Teen Times: Adam and Eve. Or is it Adam and Steve? Adam and Eve. Adam and Steve. Spot the difference? I can't, can you? All I see is two people in love. Adam and Eve seems to be an idea that everyone has accepted. Why can't everyone accept Adam and Steve?

Perhaps we haven't tried hard enough to accept them. It shouldn't matter what sex the object of your desire is. As long as you love them, that's all that matters. I'm sure I'm not alone in that view, but there are people who beg to differ. It's just I can't for the life of me work out why.

Love. Such a simple concept. Yet it seems some of us don't believe we should be able to choose whom we love. It seems that no matter who you choose, you will be judged for it. This may be the 21st century, but you wouldn't know it. The way I see it, we seem to have regressed.

In the eyes of some people, homosexuality is just wrong, it's disgusting, it goes against Mother Nature and the Catholic Church doesn't like it. Yes, the church may be against it, but it's against a lot of other things, too.

The church is against contraception and sex before marriage, but it doesn't mean that these things don't happen. They do. Doesn't the Bible tell us that we should love our neighbour like we love ourselves? If that is true, then shouldn't we love homosexuals too?

Some say it's against Mother Nature's plan for us, but what I don't understand is the basis on which we make that conclusion. I mean, Mrs Nature obviously doesn't like Ireland much if she makes it rain so much here.

Perhaps She has a plan for all of us, a plan that we will never understand. How do we know that homosexual love wasn't part of Her great plan? The answer is we don't.

We can't all be the same. We are all individuals and we all do what we want to do. I like being my own person. I see no reason for me to have to conform to everyone else's ideals. If I'm allowed to feel this way, why isn't everyone else allowed? When you get down to basics - love, decency, compassion, heart - I'm not sure there is much difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

In schoolyards around the country, "gay" is used as a pejorative term. It has become a way to put down people who are weaker or a way to ostracise people who are just different.

I believe the gender of the person we love is immaterial, it's more important we love them well. It really shouldn't matter whether it's Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve. In the end, all that matters is love. It's all that ever mattered.

Aisling Bulger (17) is a student of Scoil Mhuire, Wellington Road, Cork

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