Excellent point and well taken -- but, let me see.... was that BEFORE rabbinic law took over? Besides, now, we allow a man only one wife -- how could he afford more? Thanks for the reply!

I wonder if all the hoop-la and anti-male homosexuality expression, as opposed to female homosexual expression, is really a way the Torah, written so many years ago, chose to deal with promiscuity and the possible transference of sexually transmitted diseases? This then becomes a health issue, not a G-d issue!

In a committed monogamous one-mate-in-a-lifetime situation, there would be no need for control of sexually transmitted diseases. They knew not of the most recent theories concerning the germ theory of disease control. And yet, we are still commanded to wash our hands before we eat today. Mikveh is required for the wife before marital relations ensue each month, but not for the husband. Strange. Draining and salting our meat before we consume it -- get rid of the blood which so quickly putrifies. Do these and other examples refer not to protecting each other and ourselves against blood borne maladies?

Semen is a specialized form of blood. And so, men, who exchange semen with each other, are exposing each other to these diseases. Women do not exchange semen in their homosexual acts, so the Torah remains silent on their activity. So the question evolves into a discussion of blood contagion for illness of an individual vs. non-blood contagion.

There are currently over 25 acknowledged sexually transmitted diseases. How many were known at the writing of our Torah? Are there any new ones? So the prohibition, it seems to me, becomes one of remaining healthy by avoiding blood-borne sexually transmitted diseases. This can best be done by encouraging monogamous lifetime unions, and, in using the vernacular of the time to impress on a society which was unable to read, that avoidance of certain blood-exchanging activities would help them each avoid the germicidal results of promiscuity and of male homosexuality specifically.

I often wonder what we would be saying and preaching today if the Romans had not made us declare that the voice of prophesy was no longer operative, and that our Torah was forever to be immutable, even though revelation through G-d's continued love and working with us throughout the years often would have otherwise led us to revise and adapt, based on new knowledge, that which held us to an ancient past.

I guess that is why I reject the ultra-orthodox interpretation of many things and choose to try to live a torah-derived, yet tempered contemporary life -- driving to shul on Shabbat, etc! And by avoiding activities which might ultimately lead me to being exposed to a severe compromise of my personal health.