Sir, - Rory O'Hanlon cites the authority of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in support of his theory that homosexuality is an evil which the Amsterdam Treaty leaves us unable to protect ourselves against (July 3rd). His quote from John Finnis represents a misapprehension of the distance and differences between the culture of Classical Athens and our own.
In Athens, the important division in types of sexuality lay between the active/dominant and passive/submissive roles within a relationship, rather than between heterosexual and homosexual relationships, as in our culture. As regards Plato and Socrates, in discussions of the nature of human desire in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, the normative model presented by Plato is that of an adult male citizen for an adolescent male citizen. In the theory Plato attributes to Socrates, sex acts are ideally to be avoided; sexual desire, and, to a large extent, the object of that desire, are regarded as stepping-stones to the spiritual fulfilment of the adult male citizen. In the Symposium, the desire of a woman for another woman is mentioned in passing, and the desire of a man for a woman with the aim of procreation is considered a lesser form of desire.
With this information in mind, it is pointless to attempt to co-opt the putative "moral" authority of classical antiquity in support of modern homophobic polemic. - Yours, etc., Aude Doody,
Jervis Street, Dubln 1.