The prohibition of sexual intercourse outside the marriage
bond does not by any means imply that there cannot be strong bonds of
friendship between persons, whether of the same sex or not. On the contrary,
affection and friendship are qualities highly praised in the Bahá'í teachings.
This whole question of love and friendship is distorted these days because our
civilization has exalted sex and sexuality to a level of importance far beyond
its proper place in our lives. Sex has also been wrenched out of its proper
context. On the one hand our current culture suffuses every aspect of our lives
with sex but, on the other, it isolates the sex act from its natural
corollaries of marital life and the bearing and rearing of children.
(From a
letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice quoted in a
Memorandum from the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice dated
3 May, 1994)
