Relationships of people with people feature largely in the Bible— men with women, women with women, and men with men. Sound advice is provided in it on the subject of friendship, companionship, marriage, and the responsibility of friends to each other. Stories are told of real life individuals, some of whom made a success of their relationships with others, and some of whom did not.

In its first chapter, the Bible names God as the one creator. Also, it describes the original spiritual perfection of God's manifestation, the ideal expression of His sublime, infinite Being. This manifestation, or family of man, it says, is made in God's image in both the masculine and feminine aspects of His nature—"male and female created he them."^{Gen. 1:27;}

The individuals within that family reflect all the qualities of the divine Mind, the one creator. They are coexistent with Deity but unique in their manifestation of His qualities. Each is clearly defined, has his or her place and purpose in the universe, and a relationship that is governed by divine Principle with every other one of God's offspring. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "There is but one I, or Us, but one divine Principle, or Mind, governing all existence; man and woman unchanged forever in their individual characters, even as numbers which never blend with each other, though they are governed by one Principle."^{Science and Health, p. 588;}

The government by unerring Principle of God–created men and women assures the enduring, spiritual wholeness of each one and the selfless, pure, harmonious relationships between individuals. The one Parent expresses both masculine and feminine qualities, which are naturally united in His—in Her—creation. In the truth of being, no creature of the Father–Mother is deprived of either aspect, and much of the glory of human life is in the working out of this truth, this unity of male and female in one nature. All must eventually come to understand this spiritual oneness of male and female and the spiritual bliss it includes, a bliss in which human sensuality makes no claims.

The Bible shows how these spiritual facts apply to the problem of homosexuality, and how completely illegitimate the claim is. A basic assumption of the human mind has always been that "it is not good that the man should be alone." ^{Gen. 2:18;} The allegory of Eden describes the method devised by this carnal mind to overcome for a mortal man the apparent misfortune of solitude, and it attributes to God the creation of a mortal woman to be "an help meet for him"—a woman, not another man.

From early times, close, intimate, and physical relationships were considered normal by the Israelites only when they were heterosexual—one woman and one man being involved. The books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy laid down specific rules for the guidance of the people of God that categorically forbade any departure from the practice of heterosexual marriage. It was a tradition that sodomy was punishable by destruction.

The Bible is undeviating in its stand for the clear definition of individuals as either male or female, and the absolute restriction of marriage relations to individuals of the opposite sex. The early, apparently instinctive recognition of the harmful nature of homo– sexual practices crystallized into a statement of moral law that was designed to protect mankind from behavior which, if indulged, was at that time deemed to be destructive.

Recent studies indicate that the perils of sodomy are no less acute today than in the time of Lot. Though today many people who practice it strive to justify their mental tendencies and physical actions, and to persuade society not only to tolerate but to endorse their life–style as acceptable, the speciousness of its claims is increasingly recognized.

Christian Science exposes not only the danger but the emptiness of promiscuous and bizarre activities. Its purpose is not to condemn those who practice them, but to bless them by turning their thought to the finding of satisfaction through spiritual, rather than physical, sense.

Centuries after Moses, the Apostle Paul strongly condemned the abnormal practices of those who "burned in their lust one toward another: men with men working that which is unseemly." ^{Rom. 1:27.}

Christian Scientists accept the Bible as their authority and therefore take the same strong position as Paul against practices he exposed and condemned as abnormal, immoral, and unseemly. But they realize that followers of Christ Jesus have the responsibility to help society to be free from the mental conflicts that lead some people to pursue unhealthy life–styles.

Through the understanding of every individual's true identity as God's idea, they aim to destroy the loneliness, the inner conflicts and feelings of inadequacy, the bitterness and alienation, that cause these individuals to adopt abnormal life–styles and relationships. They aim to establish the divine wholeness and perfect definition of the men and women made by God, the ability of each one to love and be loved deeply, selflessly, and spiritually, and the unique attraction between the native qualities of Soul.

Through such understanding they aim to bring to the world the healing power of the Christ, Truth—the only real means by which mankind may find satisfaction, peace, and relationships that are God–governed and therefore truly fulfilling.

Naomi Price