When Zeus fashioned man he gave him certain inclinations, but he forgot about shame. Not knowing how to introduce her, he ordered her to enter through the rectum. Shame baulked at this and was highly indignant. Finally, she said to Zeus:

"All right! I'll go in, but on the condition that Eros doesn't come in the same way; if he does, I will leave immediately."

Ever since then, all homosexuals are without shame.

Aesop would have felt at home at the House of Lords last week for the debate on lowering the homosexual age of consent from 18 to 16. If ever some (barely) living proof was required of the urgency of reform to produce a more representative -- and intelligent -- second chamber, then their Lordships provided it in plenty as they piled in from the provinces to tell the country, "I'm not homophobic but . . . "

"I believe that we should continue to protect young people between the ages of 16 and 18 from being seduced into what is undoubtedly an unnatural practice and one which may have an enormous and possibly detrimental effect on them for the rest of their lives," said Lord ("There are some of us in the Labour Party who still believe in democratic debate and free speech") Stoddart of Swindon. "It is surely not unreasonable to be concerned about that. That does not mean that one is homophobic."

Of course not. Lord Stoddart also helpfully pointed out that: "Those who support the amendment say that they demand equality before the law for homosexual acts. But there is no equality between heterosexual and homosexual behaviour. One is the natural order of things; the other is not."

This was pretty much par for the course. Baroness Young, moving that "the House do disagree" with reducing the homosexual age of consent, said there was "no moral equivalence between homosexual and heterosexual relationships". Lord Davies of Coity questioned whether it was "valid and justified to argue the question of equality and discrimination when we are debating a situation where one activity is considered natural and another is considered unnatural?" And the Bishop of Winchester, speaking on behalf of the Church of England, said that the assumption that homosexual activity in general is as appropriate and as desirable as heterosexual activity was sending the "wrong message".

Baroness Trumpington, announcing herself as "the widow of a public school headmaster" (single-sex boarding, so she knows about these things) put her own tangential spin on what constitutes "normality" by reading from "one of the many letters that I have received on this subject". "If your father or teacher smacks you, that is child abuse," she quoted. "But on the other hand if anyone teaches you that buggery is perfectly normal, they are only helping you discover your own sexuality."

"In my view, the writer gets to the very nub of the question and, as a mother and a grandmother, I agree with what he says," the Baroness concluded triumphantly, as if that proved her case.

The "nub of the question", presumably, was something to do with children, schools and the family -- and, in particular, the right of god-fearing folk to prevent teachers turning their offspring into sodomists. Baroness Young made clear her view that an equal age of consent was "just the thin end of the wedge . . . I understand that the Government are already considering repealing Clause 28, which prevents local authorities promoting homosexuality in schools. As it is, we see the most dreadful leaflets being distributed outside school gates. Parents are very concerned about this. I speak as a mother and a grandmother; we are family people. Parents mind very much indeed the prospect of their children being taught about homosexuality. They do not think that it is something which should be taught in schools."

Note that subtle switch in emphasis. Baroness Young (who has had the tacit backing of Conservative Party managers in organising the campaign against the government in the Lords, even though there was a free vote on this issue) is not only opposed to local authorities "promoting" homosexuality; she does not think anything should be taught about homosexuality at all.

Like Baroness Trumpington, Baroness Young could produce letters to back up her arguments. She claimed to "spend over an hour each day simply opening letters, 98 per cent of which support my view . . . I have even had letters from homosexuals supporting my view." She refers to "one of the most tragic letters" she has received, "from a father whose young son went off to America, contracted AIDS and died in unpleasant circumstances, including going blind". Tragic, certainly -- but what does this have to do with the age of consent? And can't heterosexuals get AIDS too?

Fear is the key to what remains our most popular prejudice. (Opinion polls show that increasing legal rights have not yet brought majority acceptance of homosexuality.) Fear of the "unnatural", fear of disease, fear of moral breakdown, fear of one's children being "corrupted" by a same-sex encounter at a too-early age. Fear, particularly, that once lured into homosexuality, there will be no way out for them, as though a homosexual experimentation at age 16 condemns the perpetrator to a life as a rentboy.

Lord Longford said as much explicitly: "We need to protect certain people. To put it crudely, if someone seduced my daughter it would be damaging and horrifying but not fatal. She would recover, marry and have lots of children (as some such people do). On the other hand, if some elderly, or not so elderly, schoolmaster seduced one of my sons and taught him to be a homosexual, he would ruin him for life. That is the fundamental distinction."

Arguments such as these won a thumping 290-122 majority for the Lordly opponents of an equal age of consent. Tempting though it may be to regard them as a mere irritation, a bunch of oafish buffoons whose big days out in London for occasions such as these will soon be coming to an end, it should be remembered that they are not alone in their bigotry. Indeed, if public attitude surveys are anything to go on, the majority of people in Britain have still got some way to go to approve the homosexual act at any age.

All the more reason, therefore, to respond to upper-chamber difficulties over reducing the age of consent with an added urgency about seeing through the abolition of Clause 28. Some people have got a lot of learning to do -- and it requires something a little more modern than Aesop.