This is not really the proper question. Since sex is at the heart of life and its meaning, it is inconceivable that religion--primarily an interpreter of life--would not have strong convictions and opinions on this primary human activity. The proper question is whether religion has dealt with sexuality in a competent or incompetent manner.
What is it that makes religious people believe they have any expertise in this area? In the Western world, Christianity has taught us that holiness equals sexlessness, that celibacy is the key to Christian leadership, that the ideal woman is a perpetual virgin and that homosexual people are either sick or morally depraved.
The result of these distorted ideas has been to turn sex into something evil that must be repressed. The trouble is that the repression of a natural and normal part of life results only in its return in a variety of unhealthy forms. When healthy sex is repressed pornography is inevitable.
It is these repressive attitudes that have come back to haunt us in such destructive manifestations as the denigration of women, the systemic abuse of children and the cultural negativity toward gay and lesbian people. That is hardly a heritage upon which Christians can look with pride. It is also a long way from that biblical story which suggested that God looked out on all that God had made, including human sexuality, and declared it to be good.
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