I APPRECIATE the courteous response by Peter Gibson disagreeing with my letter expressing satisfaction with the result of the Irish referendum on gay marriage, though feel somewhat misrepresented when he suggested that I would ever go along with any proposition because it was fashionable to do so.

In the past, the main brickbats for homosexual behaviour were the practice of male homosexuality. Lesbianism has met social disapproval but never been the subject of prosecution. This derives from the story in the old testament of Lot and his attempt to get his daughters married. This is where fire and brimstone descended on Sodom and Gomorah. Mentioned but without disapproval was Lot subsequently sleeping with his daughters and impregnating them. His wife had been turned into as pillar of salt because she looked back.

The most powerful argument used against lesbianism was the book “The Well of Loneliness” - two women living together could not produce children and there would be nothing to weld a couple together however happily the relationship started.

The argument is threadbare. My brother and my sister-in-law had a perfectly happy marriage though they never had children of their own.

On the dreadful consequences Mr Gibson envisages he must remember when HIV-AIDS first emerged it was argued it was on account of male homosexuality but most cases have resulted from heterosexual relations and, in some instances, from blood transfusions.

G Bulmer, Billingham