not the act of a Christian.