According to the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, the people of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were so sinful that God had them destroyed en masse. Sodom is the root word for our modern term “sodomy”.

The term has been very much in the headline in recent weeks, and decent people are aghast at the extent to which Malaysian politics has sunk. In genteel circles, sexual deviation is seldom discussed, let alone done.

By now, we should know that homosexuality must be as old as human civilisation itself. In ancient Greek tales, we have the island of Lesbos, where the ancient Greek poetess Sappho composed her awesome verse. Lesbos is how the term lesbian originated.