Inalienable Rights, Common Law & the Gay
by Jason GodeskyMuch of the current debate over gay marriage misses the biggest point entirely. The question is not at all what we think of homosexuality; it is not about building a godly society, nor what we condone or condemn as a society, nor about health insurance or tax breaks. At issue is our very formulation of freedom itself. There are 1,049 rights enjoyed by every citizen of the United States allowed to marry. If we categorically deny these rights to homosexuals, we have created a second class citizenship–and if we do that, then none of us have any rights at all.
The United States is a common law system. The bulk of our law is not written down or passed by a legislature; it is contained in jurisprudence and legal precedent. In truth, jurisprudence is the only law–nothing Congress passes carries the weight of law until it is upheld by the courts. Of late, Republicans have taken to referring to “activist judges” “legislating from the bench,” but of course, judges are the only people in America who have ever truly legislated anything.
As it should be; as the case of gay marriage illustrates so well. The American population is overwhelmingly Christian–and a disturbing subset of that is fundamentalist Christian. In this reading of the Bible, homosexuality is a sin against G-d. Whereas a more enlightened people may simply choose not to sin themselves, America’s fundamentalist Christians would rather see their religious beliefs codified as law. Congress is elected by these teeming hordes of fundamentalists, and as such, are eager to implement their whims. Left to Congress and “the will of the people,” laws banning homosexual marriage–and worse (after all, it was only recently that the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws; it is only in the past year that being gay has even been legal in the United States!)–would easily be passed.
This is precisely the “tyranny of the majority” so many political philosophers warn against in any democratic or republican system, where a bigoted and intolerant majority may run ramshod over the rights of minorities. The United States Constitution was written specifically to avoid this scenario, and to ensure basic rights and liberties to all, regardless of what hateful opinions may hold popular sway.
The proposed Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage does much more than undermine the spirit and purpose of the Constitution, though; it presents a Constitutional crisis which throws our most basic concept of “rights” in limbo.
Why? Because the United States is a Common Law system.
Judges, unlike Congress, do not have to worry about reelection. Their appointments are for life, specifically to free them from the “tyranny of the majority,” and consider the full, logical ramifications of their decisions. Because, unlike Congress, their decisions carry the weight of law.
Take the oft-cited case of Adam and Steve. They would like to marry, and enjoy the 1,049 legal rights protected by the Federal government under marriage, including power of attorney, next of kin status and other essential rights that can become critical in situations where one or the other is hospitalized, killed, or otherwise incapacitated. Under the Christian Right’s dominion, they can’t marry. If Steve dies, then everything he and Adam have built up for themselves over the years–their home and all their possessions–go to Steve’s family, who disowned him a quarter of a century ago and have not spoken to him since. Adam has not only lost the man he’s spent 25 years with, he’s also penniless and on the street, all of his possessions going to a family he never knew, who would just as soon see him dead for his “unnatural abberation.”
But Eve can marry Adam quite easily. So, here is a right–the right to marry Adam–that Eve enjoys, but Steve does not. This violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In fact, this means that there are 1,049 rights available to all other citizens, that are denied to homosexuals categorically.
“But they’re free to marry people of the opposite sex, just like the rest of us!” many retort. In short, they have the right to enjoy the rights of marriage, so long as they stop being gay.
Many groups that have won civil liberties over the past decades resent being compared to homosexuals; like every minority group before them, they seek to pull the ladder up behind them. There is a difference of opinion here, with some, scientifically-minded people arguing that homosexuality is genetically determined, while fundamentalist Christians argue that G-d would not damn a person to Hell from birth, and insist it is a choice.
If homosexuality is genetic, then how does this proposal differ from “But they’re free to marry, as long as they become white!” If homosexuality is a choice, then how does this proposal differ from “But they’re free to marry, as long as they convert to Christianity!”
Therein lies the true crisis of gay marriage, because if we can deny 1,049 rights to homosexuals because they are homosexual, then we have legally defined a second-class citizenship in the United States. Jurisprudence allows us then to create second-class citizenships for any group, at any time, for any reason. And if that’s the case, then our entire concept of a “right” ends.
Critics will remind me that such a “slippery slope” argument is a logical fallacy, but in a common law system such as ours, the “slippery slope” is just a more charged way of saying “jurisprudence.” Cases build on past cases to create a system of legal precedence. Just look at the history of how the Fourteenth Amendment, passed to protect freed slaves, was used to usher in our modern concepts of corporate personhood. In a common law system, unforeseen consequences are the norm. A judge must think systemically of the consequences of his actions, and not be ruled by the tyranny of an intolerant majority, as Congress is.
The Supreme Court of Massachusetts has already ruled that not allowing homosexuals to marry violates the Fourteenth Amendment; when married (pardon my pun) to an upheld ban on gay marriage, then we are thrown into a Constitutional crisis where the Fourteenth Amendment both is and is not law.
Basically, jurisprudence simply puts a finer, logical edge on the ancient truth that the only guarantee of my freedom is yours. Even if we are religiously opposed to homosexuality itself, what good is virtue if we are not free to sin? And the same legal precedence we allow here to abolish what we may think of as “ungodly” may very soon be used against us and the things we value.
“But G-d hates dem queers!”
Maybe, but judging simply by time spent, it would seem that G-d is far more preoccupied with bacon cheeseburgers and cotton-nylon shirts.
After all, if G-d refers to homosexuality at all in the Bible, it’s only in very oblique terms, while kosher laws and other commandments Christians today ignore are iterated in painstaking detail.
The only place where G-d refers to homosexuality directly is in Leviticus 20:13. Interestingly, though, the book of Leviticus is so named for the tribe of Levi, because it’s a book of rules for priests. Moreover, the context of the chapter makes it clear that what is being banned is not homosexuality per se, so much as it is a particular cult that once existed in Palestine, that of Molech.
Some others have interpreted the story of Sodom & Gemorrah as G-d’s punishment for homosexuals. It is from this interpretation that we have the term "sodomy," a word so broad in English usage that even monogamous, vaginal intercourse between a man and a woman might be called sodomy if it isn’t in the missionary position. However, this interpretation is rather recent. Josephus claimed their sin was pride; in the Talmud, it is cruelty and greed, as in the Midrash. The Prophet Jeremaiah implies that their sin had something to do with adultery, deceit or other, generalized "wickedness." Ezekiel quite explicitly states that Sodom’s sin was pride and a failure to aid "the poor and needy."
Jesus only refers to homosexuality if we accept the novel interpretation of Sodom and Gemorrah adopted by fundamentalist Christians in contradiction to the Bible’s teachings; even in this interpretation, though, the only thing Jesus has to say on the subject is–repeatedly–that the Last Day will render far harsher judgements on various religious leaders who look after their own wealth and political power by sowing intolerance and bigotry with a deceitful interpretation of G-d’s Scriptures.
Hmmm….
“But marriage has always been one man and one woman!”
Nothing could be further from the truth. 84% of the world’s cultures are polygamous (83% polygynous, 1% polyandrous), while only 16% are monogamous.
A broad, historical view does not improve monogamy’s standing. We find archaeological evidence of polygamy as far back as we find human cultures, and wherever we have written records, history records men with multiple wives.
Nor is polygamy the only counter-proof to this ridiculous claim. Homosexuality is ancient and universal. It was incredibly prevalent in antiquity; among the Greeks and Romans, it was accepted as a commonplace. Plato waxed at length on the subject of homosexual love with young boys in The Symposium. Many Roman emperors, including Hadrian, were absolutely flaming.
The Plains Indians had the two-spirited berdache, and among the Etoro of New Guinea, the only respectable sexual liason is one with another man.
Homosexuality is widespread throughout the animal kingdom, and we find it universally throughout our species. While it obviously cannot be the only mode of sexual intercourse for any population, it is present to some degree in most human populations, and often legitimately recognized by healthier cultures.
It certainly stands to reason, as well, that humans would be primarily polygamous. While our overall reproductive strategy skews K(See r-K Selection), but this differs along gender lines. Males can easily reproduce even into old age; for males, the maximal strategy for genetic reproduction is to inseminate as many females as possible. In other words, males are more r selected. Females must invest time, effort and even life-threatening labor into offspring; this makes them inherently K reproducers. Where males seek to inseminate as many women as possible, females look for males who will help rear offspring and provide for them and their children.
Polygamy is the perfect compromise for these two competing strategies; males get as many mates as they can support, while females have the providers they are looking for. By contrast, monogamy is enitrely a K strategy, entirely ignoring male interests.
Humans are perfectly designed polygamists; if monogamy is the only form of marriage condoned by G-d, then the only, blasphemous conclusion left is that the Christian fundamentalist god is a piss-poor designer.
Me, I prefer to believe that G-d does know what he’s doing, that all of history and anthropology is not a lie planted by the Devil, and that fundamentalists simply need to try reading a Bible some time to see how egregious their fallacies are.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 January 2005 @ 11:52 AM
Give me a break! how dare you compare your tiny mind with God’s ideals. What have you ever created. Not only is homosexuality morally wrong it’s biologically unnatural and completely non-productive.Immorality and homosexuality are human trait only.Even animals living by instinct alone ,realize the normal and productive aspect of life.Only humans participate in such abnormal and immoral activities, and you think God is a poor designer and i suppose you could do so much better? This world was here in a perfect and very productive state long before human envolvment. Man has done nothing but distroy this perfect world trying to justify his evil lust and abnormal behavior.Yes, God’s design is perfect and he has no tolerence for such error. How in the world can such a small particle size human mind such as ours dare challenge GOD’S. You sir are a moron. It really does’nt matter wheather you believe that there are severe consequences for the filth that rolls off the tip of your tonuge and others like you, but there is.It does’nt matter wheather you believe in hell or not,but there is.
Comment by steve — 3 February 2005 @ 10:07 PM
Actually, I think G-d is an excellent designer; it is fundamentalists who blaspheme him and call him a moron. Not in so many words, of course, but by implication. Theirs is a god who makes humans perfectly suited for polygamy, and then tells them to be monogamous. My G-d is not so foolish; my G-d’s plan is best expressed in the glory of his Creation. It is a work of breath-taking elegance. The true word of G-d is too great to be captured in human speech; it is found in the dust beneath your feet, in the marrow of your bones, and burning in the heart of the sun. Through all creation there is a consistent message. It is the same message that Scriptures so palely imitate: that G-d knows every hair on our head, that he lives in our every breath and heart beat. To love one another as we love ourselves, for we are all inextricable bound to one another–and G-d lives within us all, and beyond us all.
Which is the opposite of the hate-filled, ignorant message spewed by the blasphemous Christian fundamentalists who presume to speak for him. They tell us to damn that which G-d has made, and to deny his creation. In a Bible filled with verses about loving your neighbor, forgiving your brother even the most terrible wrongs he does to you, and the dangers of presuming to take G-d’s role as the judge of all souls, these cretins managed to salvage half a dozen verses and twist them to their own hateful agenda. A few verses out of whole books is all they need to manipulate the hate and rage of millions. They cultivate ignorance and bigotry on a massive scale, and by corrupting that pale imitation of G-d’s word as humbled by human language, turn those who call on G-d’s name into the most implacable enemies of everything he ever taught us.
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
– Matthew 7:15-23
Comment by Jason Godesky — 3 February 2005 @ 10:24 PM
So I guess we’re not counting all those cases of homosexual intercourse among animal species.
Hmmmm…just think about that.
You know, if the word of God is so obviously perfect, you wouldn’t think he’d have a problem with people thinking about it. After all, if it’s perfect, wouldn’t you think that thinking about it would lead you to the same conclusion?
Oh yeah?
Comment by Mike Godesky — 3 February 2005 @ 10:37 PM
It is interesting to read this site, I’ve only recently found it. I enjoyed the article on the Red state Blue state friction and the one on vegetarianism. But I most certainly disagree with your column here. For one thing it is assumed from the start that Homosexuals are to be considered a minority as this pertains to law. It’s somewhat difficult for me to try and convey what I mean by this, but I’ll attempt to. There are many different lines that can be drawn around people to create “groups.” There are labels for people such as murderers, rapists, drug dealers, drunkards, child molesters, etc. Now these people do have rights under the Constitution but these rights are not granted to them because they are “murderers,â€? “rapists,â€? “thieves,â€? or whatever but because they are Americans. Now with Homosexuals a normal argument will run that “because a Homosexual is mentally (either through genetics or choice, doesn’t matter) dispositioned to be attracted to those of the same sex they ought to be able to marry as Heterosexuals are allowed.â€? But this argument I do not believe holds much weight since it cannot also be said of a child molester that “because they are mentally dispositioned to be attracted to children that they ought to be allowed to marry and have sex with children.â€? This argument also does not work for habitually thieves that “because they are naturally inclined to steal they ought to be allowed to go ahead and steal.â€? The government obviously does not allow these things to go on and so it is quite clear that there is a precedence of government being allowed to pass legislation simply based upon morality. I would argue actually that this is the only true role of government since if all men were in fact good we would have no need for government.
Now if Homosexuality is indeed immoral then it would seem that the government can outlaw homosexuality as an act and deny homosexual marriage without any real problem. There are philosophers (I am not including names because quite simply I am horrible with names) who argue that any act can be analyzed by playing a mind game of “what if everyone did it?� If everyone for example were to kill people they disliked we would soon be left with a population consisting of, at best, one badly wounded individual. Or if everyone were to steal whatever they wanted, people would no longer work because as soon as they earned something it would be stolen, and with the continuous theft going on violence and chaos would ultimate rule. Now if everyone were to become Homosexual, and act upon it, we would obviously no longer exist.
I might also add that just because a person feels like killing someone does not mean that they should kill someone. Now just because a person feels attracted to someone of the same sex does that mean that they should go sleep with them? I do not believe anyone should pretend to not have emotions, but I do believe in exercising restraint in the decision making process. As far as I can tell emotion, though it should not be wholly excluded, does not justify anything morally.
Another item cited is the history of homosexuality and its prevalence. Merely citing that something exists and has existed does not justify its existence, this is called the Naturalistic Fallacy. It is also mentioned that, “84% of the world’s cultures are polygamous (83% polygynous, 1% polyandrous), while only 16% are monogamous.â€? Yeah? What percentage is Homosexual? As far as I can see there 84% + 16% puts us at 0% left over for Homosexual marriage within all the cultures of the world? How is this an argument for Homosexual marriage?
I notice also that the Bible is mentioned in this article and it attempts to convey the idea that the Bible is vague on this subject. I must say I cannot hold back my laughter on this. The article says: “The only place where G-d refers to homosexuality directly is in Leviticus 20:13.� The specific wording of that passage is: “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.� Well if that’s not specific enough, it just so happens to be that this isn’t the only place it is specifically referred to, it is also mentioned in Leviticus 18:22 and specifically states: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.� Now on to the next part, indeed the book of Leviticus is named after the Levites or priestly tribe but the laws which pertain only to priests always clearly say something along the lines of: “and the priest shall…� I might also add that the context that it is in does not cast doubt as to whether or not they actually condemning the act. It is one law in a long list of laws, each one saying what is and isn’t allowed. As for the group who worshiped Molech that group was condemned for worshiping a false god, but also for their various evil practices which included homosexuality and child sacrifice. And just for grins I would like to add the quote: “fundamentalists simply need to try reading a Bible some time to see how egregious their fallacies are.� � I could go on and talk about Sodom and Gemorrah but quite frankly your link there shows what he was talking about, and if that is vague then I suppose I do not know what specific is.
As far as slippery slopes go the only one that I can see is excusing the inexcusable in one particular case (Homosexuality) and its carry over effects to other realms of morality within society. Homosexuality was never endorsed by early America and we have been quite fine as far as the rights of everyone else, why is it different now? Don’t say that early America did not condone it either, I never remember hearing of homosexual marriages in George Washington’s day and if the condition is indeed genetic then there were as many Homosexuals around then as there are now. Quite frankly this entire article seems to be grasping at straws and attempting to say that black is in fact white, up is down, specific is vague, and evil is good.
Comment by Kevin — 21 August 2005 @ 5:24 AM
That’s just an absurd comparison. Child molesters aren’t allowed to marry children because molestation is a violation of the child’s rights (that, and children can’t legally enter into such an agreement anyway). Thieves aren’t allowed to steal because theft is a violation of somebody’s rights. With gay marriage, nobody’s rights are being violated. Nobody is being hurt. The only reason not to allow it is pure bigotry.
Because one of the most common arguments given for why gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed is that marriage has always been between one man and one woman. This obviously is not the case if you look at the actual data, and therefore the argument falls apart.
And there actually are societies where homosexuality is considered the norm, and heterosexual intercourse is something disgusting that is only done for the purposes of reproduction.
Much of the Hebrew Bible was written as Hebrew propaganda. A good chunk of the Torah is devoted to explaining why it was okay for the Hebrews to kill all of their enemies. As such, a lot of this part of the Bible is about condemning their enemies in everything they do…and I mean everything. Now when I read this section, it seems pretty clear to me that the bit about homosexuality being evil was mostly a dig at the people who worshipped Molech. Because if you teach all your people that this practice is evil, then it’s a lot less likely that they’ll run off and start worshipping Molech. That’s just the way the Hebrews of the time thought.
Actually, it’s not vague. The Bible specifically says that the sin of Sodom and Gemoorah was NOT homosexuality.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 4:24 PM
I love it when people compare loving, long-term, responsible relationships between two consenting adults to thievery, murder, and child molestation. It just underlines the fact that homosexuality is morally wrong because EWWWWW, ICKY!!!!
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 August 2005 @ 5:03 PM
By the way… if everyone was male, the human race could not continue. Therefore, it must be immoral for people to be male.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 August 2005 @ 5:05 PM
Besides the (important) Lockesian argument Michael cited above (i.e., “my rights end where yours begin”), you have mischaracterized the primary argument. Given the 9th ammendment, a strong argument must be made that a person does not have a right; we cannot simply take it away because it is not specifically ennumerated. In the case of various criminals, we have ennumerated that the consequence of a specific action is the removal of various rights. For criminals to lose their rights, they have to do something. For a homosexual to lose the 1,014 different rights and privelages attached to the right to marry granted to every other citizen in the United States, they simply have to be. We are giving them a life sentence, when they have not done anything. That is the very definition of a second-class citizenship.
Complete and utter bullshit. Governments are allowed to pass legislation, and they often cloak it in arguments about morality, but the realms of law and ethics are completely and utterly divorced. Most laws are completely neutral with regards to morality. Most of our laws are tax codes, zoning laws, and other such innocuous things. Those that do speak to what we consider moral issues are scattershot, depending on your conception of morality. Very often, what is legal is immoral, and what is moral is illegal. Rosa Parks was breaking the law, but she was being quite moral, while KKK rallies maintain their law-abidence fastidiously. Laws and morals have as much to do with each other as peanut butter and gasoline.
The government can outlaw homosexuality because it’s a rainy day and they’re feeling bored. The government can do anything the government wants, thanks to the monopoly of force–the idea that force is only legitimate when exercised by the state. Armies and police are OK, but vigilantees are not; militias are only OK if the state agrees to them, etc. Again, morals and laws have nothing to do with each other. Homosexuality can be outlawed any time they like, regardless of whether or not it’s moral.
That said, there are ramifications to that decision. Namely, the fact that it establishes a precedent for de facto second-class citizenship. Whether you think they “deserve” that status or not because your particular scripture labels their life “immoral” does not change the fact that these are citizens of the United States who have committed no act violating the law, yet are denied rights enjoyed by all other citizens. This is precisely the definition of a second-class citizen.
But, to use your phraseology, let’s say we can make people who are “immoral” second-class citizens. I don’t know much about you, Kevin, but I’ll bet you do something that some large portion of the world’s population has deemed immoral. Within the logical of our legal system, as I outlined above, if we deny these rights to homosexuals–whatever our reasons–then the very idea of “rights” becomes meaningless, as they can be removed from any of us, at any time, for any reason.
Immanuel Kant, and his theory–the categorical imperative–is deeply flawed. I have to decide whether or not to flush my toilet at 1632 min. and 44 sec.. If everyone in the world did that … well, we’d all be in deep shit. So flushing your toilet is immoral.
As for your tie-in to homosexuality, you betray a bitter ignorance of the diversity of human cultures. Several New Guinea tribes have been homosexual for millennia, and they were doing just fine right up until they came under European colonial rule.
Interestingly, it was a bunch of heterosexual Europeans that really screwed them over….
True, restraint can be important. However, restraint simply for the sake of restraint is idiotic. Why must I restrain this impulse? In the case of the impulse to kill, there is a simple, obvious, and immediate answer: if I act upon it, I will harm another immeasurably. The harm done to that person far outweighs the simple thrill I would get from the kill. Therefore, I must restrain myself; to do otherwise is pathologically self-obsessed.
In the case of homosexuality, why should I restrain myself? There is no good reason. No one is harmed by it. All I have is, essentially, “‘Cause I said so,” proffered up as if it were not the logical fallacy of bald assertion, simply because it’s supposedly a deity making the bald assertion.
It’s also worth noting that while a tenuous case might be made that scripture condemns homosexuality–and you’re still on shaky ground there–scripture was not hand-written by G-d personally. Even if you believe it was divinely inspired, it was still set down by human hands, giving it a certain margin of error. The only direct evidence we can gather of G-d’s will, if there is such a thing as G-d, must be the result of his creation. And what did he create? In every animal population–including humans–homosexuality occurs in some 10-15% of the population. This results in a random culling of the population. As any farmer will tell you, this is exactly how much of the herd you want to cull in each generation. Such a random culling makes the herd as a whole stronger. G-d created an ecology that needed homosexuals. So, while your attempt to apply Kantian ethics against homosexuality is entirely wrong, we can state the inverse: if we were all heterosexual, then we wouldn’t exist!
You will note I began that section with the quoted question, “But marriage has always been one man and one woman!” I added that comment as an appendix, addressing two particularly vexing points for me, because (1) they are so often cited, and (2) they are the opposite of truth. Not just wrong, or slightly inaccurate–they are the complete inverse of what actually is, like saying that night is bright and day is dark, or that snow is warm and the sun is cold.
Marriage has not always been one man and one woman. One man and one woman is a very new thing, and it’s a very odd thing. It popped up very recently, in one culture, and is about as widespread in the number of cultures it’s found in as the Aborigine practice of slitting the adolescent penis down to the urethra so that it resembles an emu’s.
And now we get to take this up a notch … *evil grin*
You’re quite right, it does! And there are other distinctions, too. “Say to the Israelites,” for example, applies only to the descendants of Abraham. Which is what you find preceding Leviticus 20:13 and Leviticus 18:22. So if you’re a Gentile, it’s all good. There are sections which begin, “Say to the people,” and these refer to everyone in Israel, Jew or Gentile alike. But then again … we’re not in Israel, are we? Neither do you find either of these verses under those headings.
And all of the acts are associated with the cult of Molech. The Torah has many such passages, where it forbids specifically a list of practices, but you’re supposed to have enough going on upstairs to understand it to mean, “Don’t participate in this cult in any way.” If I tell you, “Don’t attend mass on Sunday; don’t take the wine; don’t take the wafer; don’t listen to the homily; don’t kneel and pray the creed.” Which would be the proper interpretation of this, that I’m telling you not to take communion in a Catholic mass, or not to eat crackers? I specifically said, “don’t take the wafer,” didn’t I??
As Michael pointed out, the Bible is quite specific about Sodom and Gomorrah’s sins. It lists them as pride, anger, lack of concern for the poor … but never, in all the places it ennumerates them, does it ever list any kind of sexual sin. This interpretation first appears in the 18th century, as an inference from the tale of Lot’s daughters and the visitors, using a very naive understanding of Biblical Hebrew that mistakenly takes “know” to be a euphemism for sex.
Neither you, nor anyone else, has ever put together a cohesive case that homosexuality is, in any way, immoral. The idea of, what, “gateway immoralities”? This is unbelievably preposterous. I’ve known many gays, and many straights. I’ve known gays who were a thousand times more moral than straights I’ve known. The idea that homosexuality will “infect” us with some kind of “plague” of “immorality” sounds to me something like a fear that if we let children ride bicycles, the nation will drown in a fit of exercise.
Early America only considered wealthy, white males to be full citizens. It took a civil war before we stopped considering black people a full–rather than 3/5–person. Women could not own property in early America, or vote until the 1900s. Native Americans–the ones we stole this country from–couldn’t even vote here until 1924. We have never been “quite fine as far as the rights of everyone else.” America has always been “the land of the free” only in our imaginations. For two hundred years, that fantasy has been used to fight for it to become a reality. Every minority that has become recognized, achieved that only after decades of bitter struggle, with their bigoted, small-minded opponents keeping them down with, well, to be honest … exactly the same arguments you’re making here. Similar logic was used by opponents of abolition to argue that slavery was moral–even commanded by G-d. After all, it’s in the Bible….
No, the very first criminal case prosecuted by our nation was a sodomy case in Washington’s army. He was hung. America began as the revolt of a few, greedy, rich white men, that was thankfully dressed and excused by the latest in Enlightenment philosophy. That foot in the door has been used by progressives for two hundred years to bring about rights, freedoms and prosperity that, had our founding fathers foreseen, would have done everything in their power to stop. We got past the slavery that our founding fathers condoned, and, G-d willing, we’ll get past their homophobia, as well.
This is a brand of primitivism I cannot condone. Our worship of the founding fathers is terribly misplaced. They were products of their time and place. Instead of groveling at their statues, we should strive to be better than they were–to work towards a “more perfect union.”
Only because it needs to correct a previously, deeply-believed lie that white is black, down is up, vague is specific, and good is evil.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 5:41 PM
I would also add that, even assuming the Bible does condemn homosexuality, you ought to try reading one of my personal favorite stories: “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.”
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 6:29 PM
Well these are the legal reasonings behind why these things are not allowed. However, the ultimate reason for the law is actually much simpler, the fact that it is just plain wrong. In Philosophy it is taught that law is, or at the very least ought, to be based upon moral principles rather than legality just for its own sake. You also mention that no one’s rights are being violated and that no one is being hurt. You are essentially using the Harm principle developed by John Stuart Mill, which is indeed applicable to any discussion relating to laws. But it is taught that no single philosophical test can be the end all be all argument for any discussion. Not only that but as you mentioned earlier about the slippery slope an adoption of Gay Marriage could actually be argued as harmful by passing on these immoral values to the next generation or two who come along afterward. It is claimed that no one is forcing such values on anyone but when society does not condemn wrong for what it is, then it is considered acceptable, and whatever is acceptable is essentially viewed as right by those who are younger. As for bigotry, it seems to me the only bigotry on this page is coming from someone who apparently dislikes (I will not go so far as to say hate) Jews, Christians, and the moral laws by which they wish to live and teach their children.
Actually what I hear is “between a man and a woman.� Now “a� is indeed singular but I believe that within in English it is impossible to use a word there that does not denote a number other than saying, “woman/women� which is quite unwieldy within the context of verbal conversation. The underlying message is men and women marrying not men and men or women and women.
Frankly I do not know if you are right on this but I must ask, what society is this you are speaking of? It must be a society in which the population is dwindling because most homosexuals that I have spoken with are quite adamant about their sexuality and would not sleep with a member of the opposite sex even to obtain a child which they may very well desire. All of them I have heard would adopt. So the only ones really reproducing would be Heterosexuals. I think after saying this I may know of what culture you are speaking of. This sounds a great deal like modern day Europe, are you referring to France? I lived in Europe for maybe 4 or 5 years and this does indeed sound like a possible society example for your argument.
Haha, yes indeed so it’s the great “Jewish/Zionist Conspiracy� that we are to blame then? Hehe that’s good. Ok well besides that small laugh, your point about Molech, even though far fetched, may be able to save you on Leviticus 20:13 because the beginning of chapter 20 does start out talking about Molech as you have said. However, Leviticus 18:22 still stands because the beginning of that chapter does not mention Molech at all and is in fact labeled in most Bibles as “Unlawful Sexual Relations.� I might add that this is at the very least, I believe the other verse also still stands quite solidly and this weak argument of yours is, as I’ve said, just grasping at thin air.
Oh? Well Lot, who was an elder of the city of Sodom, thought Homosexuality was sinful. Genesis 19:4-7:
Another passage is Jeremiah 23:13-14:
Another god is mentioned here, this time it is Baal. What is the common thread between Baal and Molech? Well whatya know? It’s sexual immorality, the chief most being Homosexual conduct. If that’s not good enough, that passage goes on to mention several sins which are ascribed to Jerusalem, Sodom, and Gomorrah. The sin which we are primarily concerned with is of course adultery which is linked with Sodom and Gomorrah, that last sentence there. The older definition of adultery included any sexual act that was considered perverse or sinful, adultery is also likened to being the same as idolatry in the eyes of God since the subjects are worshiping the flesh essentially. Now these are a few passages (I got tired at Jeremiah), if necessary there are many, many more. Now if you can find a specific verse that says, “the sin of Sodom and Gemoorah was NOT homosexuality,� then I think you’ve been writing what you’d like to see in your Bible again. But just because a verse says that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was such and such does not mean that it was their only sin and it certainly doesn’t mean that it, “was NOT homosexuality.�
Yes the natural response of the conscience which says, “EWWWWW, ICKY!!!!� is in fact a fairly reasonable argument for those old fashioned people who do live by conscience still. Another interesting note, most marriage counselors would not call marriages based solely upon sexual desires, “loving, longterm, responsible relationships.� Rather a more appropriate term would be “perverse.�
What, huh? I believe that this statement is rather absurd and was of course intentionally meant to be absurd. Its an attempt to illustrate a point by drawing a up a similar argument and then comparing the two. There are several fatal flaws with this comparison none of which are suffered by the original test I made (everyone choosing to act upon their homosexuality). First of all it is impossible for everyone to be male as a female (in case you have not been informed) is required to produce offspring and create a large population of only men. It is not impossible for an entire group to suddenly behave Homosexual, if a person so chooses to then they may indeed act in that manner, or if the gene was passed on to everyone, whatever the cause of it. I’ll add that this is just an exercise and probability is not required of the proof but possibility is.
I also notice no one responded to my argument that just because a person feels a certain way does not mean that they should act that way? Or the point I made of the Naturalistic Fallacy in the author’s argument? It’s okay I suppose, just ignore what you cannot refute.
Comment by Kevin — 21 August 2005 @ 6:45 PM
No, these are the ethical reasonings for why these things are not allowed. If you’re going to say that homosexuality is unethical, you have to explain WHY. Comparing it to child molestation, murder, and theft makes no sense because these are all cases in which there is clearly some victim who is harmed through the perpetrator’s actions. In a relationship between two consenting homosexual adults, no one is being harmed. So how is this anything like child molestation?
Only by incredibly simple minded philosophers. In reality, the law has absolutely nothing to do with ethics. The law is there simply for the purpose of keeping the peace, not dictating morality.
First, in order for that to be true, you would have to show that homosexuality is immoral to begin with, which, so far, you haven’t done. And if you really think that allowing gay marriage will turn the entire country into a nation of flaming homosexuals, well then, you’ve got issues.
I AM a Christian.
Well, they use “one man and one woman” just as often. And regardless of the catch phrase you want to use, what they’re talking about is obvious–monogamous relationships.
Don’t remember the name, and I don’t have time to look it up right now. But if you want, I can get back to you on that later.
I really hope that was supposed to be a joke…
WHAT? Jewish Conspiracy? Are you stoned or something?
Okay, what you have to understand about the Bible is that it’s a collection of stories from several different authors. As such, the editing isn’t always that smooth. Genesis has two creation stories. God didn’t really create the world twice. They’re just two different accounts. Genesis also has Abraham tricking the Pharaoh into thinking that Sara isn’t his wife two or three times, and then Isaac comes back and does the same thing. It wasn’t a really gullible Pharaoh. They’re just different accounts of the same event.
Same thing here. These are two different accounts of what is essentially the same law. And the law has a lot more to do with preventing people from worshipping Molech than it does with actual homosexuality.
Which is about the treatment of guests, some of much greater importance to the people of ancient Palestine than homosexuality.
Yeah, I guess I just made up that whole bit in Ezekiel where it says, “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”
But the Bible never says that the sin of Sodom and Gemmorah was homosexuality.
Just because a situation is impossible in real life doesn’t mean it’s not still logically valid. If something is wrong if it’s bad when everybody does it, then it must be wrong to be male. It’s pretty simple, actually. As Jason points out, Hume’s reasoning is rather flawed.
Well, we actually did. But I suppose you can just ignore what you cannot refute.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 7:30 PM
Woah, heh you were typing at the same time I was on number nine and number ten. I cannot do this all day unfortunately. But I will try and respond eventually. Hopefully.
Comment by Kevin — 21 August 2005 @ 7:42 PM
And 12 apparantly, every time I refresh I get another one.
Comment by Kevin — 21 August 2005 @ 7:43 PM
Woah, one last short one, I was getting two of you confused as I saw the same I guess last name? Hopefully I’ll be able to read all this and reply in kind :). Sort of getting ready to move to Austin at the moment though (going to UT hurrah!).
Comment by Kevin — 21 August 2005 @ 7:46 PM
The purpose of marrage is to procreate. How many same sex marriages can result in children without going to an outside donor? I do realize that there are heterosexual couples who have fertility problems, but these troubles are not by God’s design. The fact is that two men cannot create a child nor can two women. In heaven there will no longer be a reason for marraige (creation of children) so marrage will not exist. As for the harm - I consider a person’s immortal soul to be a great price. God forgives us if we repent, but we must admit our transgressions. To do that you must confess the sin to God and seek His forgivness and you must know it is a sin.
Comment by Diana — 21 August 2005 @ 8:44 PM
Diana,
Just a small correction. The purpose of marraige is not to procreate. That is the purpose of sex. The purpose of marraige in many cultures is to provide financial security for one party or the other or may be used for politics as well.
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 21 August 2005 @ 9:30 PM
So, for everyone else…
I had a friend who was studying to convert to Judaism. The Talmudic scholar who was teaching him came up with some interesting points. My friend explained that a couple of commonly mistranslated.
The first “Thou shalt not kill” was supposed to be “Thou shalt not murder” - the differentiation being that wartime killing, killing in the heat of passion, or killing for G-d was not expressly forbidden.
The second regards those famous Leviticus quotes. Apparently, the words for “men” and “boys” are closely related and only understandable in context. The prohibitions in Leviticus were not (according to the scholar) against homosexuality but against child molestation, specifically between men and boys.
Puts a different spin on it, yes?
Now, on the other side, marraige is considered one of the highest states you can shoot for, but some folks who know of this translation issue have argued that same-sex marraiges are no more problem in the eyes of G-d than folks who choose to never get married.
Frankly, I don’t see where the fuss lies. I’m married and I’ve never had a problem with gay friends “turning me towards the lifestyle”. Of course, I don’t let skiers convince me to try skying either (I’d fall down a lot!)
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 21 August 2005 @ 9:39 PM
Not true. Laws don’t give reasoning, they just give rules, but the only valid reason for these laws is exactly what Mike originally said: you can’t do X, because X infringes someone else’s rights. The basis of U.S. law is quite explicitly the work of John Locke, whose philosophy was, essentially, your rights end where they impede on someone else’s. In short, if it doesn’t hurt anyone, you have every right to do it.
“Pilate asked, ‘What is truth?’” What’s “wrong”? Who gets to decide? Me? You? G-d? Which god? Who gets to decide which god it’s going to be?
This is simply not a true statement. Laws have nothing to do with right or wrong. We don’t have laws to enforce morality, we have laws to smooth social interaction. Every society needs taboos and rules. Laws are codified in order to sacrifice justice for expediency.
Once upon a time, we lived in tribes, and when a conflict arose, the whole tribe would get together, debate the occurence, consider all the sides and implications and pros and cons and circumstances, and come to a decision about what to do about it to try to “make it better,” as much as it could be made better. This is the only way to truly achieve any good end, but it’s time consuming. As the number of people goes up, the number of encounters that take place on any given day rises exponentially. (Two people have one relationship; three have three; four have six; five have nine; etc.) You need to find a faster way of expediting this resolution process. Laws. The idea of a law is to codify the principle–to ignore circumstances. It’s inherently unjust to ignore circumstances. We try to mitigate that somewhat–we have first degree or second degree murder, etc.,–but the essential nature of laws as a compromise of justice on the part of expediency is undeniable.
Some people believe that morality should be legislated. That is a fringe, totalitarian ideology that many more people reject utterly and, thankfully, remains a theoretical possibility. Thank G-d it’s not the case as you claim it is, or none of us would have any freedom at all!
That is simply not true. I don’t know how else to put it.
No, Mill’s utilitarianism is a form of consequentialist ethics, but that’s not what Mike is citing. He’s actually relying on Locke, because Locke is really the primary philosophical foundation of American law.
Taught by who? You’re talking about “Philosophy,” with a capital “P,” as if it were some monolithic schools of thought. There are hundreds, even thousands of philosophies…
In my cyber-ethics class, we were often given a scenario and asked to evaluate it in terms of different ethical philosophies–Kantian ethics, consequentialist ethics, etc. They usually came up with opposite answers to whether this or that was ethical, depending on which one you used. So you really do need to pick one. Which one do you believe? I’ll tell you right now, I totally reject all duty-based ethics schemes as completely unreliable. The first of the Thirty Theses covers much of this ground as I defend my own form of consequentialist ethics with, “Diversity is the primary good.”
Really? Let’s take a poll of 100 children, and see how many of them think that this is OK.
Children are smarter than we give them credit for. They know what’s legal and what’s not; they know right and wrong. And they know that the two are worlds apart. If they can’t recognize homosexuality as wrong … maybe that’s because it isn’t.
Which brings me to a severe irritation with your post. You keep sliding in comments on how homosexuality is wrong. This is another logical fallacy: bald assertion. Simply repeating it does not make it true. You need to provide some kind of feasible argument. So far, you have done nothing of the kind, so please knock it off until you’ve proven it!
Who’s that? Mike spends much more time on Mizanthropik mocking atheists for their arrogance and conceit, and by some definitions I still count as a Christian. Jews and Christians can teach their “moral laws” to their children all they like. What bothers me is when they try to make that into a law that I still have to follow, even if I reject their logic. What I object to strongly is cherry-picking through their own scripture to pick out all the things about who to hate and shredding the only Constitution that protects me from the monopoly of force, while ignoring the 99% of those scriptures that say that anyone who does that is G-d’s most hated enemy.
These aren’t Jews, Jews tend not to care much about homosexuality because it’s really not a significant part of the Torah. And Christians, well … this issue is another fine example of how Christians reject Christ at every turn in favor of Paul, so “Christian” is a severe misnomer. They’re not following the son of G-d, they’re following a bitter, power-hungry Pharisee.
Bullshit. They mean monogamy. I know it, you know it, they know it.
Besides, I then go on to show that even homosexual unions have been known and condoned through both space and time. So the “this is the way it’s always been,” besides being the Naturalistic Fallacy you cited before, is always completely wrong.
Several New Guinea tribes, of which the Etoro are perhaps the best known.
Their population is doing fine. Actually exploding uncontrollably now, thanks to European influence….
At any rate, I doubt you speak to many homosexuals outside of Western culture. They have been hounded, hunted and hated their entire lives. That serves to really reinforce their identity and attitudes. We have a sick, dichotomous view of human sexuality that breaks down our rich gradient into “black” and “white” and tries to force-fit everyone into one or the other. In reality, we’re all somewhere on that spectrum. And given that there’s always a 10-15% tail that defies acculturation (for us, it’s gays; for the Etoro, it’s straights that are looked down upon just as we look down on gays), I’d say that most of us would go with whatever our culture told us was right. So far, all of your arguments can be boiled down to, “It’s wrong because my culture says so.” This tells me that if you had been born among the Etoro, you would be using these same arguments to condemn heterosexuality.
The Etoro have sex with women once a year. They consider it a great sacrifice for the good of the tribe. It is nearly universally reported as an extremely painful process.
….
What the hell?
….
NO!
Jesus Christ …. France has no more gays than we do, and they have just as many gruesome hate crimes against homosexuals as we do, and almost as many of these backwards, bigoted laws.
American culture is indistinguishable from European culture. Hell, we differ from feudal Japan superficially.
My usual response to the “Jewish/Zionist Conspiracy”: “How’s that been working out so far? Getting kicked out of every country on earth? Persecuted for a thousand years? Hounded and murdered? Barely holding on to a piece of land that’s, what, as big as New Jersey? Excellent, global domination must be just around the corner then.” Your attempt to compare Mike’s basic statement of historical fact to some modern conspiracy theory is so ludicrous it barely deserves a response. What’s the alternative? That the Bible is utterly divorced from the time and place in which it was written?
The interpretation of modern editors does not necessarily reflect the original intent of the passage.
Lot thought that delivering up his guests to be raped would be sinful on his part. Rape has nothing to do with homosexuality. Heterosexuals rape all the time, and it’s still considered sinful by most people.
In the meantime, since we’re throwing around Bible quotes, I’ll pull out one I mentioned in my first comment–Ezekiel 16:49:
I don’t know how much more explicit it can be. (Frankly, sounds a bit like modern America, to me). I actually cited Jeremaiah 23:13-14 above, as well, because that verse seemed to indicate that their sins had more to do with deceit: adultery, lying, false prophecy, etc. The common theme there isn’t sexual sin at all, it’s dishonesty.
They’re “false gods”?
Damn, I thought for sure it was false gods.
It was false gods, it was competition for their religion that they were trying to edge out. Every religion accuses the other of “sexual immorality” all the time. It was charges of child molestation that got the public behind the government’s siege of Waco, but there’s still no evidence for it. We’re still doing it today. Why should I believe this religion’s charges against its competitors more than I should believe the charges that, say, the Romans made against the Christians about orgies and sexual immorality?
That is some of the most twisted logic I’ve ever seen. You’ve taken a few paragraphs tying together four or five different strains of thought to come up with some house of cards argument that when it says, “you lie about having sex, you live a lie, and you lie to my people about false gods,” that this means they’re having sex with people of the same gender. Having set up such a precarious argument, you challenge me that if I can’t find a verse where writers thousands of years ago foresaw that you would interpret their writings in such a bizarre way and specifically refuted it, then that means you’re right. And even if I do find it, I’m making it up.
That’s beyond flawed. That’s like anti-logic. I won’t attempt any logical refutation, for fear that if it were to come into contact with this, they might destroy each other in some kind of massive explosion.
I will say this, though … even if your lame argument had a relationship to reality, all you’ve proven is that one religion out of the thousands people have practiced says that homosexuality is wrong. The same religion that spends ten times as much time deploring the heinous sin that is the bacon cheeseburger, or the half nylon, half cotton shirt. To say nothing of how it condones slavery. Even if you were right, your morality is still stuck in the Bronze Age.
Do you know where the divorce rates are highest? Red states. Among Christian conservatives. Why? Their ideals are so far out of whack with reality that they can never succeed in any real relationship with a real human being. Because we all have failings. As Paul dwelled on it and blew it out of all proportion, “We have all sinned.”
Some gays just want to screw, true. They get horny just like the rest of us. But for you to say that they’re all like that would be even further from truth than if I were to say that all Christians were as divorced from reality as the ones i mentioned above. Some of the most perverse, abusive relationships I have ever seen were heterosexual unions between G-d-fearing Christians. Some of the most loving, supportive relationships I’ve ever seen have been between two members of the same sex.
Yes, it’s absurd, to point out how absurd your argument is. You’re not saying homosexual acts are immoral, you’re saying homosexuality is immoral. Homosexuality is not an act, it’s a state of being–like being male.
I ceded the point that just because someone feels a certain way is not license to do it. I also challenged you that restraint for its own sake is just stupid. If you want people to restrain from homosexual acts, you need to provide a reason. You haven’t. If I were to buy your willful ignorance of scripture (which I don’t for a second), then you would have convinced me that a religion I don’t believe thinks it’s wrong. Just as it believes that bacon cheeseburgers and nylon-cotton shirts are wrong. (By the way, where are all the moral crusaders telling us of the evils of bacon cheeseburgers, or nylon-cotton shirts?)
On the naturalistic fallacy, I thought you would have gotten this, but maybe not. Let me spell it out for you. By arguing that it was ancient and wide-spread, i.e., “natural,” I was not trying to prove that it was OK. Rather, I was refuting the argument that it was not OK because it was contrary to “nature.” That is, one of the most common arguments that homosexuality is wrong hinges on this “naturalistic fallacy.” In addition to its logical problems, I was showing that it has no evidence, either.
Dude … look up. I cited them in the first comment and even linked to an article about them.
Kant. Not Hume, Kant. Kantian ethics; Humean skepticism. Just remember ‘em like that.
You’ve made the mistake of tango’ing with the biggest rock star tag time in the primitivist world, Jason & Michael, the Godesky Brothers.
Bald assertion, logical fallacy. Prove it.
OK, nice story, but I don’t believe it. And I really don’t want that to be the basis for laws that I have to live by.
Yes, but it is his sin to damn or not, isn’t it? What good is a moral life if it’s inflicted upon us?
Ahhh, I see. So, G-d made a world where homosexuality was required in all animal species for something aroudn 10-15% of the population, but it’s actually a sin. But he only recently let a group of desert nomads in on this secret.
Hmmmm.
This G-d of yours sounds positively evil. I simply reject your hateful vision of G-d, but if I were stuck in such a universe, then rebellion against such an evil deity must be virtuous. Right and wrong must have some meaning beyond the whims of an angry god, and though the cause may be doomed from the start, if that is the kind of thing G-d would do, then opposing him is good.
See, my idea of G-d is one that communicates far more effectively in what he’s created, than in the writings of some people millennia ago. He doesn’t keep secrets–he writes everything we need to know on the earth itself, in the stars, and in our bones. All you have to do is listen.
But hey, your god keeps secrets and makes people evil so he can light them on fire and send them to hell. Maybe you’re right and the universe was created and ruled by an evil, sadistic tyrant. But looking at the world around me, I tend to think not.
Bill, while you nailed the purpose of marriage as really the social glue to unite families and communities into mutual alliances, you’re off on the sex. Almost all animals have an estrus cycle. The female is able to conceive usually about once a month, and goes into “heat.” That’s the only time they mate. There are only two exceptions. Only two animals ever show a lack of an estrus cycle. Only two animals mate even when conception is impossible: humans, and bonobo chimpanzees.
This lunacy that sex should only be for procreation and never for recreation was born from medieval ideas of “natural law.” Every animal species has a specific position and can only mate when conception is likely. So sex should only be for procreation, and must always be in the missionary position.
Of course, this was based on a selection of European animals. They hadn’t met our good friend, the bonobo. The bonobo mate recreationally. They use it to ease tension and resolve conflict. Homosexual behavior is rampant. They are all bisexual. They have all kinds of positions.
So, if G-d meant us to only have sex to make children, why didn’t have make us like all those other animals? They can only have sex to make children, it’s the only time they can mate. If that’s what G-d intended, why did he give us and the bonobos–and us alone–the option to do otherwise?
I guess we’re back to that insane, evil god before who likes to keep secrets, light us on fire, and cackle madly, “Ha ha, I tricked you!”
Amen.
If all it takes is knowing some gays to “turn you,” then you were probably just in denial to start with and need to break free of the sick, puritanical perversion of this culture.
Jesus taught that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He never said a word about homosexuality, but “sexual sinners” were always the people he forgave first. The only people that really pissed him off were the Pharisees, because they did exactly what Christians today are doing. They perverted teachings about love to preach hate, and they used rules meant to free men to bind them and destroy them. Those people are destroying people’s lives, right now, because of the bile they’re spewing. You want to talk about wrong and disgusting? That’s where you’ll find it.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 9:47 PM
Of tangential relation, as recently seen on MetaFilter: The Great Queers of History. Among the honored you’ll find Socrates, Plato, St. Anselm, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, and of course, G-d’s own anointed, King David.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 10:34 PM
Forgot about that. It’s been a while since I’ve read the original article, okay?
Dammit! The ONE time I don’t proofread my post, and this is what I get!
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 10:35 PM
When I read those two sentences, a number of images ran through my head. Images of a few elderly homosexual couples I’d met. One of these couples met in their younger years and stayed together for almost 40 more. Another met after their hormonal fires had already cooled. Both couples had long since left the stage at which sex was a large part of the relationship. Both couples stayed together out of the mutual comfort they got from simply being together in a supportive relationship.
Gee, doesn’t that sound like couples you might know? Elderly heterosexual couples, perhaps? No - that would make them too human. It’s far easier to imagine a 20-something slut knowingly carrying HIV and wandering from bar to bar, preying on innocent Christian youth. It’s easier for you to imagine this because you have obviously never met my elderly friends. You have never spoken to a teenager whose wrists are scarred by countless suicide attempts, whose brain is filled with memories of his good Christian parents telling him he’s a sinner for thinking about other boys, whose short life has been filled with self-hatred and emotional pain. You don’t know. Because you don’t care.
You don’t care about the people you hurt with your vote, because they’re not people to you. You don’t think of the 60-something lesbian couple when you vote for people who want to make sure they can never be together. You’re not thinking of the gay teenager when you vote for people who want him to spend the rest of his life fervently praying to God to change him, to take these feelings away from him, and always failing. You’re not thinking of these people because they’re not people to you. All you know are people exactly like you, and crude caricatures of the outsiders they fear.
So because you don’t know these people - and because you’re unlikely to wander into a GLBT community center or Metropolitan Community Church anytime soon - I’ll tell you about some of them. There’s Bobby Griffith, for one. He was creative and intelligent. He liked the band the Cars. He liked writing. Judging from the passionate writings in his diary, he could have been a great writer. Except for the fact that he jumped off a bridge on August 27, 1983. He was twenty years old. He killed himself because he liked boys instead of girls, and despite his mother’s attempts to change this, he continually failed. He was convinced that God hated him. He began to hate God. And in the end, he decided to send himself to literal Hell rather than live another second in his own personal one.
Then there was Jeffrey, and later Enrico, both of whom tried (one succeeded) to destroy their genitals in attempts to destroy their sexual feelings towards other men. Both briefly appear in Stranger at the Gate, a book by Mel White, a former ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who denied and tried to change his homosexuality for as long as he could, before finally accepting himself.
Jeffrey was “a gifted singer, a star tennis player, and he often performed in dramatic skits…” He cut off his testicles with a razor blade.
Enrico, similarly, “had used a razor blade, slashing at his genitals, trying to drive away his homosexual feelings. The Bible said, ‘If your eye offend you, pluck it out.’ Enrico had taken the Bible seriously. Then he had poured Drano over the cuts.”
Another unnamed young man drank a bottle of paint thinner after his parents kicked him out of their home for being gay.
Gay teenagers are 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than other teens. Gay teenagers account for 10% of the youth population and nearly 33% of youth suicides.
This is your fault, and the fault of people like you. Your vote puts people in office who make laws against gay marriage. Your dollar supports people who paint gays as predatory, sex-obsessed devils in the interest of stirring up money and power. You spread these ideas. Do you think these ideas don’t reach gay teenagers, already struggling with the usual problems of growing up? Do you think they don’t reach angry young men who end up, oh, I don’t know, strap young gay men to fences and beat them mercilessly until they die? Do you seriously think that by spreading and supporting the idea that homosexuality is evil, you’re not indirectly bringing emotional and physical harm to real human beings like yourself and those you love?
You’re not going to turn off your computer and go find some gay people to talk to. But hopefully, the next time you get into an online debate like this, you’ll think of Bobby Griffith. Or Jeffrey or Enrico. I hope you’ll know that gay teenagers are lurking on these debates, grasping for some understanding of what’s happening to them, of why their hearts are saying one thing and their culture another. They’re looking for some reason not to kill themselves.
And you are not giving them one.
Their blood is on your hands.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 August 2005 @ 10:53 PM
Giuli, that was beautiful. And absolutely right. Besides being philosophically and logically bankrupt, besides the fact that everything that exists denies these lies, the most important thing to think about is that there are people involved here.
These bigots wrapping themselves in some warped perversion of Christianity have actually conned most of the world into thinking that this is what Christianity is about. If so, I’m ashamed to call myself one. I’m ashamed to share a genus with such scum. While they twist some of the most beautiful verses of love, forgiveness and acceptance ever written into a doctrine of hate, anger and violence, there are real people who are suffering for their sick ideas.
Even if all you ever do is hide behind your monitor typing these things away, you provide the justification for men like those who crucified Matthew Shepard. Let’s not mince words. They crucified him. Maybe you were too cowardly to do the act yourself, but those who did were just doing what you told them to. In that, even those monsters are your moral superiors. At least they acted on your hateful bile.
I try to treat your words with their surface meaning, and trade logic for logic. That’s my way. But I’m human, too, and react as such. I’ll gladly show all the holes in what passes for “logic” among you, but I just want to take the opportunity to say Giuli is exactly right …. and you people who want to talk about how homosexuality is “wrong,” you are the lowest form of scum. I’m ashamed to share a species with you.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 11:09 PM
A friend also noted that I should point out the Navajo nadleeh, or more general berdache. Most Native American tribes recognized three genders: male, female, and the third gender of transexuals, homosexuals, and other unusual behavior. Native Americans explained this with the prescence of two spirits. That made them blessed. They were respected as such, and seen as having a stronger connection to the spirits than ordinary people.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that Christianity teaches that homosexuality is wrong. It’s bullshit, but for the sake of argument, let’s cede that. So we have a 2,000 year old religion that says homosexuals are sinners cut off from G-d. We also have a 30,000 year old religion that says that homosexuals are blessed with a stronger relationship to the spirit world.
Which is right?
Can we judge by the results of these religions?
One allowed people to live in peace and prosperity for over 30,000 years. The other has been the source of unending, genocidal conflict for 1/15th of that time, and driven us to global conquest, mass extinction, and a growing ecological and socio-political crisis. This would seem to indicate that the Indian beliefs are, at the very least, better for us to believe, even if they aren’t true.
In practical terms, the Native American beliefs integrated these people and found them a role to play in society. Christianity marginalizes and persecutres them. So the Native American approach is far more practical.
As to which is “true”–that’s unprovable, and unknowable. But it seems that we can only accept the Christian scenario if we again accept the evil G-d who wants to trick us, by making the only way that works in his creation the way that we’re not supposed to go.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 11:31 PM
Response to the first paragraph of Mike Godesky (#12) and a general reply to those asking prove to us that homosexuality is indeed wrong. It appears that you believe harming someone is the only time that something is indeed immoral? Now I will readily admit I am no expert in anything at all. I do read what I can and attempt to absorb information that I come across. But the last time I checked the Harm principle is not the only argument for the morality of an action. Within philosophy it is taught that authority from God (so long as there is a God) commanding anything in respect to morality is absolute. So long as a person has a religion whatever that god commands will obviously be held as truth. Now I really have no problem or quarrel with a person who does or does not believe in a religion but I am mentioning and discussing verses because they are here and are being discussed. The Bible is quite clear on its stance of homosexuality and it condemns it. The older definition of adultery, as I have said, includes any act of sexuality which could be labeled as perverse along with sex outside of marriage. So when you do read the 1-Commandments (which are not all of the sins) and it states “Thou shalt not commit adultery� or however it is specifically worded for your particular translation Homosexuality is not merely implied but included within the very definition of the word.
Now besides the Bible a fairly simple argument, which is quite commonplace, is to say that homosexuality runs against the very nature of the body and of the human life cycle. It’s quite clear that homosexuality does exist (why would be discussing it?) so citing examples of its existence really doesn’t prove anything. However, a few arguments have been made suggesting that it is natural and these should be addressed. I gather that the gist of the argument for homosexuality being natural and even beneficial is that animals do it. Yes indeed we should strive to do things more like animals because they are of course the moral role models we are looking for our society. Not really but cmon now are we not people citing animals for moral examples? But anyway to continue with what I am gathering, homosexuality is a weeding out process, is that what I’m hearing? In Jason Godesky’s reply (number 9) he states:
So homosexuality is good because it allows us to get rid of the weak? I know that getting rid of the weak is not specifically in there, but if the “herd� is getting stronger then it is obvious that this is the result of it loosing its “weaker� members. Now I may be accusing homosexuals of being immoral (either by simply existing or acting on the impulse, it doesn’t matter) but I am not saying that they are week and their eventual death results in a greater stronger whole. I would like to add that while I condemn homosexuals I condemn them no more than I condemn myself for the various things which I do that go against my own belief system. I do not believe that people who do what is wrong should be locked away, oppressed, killed or anything else. But I do believe in the government holding up at least some morality. I can also say that there have been many great gays that have been good artists, lawyers, doctors, and I assume athletes though perhaps you disagree because you view them as weak? Ok back to this being a reason to embrace homosexuality in general and homosexual marriage in particular. Umm, I really don’t see it. As I said some of the better, stronger members of a pack may in fact be homosexual and their non-participation in procreation is not necessarily beneficial to the group. As a matter of fact it is best when natural selection takes the weakest members (be they homosexual or otherwise) so that those who have the best genes do reproduce and pass on their unique qualities resulting in evolution.
Ok paragraph number two of Mike Godesky’s response (number 12).
Well calling them “simple minded philosophers� proves your point!! I need not read further as this is incredible debating skill I must say! Quite seriously this is a difference of belief here between philosophers over the role of government. But I still must disagree, if men were angels (I simply mean perfect, without any nature of sin, not that they have wings, glow in the dark, sing beautifully or any other foolishness) then government would not be necessary. As a matter of fact I believe I am referencing something I read by one of our founding fathers (but I’m so terrible with names). But I suppose that Jason does not approve of the founding fathers so perhaps anything they say is not acceptable either?
Response to Mike’s third paragraph. I dunno about that really, well have to see if the above is satisfactory or not, expect it isn’t.
Response to Mike’s fourth paragraph. Indeed you are or say you are! However the definition of Christian can be rather “vague� at times.
Response to Mike’s fifth paragraph. You claim its “obvious� that they are talking “monogamous,� I say its obvious they’re talking “same sex.� I might also point out that we are discussing homosexual marriage right this very minute. You obviously have correlated the saying as having something to do with homosexual marriage right here in this discussion or it would not have been brought up. I believe you know as well as I do what they’re talking about.
Response to Mike’s sixth symphony. No that’s perfectly fine I believe Jason go that one. As mentioned earlier though, citing that something exists is not proof of its amoral/moral/immoral aspects. It merely shows that, “yup it exists!�
Response to Mike’s seventh paragraph. Sadly it both is and is not.
Response to Mike’s eighth paragraph. Are you simply saying what I was thinking of your own statements? Because I’m not the one talking about “Hebrew propaganda.� Now propaganda generally has a negative connotation associated with it, now if you wish to explain yourself on that, its quite fine but don’t start accusing me of conspiracy theories when I’m simply “Illustrating by absurdity� your own point.
Response to Mike’s ninth paragraph. Yes indeed the Bible is written by many different authors. But in case you are wondering the book Leviticus is in fact A book written by A individual (in this case “A� can also mean “1�). It is know that the Torah (first 5 books right?) were all written by the same dude I believe his name was Moses or something like that. Now its quite fine if either of you do not believe in the Bible, or even think it is accurate, but why quote the Bible and then discredit it? And surely we can agree that one person can keep some degree of cohesion when he is writing? So what’s your point again? Last thing I’d like to ask about would be the verses for the two different creation accounts you are referring to. I think I know what you are talking about but I’d like to read what it is exactly you are referring to before I respond. If its what I think it is, its not two creations and they are not contradictory.
Response to Mike’s tenth paragraph. Sigh. Did he not call it wicked? If that’s still not enough maybe I’ll go lookup some more verses for ya later.
Response to Mike’s eleventh paragraph. Hehe I must quote this, it is good to read again:
Oh you totally got me there, it definitely says, “the sin of Sodom and Gemoorah was NOT homosexuality,� LOL. You sure you’re not writing in between the lines there? Did I not mention that a list of some sins does not mean that it is the only sin that those communities were guilty of? Haha you keep doing this I’m going to pee my pants man.
Response to Mike’s twelfth paragraph. Ah yes they do, as described above and earlier the verses I point out about Lot (I’m sure there are more but are you really going to force me to go digging for more?) certainly show that Sodom and Gemoorah’s sins included homosexuality. Not only that but if the Bible says homosexuality is a sin and should not be done then obviously Sodom and Gemoorah are guilty of it as that’s what the men of the town were trying to do right up until they’re destruction as recorded. It would probably be better to pursue an avenue of proving that homosexuality is not a sin rather than stating that Sodom and Gemoorah are guilty of it. Because so long as it is a sin, they are guilty of it.
Response to Mike’s thirteenth paragraph. Hehe another good quote:
Well this may be a self evident truth to you but umm, it sure isn’t to me.
Response to Mike’s fourteenth paragraph. Indeed! Indeed you did! I most certainly will admit I am wrong on that one.
On to Jason. I am extraordinarily tired, I actually did decide to write all day on this as it turns out I have nothing better to do. With my upcoming move and my own decision to stop playing video games as much I am enjoying this more than, well picking out pots and pans. I’m fighting a battle against 2:1 odds, this is more riveting than Doom3 I must say.
First paragraph. Actually I think you may be right that saying they are not a group is incorrect. After all the examples I cited are in fact groups (murderers, drunkards, etc) and indeed they do have rights, even the murderers like trial by jury. I suppose I never really considered them a “political group� though which doesn’t really matter anyway. But you claim that denying homosexuals the right to marry other homosexuals is in fact denying them a right that everyone else has. Well really no one has that right yet it’s a bit in limbo as to whether or not you may marry someone of the same-sex but everyone can in fact marry someone of the opposite sex. Now you did already address this in the original column you wrote in the tenth paragraph, eleventh paragraph, and some more paragraphs around there (simply counting the spacing as indication of a paragraph). However I don’t agree with it. You ask how the questions are different and its fairly simple. On the genetic one were not asking them to change how they feel, only how they act (which perhaps isn’t fair but many things are not). And as for the choice question, one involves converting to a new religion while the other involves adopting one moral principle. You say how is that different? Well it’s like telling someone, “you may be dispositioned to kill people but you’re just not allowed to do it.� I don’t really have a problem telling people there are a few morals which need to be obeyed. As far as what you want to worship, etc the Constitution says that the government is to stay out of religion. But before its said, instituting heterosexual marriage is not instituting a religion, it’s one value shared by the majority of the world. When I say majority of the world I say it population wise, because while there are many cultures who practice polygamy (however that pertains to this argument) there is still a higher percentage of the population that does not, and an even higher percentage that does not practice homosexual marriage.
Another point I did not really see the first time I read the original article. Quote:
I have a friend who is a lawyer that has said to me homosexuals already have these rights because of how courts have already ruled on such cases relating to these matters.
Response to the second paragraph. Quote:
I absolutely agree sir that the filth of misconceptions pouring out of your mouth is indeed as you have stated. Even though the majority of legislation as nothing to do with morality does not prove that the government does not pass laws with moral dimensions to them nor does it prove they are passed without moral dimensions in mind or for the sole purpose of enforcing a slight amount of morality.
Response to the third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs. Good third paragraph, nothing really to argue about there. Fourth paragraph, I do not think we are denying them a right (or a right that anyone else has), therefore I really do not believe we are pushing them into second-class citizenry. Fourth paragraph, not really. In the end what you are talking about is having to depend upon the majority opinion of a democratic country that they will be able to define “rights� correctly, and while not necessarily perfect or ideal I do have faith within the system of democracy and the people’s ability to distinguish right from wrong
Response to sixth paragraph. Once again no test will work in ever single situation. Most philosophers will tell you that the only philosopher who appeared to have gotten it all right was Plato (they’d probably say Aristotle too). Now you yourself cite the Harm principle several times which is also not full proof. The principle goes that anything which harms something else (he included anything that could feel) is wrong and that this is the reason why killing is immoral. I will use two classic examples of where it fails. The first one is very simple, if I kill animals to eat is it immoral? Some might say yes. However what if I eat plants? Some have claimed that plants can feel as someone mentioned in a very interesting article on this site. So is it also wrong to kill plants? I would say not.
The better illustration is a neighbor asks you to watch over their house while they are gone. So you agree, being the good neighbor you are. While over there you get rather cold and decide to turn up the heat. So you turn up the heat and the house catches on fire and burns to the ground killing their cat and destroying everything they own. Apparently unknown to you there central heating was broken. Now you just caused a great deal of harm to your neighbor and according to the Harm principle you are guilty of wrong doing. Does anyone think that you are guilty? Not likely. So do we discard the Harm principle? No, just recognize when it doesn’t work.
The seventh paragraph. Oh yes indeed how could I forget the several New Guinea tribes? Earlier in this response I mention population. While population does not dictate being right, I should think that, “you betray a bitter ignorance of the diversity of human cultures� if you believe that the utterly huge population of the world throughout history which does not practice this is absolutely wrong.
The eighth paragraph. Quote:
This pertains to our discussion how? As a matter of fact I don’t believe that it does. Just spreading a little hate I guess? And weren’t they already doing that?
The ninth paragraph. Yes restraint for the sake of restraint is indeed stupid but were talking restrain for morality’s sake. As for the rest of that and the following paragraph I think I’ve addressed that in this response, whether or not you agree is quite fine.
Actually the rest seems to be covered up to where it says:
Hehe I must say I have my own evil grin. There are several reasons why you are wrong here. First you claim that Gentiles are not Hebrews. Many people do not subscribe to this belief. A quick note might be the book of Hebrews which was written to the Gentiles. Now why would they call it the book of Hebrews? There’s more to that but its more like going down the rabbit hole and belongs in its own discussion. The other point I might make, if you do not accept that one, is how Paul repeatedly says that we are grafted on to the tree of the house of Abraham. Now unfortunately I’m getting rather tired of typing so I’m not looking for the verse. I might also note that Paul preaches to the believers (who are not under the old covenant) to keep themselves from sexual immorality and adultery (remember my discussion of the meaning earlier).
Good on the others, covered in earlier parts within this response.
Eighteenth paragraph. Yes a very moral person who kills (or murders I suppose I should say) is not an example of why killing is acceptable. No matter how moral a person is, if they do something wrong that act is still, believe it or not, immoral.
Rest of the paper. Yup there were problems in the beginning. Though compared to the rest of the world at the time were doing a lot better in the “rights� department than anyone else, also doing better on the morality situation. Slavery is often cited as a reason to hate early America, our founders, and white people in general. Many of the founders expressed great concern over slavery, even freeing slaves, but as is the norm in politics compromise took hold and nothing was done. As for the general hatred of white people everywhere, while not explicitly stated but obviously implicitly stated, it is simply another form of racism and neglects to remember all of those who fought (whether politically, through aid, or physically) to end slavery. I must say that as for myself my ancestors fought on the side of the Union, whatever difference that makes.
Another note, Peter 3 talks about wives and their husbands, and husbands and their wives. Not husbands and their husbands or wives and their wives.
I am tired and have determined it is absolutely impossible for me to respond to everything. Whether or not I continue this debate, I do not know; I already see more people have responded. Even so this debate is rather pointless, all that matters is how the people vote and how the political machine responds. Not only that but an argument like this could go on forever even though I have given you plenty of reasons why homosexual marriage should not be allowed none of them will satisfy you. Even if God himself came down and said what the truth is within this situation right now you would not listen.
Comment by Kevin — 21 August 2005 @ 11:43 PM
Hmm I messed up on that vegetarian link perhaps someone with access to the html code can correct that? My mistake on that.
Comment by Kevin — 21 August 2005 @ 11:45 PM
Well guys, thanks for dragging what could have been a worthwhile discussion down to the level of personal mudslinging. Cheers.
And remember, folks. Love your neighbor. Unless your neighbor happens to be gay. Or Republican. Or if he looks kinda funny…
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 August 2005 @ 11:50 PM
Interestingly as a Christian I have been told that I was a sinner since birth and it has caused me no problems. As far as elderly gay couples or gays at all believe it or not I do have gay friends, or did I’ve moved around a bit not in contact with any at the moment. They of course also disagree with me on whether or not homosexuality is a sin but we are still friends.
Also in my previous response I have said quite clearly that I do not at all believe homosexuals to be inferior or any more evil than myself. But I do believe in calling my own wrong doings evil and I also believe in calling the wrong doings or immorality of various actions for what they are. I really have no problem with someone disagree with me either, that’s one of the great things of the US. It appears that others here must accuse me of spewing out hate even though I have not said anything hateful. And even though they have outmatched me by a great amount with their own hatred it is still maintained that I have done the greater harm. And what is that harm? Simply, thinking on my own and disagreeing with them. I have already stated that I do not condemn homosexuals anymore than I believe myself to be condemned after all it is the story of Christ isn’t it? All have fallen short of the glory of God, including me and other Christians. And while It has been stated that I am hiding behind scripture I would like to say that the only reason I have mentioned scripture is because it was mentioned by someone else and also the primary reason why I responded. The Bible is quite clear on what is right and wrong in this case and that was really my only point in writing at all.
Comment by Kevin — 22 August 2005 @ 12:00 AM
Kevin,
Just a thought.
I posted above that as far as I was told, the prohibitions in the Old Testament were not against man-man love, but man-boy love. I’d like you to try and clear it up.
When it comes to the Old Testament, I tend to trust the words, wit, and wisdom of those that originally wrote it - the Jews - and their interpertation based on few centuries or so before Christ was even conceived.
Now I can’t quote you the source on it - my friend is currently at work. But I hope you can assume I’m not trying to lie to you just for the sake of argument.
You see, the problem is this. If the Talmudic scholars have it right - and the Bible is talking about man-boy instead of man-man - then the English interpertation is wrong regarding homosexuality. If the scholars have it wrong (and Jewish scholars are quite thorough btw!), then the word of G-d was not clearly given to the Jews which skews the rest of the Bible, including the prophecies which link Jesus to the House of David.
You can comment on the above section as you please but it would help out the discussion if you could find the following (1) An Old Testament prohibition against child abuse (and I’m not talking about the Leviticus proscriptions against sleeping with your close family members) and/or (2) A clear quote from Jesus comdemning homosexuality.
Thanks
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 22 August 2005 @ 2:23 AM
To Jason
The sound you hear is the clear sound of me slapping myself in the head. I should have remembered the estrus cycle and the bonobos. Sigh…
For the archives, the Tongva people native to Southern California (San Fernando Valley to Long Beach) had a designation they called the “We’he’pet” — those who walk two roads. This included homosexuals and bisexuals of either sex. They were considered divinely inspired and were well-respected. Each of them was married to the ‘wot’ (loosely translates as ‘chief’, the person male or female who makes sure nobody starves and the local rituals are performed on time). The wot was not expected to have sexual relations with his (or her) many we’he’pet partners though I’m certain the wot could if he or she wanted.
The we’he’pet, along with many other tribe members, could have sex with whoever they wanted to. After all, if the Creator made such pleasurable sensations (and such a delightful result as children!), surely it was a sacred rite to participate in them. That was what drove the missionaries absolutely batty; not only did these people have “loose morals” they also held in high esteem homosexuals and bisexuals, placing them in the same category as other highly skilled people (like medicine workers, storytellers, etc.)
Best
Bill Maxwell
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 22 August 2005 @ 2:47 AM
I’m not going to respond to all of the above. I’m sure that will be taken care of in time. Just wanted to clarify a few things.
The Hebrew Bible does have a lot of propaganda, but it has nothing to do with any “International Jewish Conspiracyâ„¢.” As far as I can tell, you pretty much just pulled that one out of your ass. Ever notice how much of Genesis is devoted to showing how all of the traditional enemies of the Hebrews have their origins in some sin or another? That’s because they had to explain why it was okay for them to kill those people. The whole Hebrew Bible, especially in the earlier books, contains a LOT of Hebrew nationalism. It is the story of the Hebrew people, after all. And it makes sense if you think about it, since many of these stories were first compiled during the Babylonian Exile when the Jewish people were trying to establish and maintain their national identity.
That’s just hideously, hideously wrong. Moses writing the Torah is a myth, with no basis in historical fact. Most Biblical scholars believe the Torah was written by 4-5 people. The author known as P, or the Priestly source, is responsible for most of Leviticus. And even among these authors, their writings are based on many different oral accounts that went before them.
Now, all of these laws against homosexuality have very similar language. So it sounds to me like either a different account of the same event, or God is merely repeating the same law. In the Gospel, Jesus tells his discples to love their neighbors more than once. That doesn’t mean it was a new commandment with a completely different reason for being. It was a reiteration of the same law.
The first account is in Genesis 1-2:3. The second is in Genesis 2:4-25. In the first, God creates humans after the other animals. In the second, God creates humans before. Also, in the first account, God creates man and woman at the same time. In the second, God creates man first, then creates woman from his rib. They can’t both be true.
But there’s a lot more going on in this passage than just homosexuality. So what was Lot calling wicked? Remember that this is not merely homosexual intercourse. It’s rape. And that’s something that has always been wrong, regardless of sexual orientation. Saying that this story is a condemnation of homosexuality is like saying that someone who condemns a heterosexual rapist is condemning heterosexuality in general. What’s simpler? That Lot was calling the act of raping his guests wicked, or that he was making a blanket statement against homosexuality?
Or we could just think about this logically. I think it’s fair to assume that Lot, having lived in Sodom for some time, would have been familiar with many, if not all, of the people in this group. Now he does recognize their request as sexual in nature, which is why he offers them his daughters. But if they were homosexuals, and Lot knew them to be homosexuals, there would have been no reason for him to offer his daughters because this would not have appeased them. Why would he offer his daughters when he could have just as easily offered his sons-in-law?
As I mentioned before, this is not a story about homosexuality. It’s a story about the treatment of guests, which is a major theme in the ethics of the Middle East.
The burden of proof isn’t on me. You’re the one claiming that the Bible calls homosexuality a sin. So you’re the one who has to show where the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. Unless you can show me where it says that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah included homosexuality, which you have not yet done, you have no case. In all of the places where the Bible lists the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, not once does it mention homosexuality.
All unicorns are magical.
Pegasus is a unicorn.
Therefore, Pegasus is magical.
This statement is logically valid. It also has nothing to do with anything that exists in real life.
Giuli’s statement was absurd for the purpose of illustrating the absurdity of your own argument, but it too is logically valid. If, by some magical spell, the entire population of the planet could become male, then we would all die. Therefore, by your reasoning, it is immoral to be male. Because if everybody were male (regardless of how they become male or how likely such a scenario might be), there would be no more human race.
Philosophers often use such thought experiments. It doesn’t matter that the situation will never happen in real life. What’s important is showing the logical flaws in the argument.
But if you really need an example that’s possible, take Jason’s example. If everybody on the planet were to flush their toilets at exactly 9:26, we would all be in serious trouble. Does that mean it’s immoral to flush your toilet at 9:26?
Sure, you could say that it’s totally implausible that everybody would flush their toilets at precisely the same moment, but it’s just as, if not more, implausible the everybody on that planet would become gay.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 22 August 2005 @ 9:26 AM
Oh, okay, so all those gay Christians who commited suicide or were the victims of hate crimes just don’t exist, then. Or don’t matter.
Interestingly, as a heterosexual, you have not been specifically targeted by the religious right as a focal point of their political activities. Interestingly, as a heterosexual, you have not been painted as a sexual predator whose evil secular “agenda” is destroying the nation.
What kinds of sins have you committed? Lying? Saying mean things to and about other people? Have your parents ever kicked you out of the house for this? Have people ever called you a menace to society because of your sins?
They’re better friends than I would be. Can’t say the same for you; it’s some friend who votes - and speaks out - against the civil rights of his friends. Friendship is about two (or a group of) people making each other’s lives easier through mutual support. You make their lives slightly easier through your friendship, then you make their lives a hundred times more difficult when you vote to keep them second-class citizens. I’m sure many white people in the South had many black friends. Now, they disagreed on the subject of segregation and the black vote, but they were still friends. As long as their friends sat at the back of the bus.
Good for you. But guess what? The entire conservative Christian movement is acting like it. Because gay people want civil rights and this makes conservative Christians feel icky. (Next they’ll be drinking from our water fountains! Ewww!) Also, because after the Berlin Wall fell, it was kind of hard for leaders in the religious right to drum up money and power using the Communist threat. So they started playing up the “homosexual threat.” It was even better, because Americans are already skittish about sex, so the “yuck” factor was there. If you seriously believe that the religious right is NOT targeting gays and lesbians in a way that directly implies that homosexuality is a greater sin than any other (except having an abortion and joining al Qaeda), you need to read more of their material.
You still have not given us any non-Biblical argument for why homosexuality is morally wrong, aside from Kant’s categorical imperative, which we already showed to not be evidence for wrongdoing. (My “if everyone were male” example,” Jason’s “if everyone flushed the toilet at the same time” example.)
See, I have a big problem with a majority trampling over the rights of a minority for no other reason than, “My biased misunderstanding of a couple of verses in my particular holy book says they’re bad.”
Yes, you’re the one being persecuted here. Take a look at some of the other discussions on this site… just browse through the blog posts until you find the bunch that have a great number of comments. We don’t use this kind of strong language for every single person who disagrees with us. Engineer-Poet disagreed with us on a matter far more important to us: the validity and sustainability of civilization. We calmly refuted him. Because it doesn’t matter whether or not anyone agrees with us on this issue. It’s not like there’s going to be a vote one of these days over whether or not human beings should start hunting and gathering again. It’s not like there’s ever going to be a primitivist candidate for president.
But this belief that homosexuality is morally wrong is hurting people. Right now. To be perfectly honest with you, at first I did feel guilty for using harsh words against you. Then I pictured myself in a 19th century parlor, drinking tea with a number of high-ranking individuals: a biologist, a theologian, a slave-owner. The slave-owner railed against these trouble-making abolitionists. (I, of course, didn’t tell anyone that I myself was an abolitionist.) The theologian agreed, mentioning that the Bible condoned - and even celebrated - slavery. Ham, after all, was doomed by God to be a slave to his brothers. The biologist discussed the obvious differences between Negroes and people. Negroes were stupider, closer to the apes than we were. They needed our protection from the cruel world, because they wouldn’t be able to handle it on their own.
What would you do in that situation? Would you calmly refute their arguments, point-by-point? Or would you stand up and go, “WHAT? Are you people NUTS? These are HUMAN BEINGS we’re talking about, and we’re treating them like INANIMATE OBJECTS! People are being whipped to death as we speak. Families are being torn apart as we speak. And you’re trying to JUSTIFY it?!”
There are times when respectful discourse is necessary. Then there are times when people are arguing for second-class citizenship with absolutely no objective evidence that what these people are doing is morally wrong. That’s when I switch into History Mode, and think about what this will look like a hundred years from now, and what my great-grandchildren will think of me. My great-grandchildren will know that your stance is complete bullshit, just as we know that our ancestor’s stances on slavery, civil rights, women’s rights, and native rights were. They’re going to read about Matthew Shepard. They’re not going to care if I was polite, and calm, and entirely rational. Because they’ll know that there’s nothing calm or polite or rational about oppression.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 22 August 2005 @ 10:33 AM
First and foremost, on the subject of my “outburst” last night. There was a long, heated, internal discussion as to whether or not this was justified. I can speak to my own motives. Kevin’s comments left me more enraged than I have been in a very long time. Giuli & I had to take a walk, just before I was able to sit down. It kept me up half the night. I was livid. I’m sure that came through, to some degree or another.
I believe that calm, cool, academic discourse has often excused all manner of atrocities by refusing to weight arguments with their proper moral import. Academic discourse becomes little more than euphemism to excuse all manner of terrible misdeeds. Giuli’s imagination last night drifted to a German parlor in the 1920s or 1930s, with biologists having a high-minded discussion on the genetics of race, and the argument that Jews may be genetically inferior. Someone in that conversation needs to speak up and say, “Wait a minute; the stuff you’re saying … six million people will die for that.”
My “outburst” was that aside. We can now return to the arguments themselves. You don’t need me to like you. Nor am I a government. No one will be passing any laws against you just because I hate you. No one will strip you of your rights. No one will make you a second-class citizen just because I find you immoral and loathsome. No one is going to crucify you to a fence and beat you until you are dead just because I hate you.
Can you say the same?
That was my aside. All opinions are “valid” in one sense, but I can’t help but think that the same Lockesian logic Michael cited above must come into play here. Your right to your opinion ends when it starts to hurt people just by holding it. People die for this kind of rhetoric every day. People are being brutally murdered because of an opinion you hold. I just wanted everyone to remember the implications here. The two sides of this argument are not equal. One side is arguing for people to accept one another, to live in peace with one another. The other side is arguing for hatred and persecution–an argument that will leave millions dead if followed to its logical end.
That’s the aside. That’s the moral dimension. Now I can return to the logical and academic arguments, with my conscience clear of the guilt that I may be simply white-washing this atrocity. I don’t think anything else needs to be said on this matter.
Now, to the arguments at hand…. I’m unused to the idea of citing internet debates by paragraph number, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I lose track of your citations from time to time. It’s a most awkward method for me.
Not at all, but we do need to settle on some ethical model here. We can’t just pull willy-nilly across the board. The field of ethics can be widely divided in two: duties-based ethics, and consequentialist ethics. I believe that duty-based ethics suffers from an insurmountable obstacle in the iteration of which duties define ethics. We cannot simply rely on “conscience,” as conscience is culturally constructed. Conscience serves genetically the same needs that laws serve culturally. By incorporating social mores at a deep level, we ease social interaction–just as laws are meant to help ease social interaction. Take two human groups, one with conscience, one without. The one without will quickly tear itself apart with back-biting, betrayal, back-stabbing, deceit, one-up-manship and so on…leaving those with conscience to “inherit the earth.”
So we need to have a conscience. Yet the contents of that conscience are largely arbitrary. I feel a pang of conscience when I hold Giuli’s hand in public, because I was raised to believe that public displays of affection are wrong. Is holding a girl’s hand “wrong”? No. I feel pangs of conscience not because it’s wrong, but because that’s how I was raised. It is a good genetic adaptation for us to pick up the arbitrary taboos of our culture quickly, and feel them deeply. But that doesn’t make the taboos any less arbitrary.
The existence of laws, and even pangs of “conscience,” does not prove that something is wrong. It just proves that we were raised to believe it was wrong, whether it’s actually wrong or not. Habitual Etoro heterosexual males feel the same pangs of conscience having sex with women as a young, gay teen in our culture feels when he first finds he likes boys.
So I reject all duties-based ethics on that. They may in fact be true, but if they are, then they’re useless, since we can never know what the “duties” involved are. That leaves consequentialist ethics, such as utilitarianism. My own ethical system is consequentialist, but based on nurturing diversity. Something is “good” if it harbors greater diversity, and “evil” if it diminishes it. So, for example, Christian rhetoric against homosexuality is “evil” by my ethics, because it diminishes diversity far more than it adds. By itself, the existence of Christianity adds another point of diversity: the world is always more diverse with one more thing in it, than otherwise. Unless that thing wipes out all others unlike it, as fundamentalist Christianity does. In my ethical system, that is very nearly the only way to be “evil.”
But, for the sake of argument, I’ll go with any ethical system you care to name. Pick the one you agree with most, and we’ll use that.
No, no philosopher has ever taught that. That’s religion–that’s also the opposite of philosophy. There is almost nothing that all philosophies hold in common, except perhaps this: if there is any truth at all, then it must be true regardless of what else happens. No entity can change it on a whim–not even G-d. The statement you outline above is a basic rejection of all philosophy. Really, it’s a rejection of all thought. It’s a cop-out: we’ll just shut up and do as we’re told. No, that’s not philosophy at all. That’s the opposite of philosophy.
A simple truism, yes. But does a person’s belief that something is true have any impact on its actual truth? Europeans long believed the earth was flat, did that make it so? This statement means little more than people believe their religions, which is, of course, true. It’s also trivial.
I think we’ve pretty thoroughly proven that statement false, but if you want to, I don’t know, ignore that fact, that’s fine. For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Let’s just say, for now, that you’ve proven that the Bible condemns homosexuality. Great. Now prove it’s wrong. Those are two entirely different arguments, as I think everyone here can agree.
Pick a side and stick with it. You’re hopping between mutually exclusive positions. Is your claim that homosexuality is wrong because it’s unnatural? The existence of homosexuality among animals destroys any claim that it’s unnatural. If it’s found among animals, then by any intuitive understanding of the word, it must be “natural.” The existence of homosexuality in animals doesn’t prove homosexuality is good; it disproves the idea that it’s wrong by virtue of being unnatural. The burden of proof is on your side. All behaviors should be assumed morally neutral–neither good nor bad–unless proven otherwise. So far, we still have no argument against homosexuality. The unnaturalness argument is bunk, as shown by animal homosexuality. What else do you got?
No, if it was a culling of the weak, it wouldn’t be a random culling. It would be a culling of the weak. That’s inherently not random. Homosexuality just picks a random 10-15% and makes them not breed. Farmers don’t take the 10-15% weakest and kill them, they take 10-15% randomly and kill them. I’m not quite clear on the mechanics of this, but it has nothing to do with killing the weak. I believe it has something to do with gene flow and genetic diversity.
Your interpretation of the evidence hinges on an interpretation of the word “random” to mean “not random.” This is where you go wrong. It is, in fact, a random culling–with no correlation to strength or weakness whatsoever.
You are espousing the “hate the sin, love the sinner,” argument, a very charged euphemism. I will congratulate you on two counts, (1) your homophobia does not appear to be of the truly violent, warped variety so often encountered, and (2) you do make some attempt to understand these issues in light of something other than “my G-d told me so.” Unfortunately, on the second score, you’re still working your way through to the inevitable conclusion: the only possible argument that homosexuality is “wrong” comes down to your interpretation of your scripture, and the codification of that into law. As for the “hate the sin, love the sinner” argument, see this article from a gay Christian’s experience with that mindset.
Most Americans think that homosexuality is immoral. That is true. The mob always hates what is different. In the 1930s, most Americans thought Judaism was immoral. The point of a Constitution is to protect the rights of the minority, when the will of the majority is so totalitarian–to protect us when democracy degenerates into “the dictatorship of the mob.” Christians believe it is immoral. Many others believe it is not. The role of the Constitution is to make sure that the rights of minorities are protected–to ensure that Christian morality remains a personal code for Christian living, and not an enforced law inflicted upon all, regardless of their beliefs.
Laws are not supposed to tell us what is right, and what is wrong. Laws are very often evil. Apartheid was law. Slavery was law. By law, I am compelled to pay my taxes every year, despite the fact that most of that money goes to fund wars that I bitterly opposed. As far as I’m concerned, Henry David Thoreau’s arguments still stand. Paying taxes to this government is deeply immoral. But the law compels me to do it. The law is immoral, and the law forces me to commit an immoral act.
At the same time, the law permits all manner of things I consider immoral. It permits the clear-cutting of virgin forest. It permits fundamentalist Christians to preach hate against everyone who differs from them. It permits the use of eminent domain in cases like that of New London, that I linked to above. All of these things are deeply immoral, yet permitted under the law.
The law should allow us to do what is immoral. The law should provide only the basic baseline of what is required to keep society functioning. It is not the government’s job to teach morality; it is my job to decide what is right and wrong for myself. If we let Christians dictate their morality to everyone, Christian or not alike, then we have become nothing more than another oppressive, fundamentalist theocracy. If we can strip gays of their rights, then none of us have any rights at all.
I did say it was only tenuously related. It wasn’t an argument for gay marriage, it was simply something tangentially relevant that I happened upon. I don’t see where the burden of proof is on me to prove that gay marriage is OK. Under the Ninth Ammendment, any right not specifically ennumerated goes to the people. So it’s not up to me to prove that gay marriage should be; it’s up to you to prove why it shouldn’t.
But, I’ll give an argument anyway. Take the oft-cited, hypothetical case of Adam and Steve. Adam was disowned by his family at the age of 18 when his family found out he was gay. He hooked up with Steve, and they lived a long, happy life together. They had a nice, suburban house … the whole American dream. Then one day, Adam becomes ill. Cancer. Adam and Steve could never marry, so Steve is not next of kin, he enjoys no power of attorney, nothing. He can only stay with Adam in his last hours during visiting hours. Adam dies, alone, in the middle of the night, calling for his beloved Steve. Now, Adam’s family shows up. They haven’t spoken to him in a quarter of a century, but they’re still the next of kin, with powers of attorney. Since everything was in Adam’s name, everything Steve and he owned–their car, their house, everything–goes to Adam’s family. Steve is as heartbroken as any of us would be losing our spouse. To top it off, he’s now bankrupt and homeless. He spent 25 years building a life with Adam. He was the one who was always there for Adam. Now, because some Christian fundamentalists said it would be “wrong” for them to marry, everything they had goes to Adam’s father, who kicked his son to the street for being gay, and is now on his third wife.
Which scenario is more “wrong”? The one outlined above, or your worst-case scenario, where children grow up thinking that homosexuality isn’t wrong, so homosexuals aren’t evil and shouldn’t be crucified to fences?
As an anarchist, I don’t believe there’s any need for government as it is. But Michael is right, no respectable political philosophy has ever espoused the position you’re advocating. It is found among religious theocrats, but there is no coherent political philosophy behind it. You’re quoting Adams, who passed the “Sedition Laws”–a series of totalitarian laws that outlawed all forms of dissent. It was one of the darkest moments in the long, dark history of the United States. As for the founding fathers, they don’t need me to approve of them or not. That statement makes no sense to me. I don’t hold them to be gods, so I don’t accept what they say as true just because they say it, if that’s what you mean.
Wait a minute … I don’t believe what gods say just because they say it, never mind then!
There is a great deal of diversity within Christianity. That’s the good part about it. There are a few Christian sects dedicated to obliterating all diversity within Christianity, as well as obliterating all diversity without. That’s the evil part of Christianity.
As Mike pointed out, the claim is most fully articulated as, “Marriage has always been between one man and one woman, in every culture, at all times.” It has been used so often, that a number of short-hands have arisen, including “Marriage is between a man and a woman.” It rises as an objection to gay marriage, but the claim itself is entirely false. Marriage has not always been between one man and one woman. In fact, quite the opposite; marriage has more often been between one man and several. If the argument is that whatever form of marriage we find most commonly is best (and that is the argument being advanced by that statement), then it is polygamy, not monogamy, that we should embrace.
Nor can we even hold the statement if we ammend it to the more reasonable form, “Gay marriage has never been condoned by any society, anywhere.” We find both societies today in other parts of the world (space), and our own society in the past (time) where it was condoned, and even celebrated. So, throughout time and space, humans have accepted homosexuals and found them a place in society. Our culture is unique in its inability to handle this group, and its inability to successfully integrate them and give them a proper place.
As Michael pointed out, “propoganda” is well-considered. Every nation has a lot of blood on its hands, and the ancient Hebrews were no exception. The Tanakh has a heavy element of Hebrew nationalism, and with that goes justification for the genocidal conquest of Caanan.
As Michael mentioned, this is a myth. The Torah is a composite document with at least three authors. One preferred to use the term Adonai (”Lord”); another preferred Elohim (”G-d”). A third source, P for the Priestly source, gives us much of Leviticus.
Because even on fundamentalists’ own terms, they’re still wrong. Not that we necessarily accept those terms in the first place. They’re the ones who believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of G-d, not us. I think it’s a very interesting book, with some very important messages. I do not think it is the literal word of G-d. That idea first pops up in American Protestantism in the 19th century, and has not stopped plaguing us since.
After some thousands of years of theological work, they’ve managed to smooth over most of it. They do look like entirely different accounts if you just read them without that, though. Just like the two nativity accounts in Luke and Matthew have almost nothing in common. But here’s the key question: which was made first, humans or animals?
I read it to mean that turning over strangers under your care to be raped was wicked, but hey, I guess you can always find what you’re looking for. The way we focus on murder as the single worst possible sin, Middle Eastern morality turned on how you treat guests. There was no higher moral duty than to see to your guests.
I’m going to quote myself here…
And, what Michael said. You’re the one making a claim. Prove it. Prove that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah had something to do with sex. So far, you’ve got nothing. You’ve got a reaching-at-straws piece about how Lot calling rape wicked must mean they were all gay (which I don’t really follow), and that’s it. Prove their sin was homosexuality.
By comparison … the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was wearing plaid underroos. Show me a specific verse anywhere in the Bible that says the sin of Sodom & Gomorrah wasn’t wearing plaid underroos. If you can’t find one, that means that the sin that really pissed G-d off were those plaid underroos. Just because he keeps listing pride, a lack of concern for the poor, and violence doesn’t mean they didn’t also wear plaid underroos!
Lot’s condemning rape, not homosexuality. That’s pretty obvious, I have no idea how you can fenangle homosexuality out of that. And both I, and a few thousand others, have scoured the Bible for other verses on this. If it’s so clear, how is it that the first time people start talking about Sodom & Gomorrah’s sin as homosexuality is so very late? Why didn’t it ever occur to the Talmudic scholars, who iterated lists of Sodom’s sin that never included homosexuality? I’ve read the entire Bible, front to back, four times over. The only basis for the claim is the story with Lot–which is very obviously about rape, not homosexuality.
Ahhh, now we get to the heart of it, don’t we? I believe I may have cited this already in the argument above, or perhaps it was lost in some infrastructure shift, but this argument is of the form, “Group X can have right Y, so long as they cease being members of group X.” So, “Gays (Group X) can have the right to marry (right Y), so long as they cease being gay (members of group X).” Same logical structure as, “Jews (Group X) can have the right to not be carted off to death camps (right Y), so long as they cease being Jewish (members of group X).” Convert, or we’ll take away all your rights. Not to Godwinize myself, but how does this logic differ in any way from that of the Nazis?
One unfounded, unproven, backwards moral principle. You admit it isn’t fair, so why are we doing it? You’re going to do something you admit is unfair, because … your scripture says that you shouldn’t do it? So rather thasn simply live by that yourself, you’re going to inflict something you recognize as unfair on everyone? Very nice.
Nor I. We can’t have people going around killing others, society would stop working. That’s the key. The few morals we need to obey are the ones required to keep society going. Yet many societies have condoned and even celebrated homosexuality, and done just fine. I can see murder. Society would stop working if we didn’t enforce that one. But homosexuality? How can you say we need to ban homosexuality in order for society to work, when so many societies have worked–and worked better–allowing homosexuality?
It seems to me a basic principle that alienating 10-15% of the population as a permanently marginal group is an inherently bad thing, and would require some monumental need to offset it. I don’t see any need here at all, much less the monumental one required.
Posting this now, and continuing with another comment that may take all day, because the live preview is slowing my typing to a crawl….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 August 2005 @ 12:10 PM
The judgement over wheather or not being gay is a sin can only be given by God Himself. Yes Bible interpritations can be wrong - but it is the only Word we have from Him. The true question is - should marrage be allowed between gay couples. I do not believe so. To most people marrage is a religous as well a civil union. I don’t have a problem with gay couples haveing a legal recognition of their commitment to one another. That should be encouraged, as gay couples can endure as long as non gay couples. Should they have the same rights as married couples, perhaps they should. Should they be married in a church, no. A legal recognition of their union would go a long way toward allowing civil rights to these couples, hopefully.
As for the whole monkey thing. I belive that is also the species that the young males have relations with their mothers till they are old enough to start producing offspring. Not a good role model.
Yes humans derive pleasure from sex. We also have a will to controll our urges and behavior. Marriage is an institution to provide emotional and economic stability to raise and nurture the raising of children. It is not perfect, non of us are. But sex for pleasure alone, with no feelings and no committment is wrong. It can leave a trail of children with only one parent or not wanted at all, as well as a lot of broken hearts and other less appealing reminders of these encounters.
Comment by Amber — 22 August 2005 @ 12:39 PM
You know, after all the long posts here, I’ll probably get in trouble for just doing the short ones…
Amber,
What would be your response if two celibate heterosexuals decided to marry so that they could enjoy the 1,049 rights offered to them?
Now what if it was two homosexuals?
What’s the difference?
Why is it important?
And why/when has G-d forbidden us from pleasure? From overindulgence, yes. From things that other cultures practice (outside the Hebrew nation), sure.
Also, since we’re talking about sex, what about sex that is used therapeutically? What about a married couple choosing a third party to be inseminated (relatively common) or do the inseminating? That’s sex with a commitment and an activity condoned by the Bible!
Sex and marraige aren’t as simple as they seem, are they? Even in the Bible…
By the One, it’s amazing all this crap comes over a translation error! It’s almost as bad as the whole angel translation fiasco.
Best
Bill Maxwell
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 22 August 2005 @ 1:49 PM
Amber,
I wanted to take a break from my point-by-point refutation of Kevin’s argument to address your concerns specifically, because you’re showing admirable reasonableness about this issue. Unfortunately, I think you’ve fallen prey to some malicious misinformation diseminated by fundamentalists and homophobes, specifically to draw in reasonable people like yourself. To clarify what I mean, I need to make a bit of a historical digress.
It started with Napoleon. in his day, marriage was the province of the church. There were people who simply lived together and were recognized by the community as, for all intents and purposes, married, but in general, marriage was a religious institution overseen by the church. Napoleon did not like that there was some aspect of society not under his control, so the Napoleonic Code included “civil marriage.” It was no longer enough to just get married in a church, you needed a marriage certificate from the state, too. That became even more important than the church…
Other countries saw this, and thought this further invasion of our personal lives was a splendid idea, and adopted it. Including the United States. Of course, it was a terrible idea, as the current dilemna exemplifies.
Some churches are very liberal and willing to marry gays. That’s their right to do so, if they desire. Other churches refuse to marry gays. That’s OK, too. Churches can deny marriage based on blood type for all I care. My father wanted to be married in the Catholic Church he grew up in, but the priest refused to marry a “mixed couple”–my mother was Methodist, after all, what kind of terrible hybrid monster would the children be!
They can decide to do that if they like. Each church can decide for itself what it considers OK for marriage. The problem is that we’ve made marriage part of our laws now. We’ve attached rights and privelages to it. Once we’ve done that, then the government must open all those rights and privelages to all its citizens–or none at all.
If the end result of all this is that governments get out of the marriage business all together, I would be tickled pink. Or if gays are able to get married in those churches that allow it and can get a marriage certificate like any other, that’s fine, too. What’s not OK is half-way between, where government keeps dictating who can or can’t get married, and withholds those rights from some groups and not others.
But the opponents of gay marriage has undertaken a concerted campaign to confuse the issue. While gays are campaigning to be treated as full citizens of the United States, their opponents are trying to scare reasonable people like you onto their side by saying they’ll be invading your church. I know of no gay rights group that’s trying to make any church accept them. They just want the same basic rights and freedoms that you or I have. They want to be treated like full citizens. That’s all. They don’t care what you allow or don’t allow in your church, so long as you’re willing to afford them the same courtesy. Live and let live, and all that.
Which is the opposite of fundamentalism. They want to dictate terms to everyone, and tell everyone how to live. They know reasonable people like you will never join them in something like that, though, so they lie to you. They tell you that the gays will try to force your church to accept them–in order to recruit you to do to them precisely what you’re afraid they’ll do to you.
I also wanted to address the issue of G-d’s word. I actually do believe in the Bible, just not as the inerrant and literal word of G-d. I believe it expresses G-d’s will more accurately than any other book, but I do not believe it is inerrant or literally true. I believe it is a product of its time and place. I also believe that we do have something much better to go by, though. The world itself. If there is any god at all, then he or she or they made this world. We can see what he wanted for us by taking a look at the world around us.
Take the sex example. Bonobos aren’t moral examples, but we can hardly say recreational sex is unnatural if it’s found in nature. I don’t know about the incest thing, I’ve never seen any mention of such a thing. Doesn’t mean it’s not true, but it does sound like you’ve been fed a line of B.S. on that. But, let’s say it’s true for now. I wasn’t using bonobos as a moral exemplar, I was showing that recreational sex is not unnatural, and that we can’t look around at the world and say that sex is only for procreation, when G-d made other animals that also don’t just have sex for procreation.
The Bible is open to interpretation, but G-d’s creation simply is. It is clear and undeniable. There are all kinds of consequences to promiscuity. What’s wrong isn’t the promiscuity itself, it’s the lack of responsibility and failing to take care of the consequences of our decisions. Recreational sex has an important role in any healthy marriage, so sex isn’t just for procreation, and neither is marriage. Both are simplistic claims that really strip human sexual relationships of the rich breadth, depth and diversity they really hold. I believe G-d wrote his most powerful gospel in the earth itself, in the stars, and in our bones. If we try to strip away what he has made and deny all the gifts he has given us, then that seems like blasphemy to me.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 August 2005 @ 2:16 PM
That would be an abuse of the insititution of marrage and a farce - gay or straight.
Did I say that? No I don’t think so. If God didn’t want us to experience pleasure he wouldn’t have given us the pleasure to begin with. It just goes with responsility. Something people need to take more of for their actions. One of those responsibilies is to exercise restraint in all areas of our lives. Understand?
Not sure where you got the Therapeutic sex from. As for trouble with conception, that is not something people entering into marrage are usually aware of. I do not have a problem with this any more than I do adoption. Both of these options are open to gay couples as well.
In the case stated above of Adam and Steve, I agree it is wrong for such things to occur and I have no doubt that they do. I think that a legally recongnized union between gay couples should give them many of these rights. However, only if they are truely committed to one another and not just out to use the system. There are common law couples that face many of these problems as well. Of course that is by their choice, not because it is illegal.
Comment by Amber — 22 August 2005 @ 2:38 PM
I agree. Restraint is important. But restraint for restraint’s sake…? It’s important to be willing to sacrifice when necessary, but to sacrifice when it isn’t necessary….? I’m all with you, promiscuity leads to a lot of bad things. I’ve watched it happen plenty of times. But I don’t think it’s an issue about recreational sex; I think it’s an issue of taking responsibility for your actions, regardless of what they are.
Heterosexuals game the system all the time, too. We even have a term for it: “marriage of convenience.” But I think it would be much worse to deny a legitimate, commited homosexual marriage, than for the same abuses to continue with homosexuals that heterosexuals have been committing for so long.
But the issue here is ultimately not of what religions accept or don’t accept, or even of right and wrong. The issue here is simply one of our inalienable rights.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 August 2005 @ 2:49 PM
To clarify my answer. I interpret this as a couple wishing to remain celebate and wishing to marry only to attine the rights of a married couple.
Comment by Amber — 22 August 2005 @ 2:50 PM
Hmmmm … I think I would like to marry Giuli one day, but while I’m apathetic on the issue of breeding (both sides have much to recommend them, and I find they balance one another), she is quite adamant about remaining childless. I’m OK with this. I would still like to marry her, because I don’t think marriage is necessarily tied to producing children. I think it has much more to do with cementing social bonds, and how a couple relates to their community. These are the roles that marriage has usually played, rather than strictly the production of children. I would also like to be recognized legally as the one closest to her, as in the case of Adam & Steve, so I suppose you might say that I only want “the rights of a married couple.” Would this fit into your idea of “an abuse of the institution of marriage and a farce”?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 August 2005 @ 2:56 PM
How would you prove to a court that two people love each other?
I think you may be trodding into dangerous territory there.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 22 August 2005 @ 2:56 PM
I suppose that would be the same place the immagration service is in that regard. I also didn’t say it needed to be proved, lawyer. Intent is intent. Fraud is fraud. Thank you councilor.
Comment by Amber — 22 August 2005 @ 3:27 PM
Homosexuality is wrong only if we accept Christianity. By legislating against homosexuality, Christianity is implied. Ergo, religion has been legislated. We are forced to abide by the arbitrary dictates of a religion we may not believe, simply because democracy has degenerated into the dictatorship of the masses, running ramshod over the rights of minorities.
On population, you are correct. Those few, perverse and unworkable cultures which are currently disintegrating before our very eyes also suffer from severe, systemic overpopulation problems–being among the most primary reasons for their inevitable collapse in the very near future. I do not see why this means that their arbitrary rules should be counted more heavily. If anything, it is proof that their particular taboos are an unworkable, inherently unstable configuration. I would think that anything they believe should be held up to suspicion precisely because they believe it.
So, to my mind, you’re working from a disadvantage. You have a “broken” culture that teaches something. I know something–or likely, many things–about this culture doesn’t work. Not only does it not counter-balance a working culture, like those of the Native Americans, or the New Guinea tribes … you need to prove that this is one of the few parts of that culture that isn’t “broken.”
99% of all legal FUD online is attributed to “friends who are lawyers.” Judge Moore has a law degree, for Chrissakes, and I’d trust the legal opinion of most 8-year-olds over him.
True. But what they believe to be moral, and what is moral, are very different things. I cited many examples of immoral things that are legal above, and many things that are required by law that are immoral. Every introductory ethics class spends the first day of lecture going over the basic fact that ethics and laws are totally different things. Laws don’t imply that something is ethical, and not everything that’s ethical should be legislated. Laws are about making society work; ethics relate to some kind of philosophical truth. To show that it’s unethical is an entirely different argument than to prove that it should be illegal. To prove that it should be illegal, you must prove that banning it would improve society. I tend to think that marginalizing and doing something you admit is unfair to 10 to 15 people out of every 100 would make society much, much worse. What good can you possibly come up with to balance that? What is the harm?
So far, the only case I’ve heard on this is that children will be raised to believe it isn’t wrong. This is mixed with the sick concept of “homosexuality as disease” to say that, for some reason, homosexuality will go up, which they believe is “wrong.” This makes sense if we also accept that marriage has always and everywhere been between one man and one woman, that no culture has ever accepted homosexual marriage. Unfortunately, both ideas are completely unfounded. Many, many cultures accepted homosexuals and even gave them an honored place in their society. Do you see homosexuality increasing amongst these cultures? No, they still hold around 10-15%. So this would be a lovely thought experiment, if not for the fact that we’ve done it and it didn’t happen.
On the other hand, there are some things that have been proven to make the incidence of homosexuality go up–like overpopulation. Which Christianity and Judaism both endorse. So, who’s the one with the homosexual agenda?
Unfortunately, legal precedent does not ask your opinion, it looks to judicial opinion. They seem to understand logic better than you do, because they have already ruled that it is, in fact, second-class citizenship. I’ve made a very clear argument as to why, and your counter-argument is simply, “I don’t think so.” Well, that’s fine, but it’s still true. More importantly, as a point of law, your opinion is irrelevant. It’s already been decided. The precedent is on the books. All that’s yet to be decided is if we’re going to do it anyway. Right now, rules against second-class citizenship are inferred from the Constitution. If we pass an ammendment, then second-class citizenship will be, very explicitly, constitutional. A document meant to protect the rights of minorities will become the easiest tool to strip any minority of any right at any time. If you can lose a right at any time for any reason, then it’s no longer a right. So, if an ammendment against homosexual marriage is passed, rights no longer exist.
A: Homosexuals.
B: A can’t marry.
C: A are second-class citizens.
D: Same rules apply to A and -A
E: -A are second class citizens.
So, we have
If B, then C.
If D and B, then E.
The first line, “If B, then C,” has already been established. D is established with the 14th ammendment. So all we need is B–the actual ammendment itself–to yield E. This is a legal argument. Your opinion is irrelevant. You’ll need to cite case law or constitutional law to successfully counter this point.
Well, the founding fathers didn’t. That’s why they wrote the Constitution–to protect minorities from the predations of the majority. The idea that the majority should be able to do this is a revolution in political philosophy that I don’t think you’ll find too many supporters for. Certainly not here. Since the 2004 election, I’ve taken an increasingly dim view of the American people as a narcisstic, ignorant and bigoted people whose cruelty is matched only by their cowardice. The idea of living under a dictatorship of such evil makes my blood run cold with terror.
Every discussion of applied ethics must begin with a mutual agreement on which theory of ethics is to be used, since each theory will lead to divergent results. Nothing can be gained unless we first agree to one test. What you’re saying is exactly the opposite of all applied ethics.
No, they won’t. No philosopher will tell you that. If they do, then they know even less about philosophy than I know about quantum mechanics. It has been said that all of Western philosophy is a footnote to Aristotle, but that’s because everyone keeps disagreeing with him.
Right, which is why the “Harm principle” is just one part of an ethical theory. Michael is not citing any “Harm principle,” he’s using the Lockesian argument that the only limit to one person’s rights are the extent of another person’s rights. That is, you’re free to do anything you like, right up until “what you like” impinges on my right to do the same. Thus, killing is not wrong because it does harm; it’s wrong because it impedes the other’s right to live. In the case of eating, as animals, we do not provide our own nutrition. For us to live, something must die. Same goes for all other animals. Now it is no longer simply a morbid desire to kill; now it is a requirement for sustaining life.
I prefer consequentialist ethics. Killing is wrong because it diminishes diversity more than it adds. It adds no diversity, it only diminishes. Eating, however, sustains diversity, unlike simple killing. Ergo, eating is good, and simple killing is bad.
I was always clear to say the vast majority of human cultures, not the vast majority of humans. As i mentioned previously, the fact that our culture is also severely dysfunctional with endemic overpopulation that has left it careening towards completely breakdown does not make it a moral exemplar. It is still just one culture among many. If we want to make any claim for its peculiarity, it must be that it is unstable, untested, and unsustainable–none of which speak well for it, or its beliefs.
Looking to our population for cultural guidelines because of our population is not unlike looking to the morbidly obese for tips on healthy living, because they have so many more cells they’re keeping alive than a slim, fit athlete.
Just an aside, pointing out what Jesus said in Matthew 7:1: “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” The Etoro are very interesting, because their behavior gives us such willies. Yet, if homosexuality is “wrong,” how is it that they were able to live far more ethically than we, until we came along and changed all that? It doesn’t prove anything, but it’s interesting to point out along the way that, as much as we like to damn everyone who isn’t like us, we remain the single most evil, murderous culture to ever exist. We have a plank in our own eye, as we go about damning others for their specks.
Not until you come up with an argument that it’s immoral. So far you have two logical fallacies. You have bald assertion which you’re saying is true simply because, supposedly, a god said so. That’s the second fallacy–argument from authority.
Tangentially, I thought I might mention one of my favorite stories from the Talmud, in Baba Mezia 59b. I don’t have the exact verses handy, so I’ll paraphrase. Some rabbis are debating, and G-d performs a miracle to show that one side is correct. The other rabbi replies, saying that his argument is based on the Torah, and if the Jews are to go off believing every miracle that G-d performs, then they are not being faithful to their vow to follow the Torah given at Sinai. G-d admits that he has been defeated, and declares the rabbi the victor. G-d is very proud of his children that day, because they managed to outsmart him.
Isn’t every parent proud of his children on the day they’re able to stand up on their own? Don’t you think G-d would be proud of us, being able to think and choose for ourselves? Would you be particularly pleased with your own children if they remained in your house into their 30s and 40s, slavishly obeying all the rules you gave them when they were 3 or 4? Or would you prefer them to one day find their own way?
To quote Galileo, I do not think the same G-d who gave us will and reason meant us to forego their use.
That’s insane. The deifnition of a Gentile is a non-Hebrew. That’s like saying, “First you claim that clowns are not non-clowns. Many people do not subscribe to this belief.”
Ehhh, no, it was written to Hebrews. That’s why it’s called Hebrews, that why it’s all about what it means to be a Hebrew Christian.
I won’t ask for the verse, I know what you’re referring to. He makes the argument several times.
Unfortunately, I reject Paul in toto. So, if you accept Paul, then you accept being subject to the Torah. Except, Paul also made the argument (in the Letter to the Galatians) that we are not subject to the Torah anymore, despite Jesus saying the opposite. Ohhh, so is the Torah in play or not? Can we cherry-pick which parts apply, and which don’t? If homosexuality is wrong, what about bacon cheeseburgers and cotton/nylon shirts?
By the way, your clearest evidence against homosexuality in the Bible comes from Paul, not Leviticus. Though now I understand that the Greek word he used refers specifically to temple prostitutes common in the Roman world … so once again, it’s not about some loving, long-term homosexual relationship, it’s referring to some bizarre, pagan sex ritual.
No we weren’t. Our rights at the time of the country’s founding were no more liberal than France’s or Britain’s. It was nearly identical to the British government, just sans monarch. This was the era of King George III, when the modern parliament was emerging. We were on the forefront of the Enlightenment, I’ll give you that, but we weren’t any further ahead than anyone else. That’s just nationalistic propaganda.
My own ancestors were often slaves. I respect those few founding fathers who fought against slavery. Well, father. Pretty much just TJ, really. I don’t hate white people as white people; I am, myself, white. I hate our culture. It’s sick, perverse, evil, and has done more harm and brought more suffering upon the world than, well, anything. Ever. But I don’t hate white people. They’re the ones who were being victimized by this sick culture before anyone else.
As far as slavery and the rest goes, the U.S. has always been the very last to adopt every bit of new freedom. We were the second-to-last country in the Western world to abolish slavery. We were among the last to give women the right to vote. In terms of rights and liberties, we have always been backwards. Here, again, we will be one of the last to recognize homosexuals as full human beings, living up to our grand tradition of always bringing up the rear guard in the march of freedom, as the guardian of backwards, hateful bigotry and oppression, and a friend to miltiaristic dictators the world over.
Neither does the Bible mention computers or flush toilets. Are they “wrong” as well?
Unfortunately, I have no doubt that your side–despite its moral, philosophical, empirical and logical bankruptcy–will prevail. Because American cruelty is matched only by cowardice. We have always been at the forefront of tyranny, oppression, and backwards, bigoted theocracy cloaked in a self-important mythology of “freedom.” I have no doubt that you’re correct, that we will never recognize homosexuals as human beings. I have no doubt we’ll continue to hunt, torture and kill them because of people making arguments like yours.
Truth does not matter to tyrants, and the majority of this nation that hungers for the blood of the innocent doesn’t give a damn about truth. How can you stop that, when all you have on your side is truth?
You’ve given no reasons at all. Give one, and i’ll consider it. You’ve grasped at a lot of straws, but still nothing.
Damn skippy. And any G-d worth obeying or worshipping would be damn proud of me for standing up for what’s right, even when he can strike me with lightning. And if he’s as evil and tyrannical as to support what you’re suggesting, then I’ll be proud to sign on with the legions of hell to war against such a vile tyrant. Good is good, and evil is evil, regardless of whether or not the cause is doomed.
If the price of doing what’s right is damnation, then let me be damned. Let salvation come to those too cowardly to stand for what is right when the price is too high. Let all your eternities in paradise haunt you with the memory of when you failed to do the good, and remember that prince of hell who stood when you faltered, and remained true to the truth when you slavishly clung to your heinous lies.
Yet, you want to destroy it. I agree, the great thing about the U.S. is that we can all have our different opinions, and you don’t have to live my way, and I don’t have to live yours.
But you’re trying to make me live your way….
That’s the problem.
Firstly, you haven’t thought a bit on your own. You have believed every piece of deceit and filth that you’ve been spoon-fed by Christian fundamentalists and homophobes. There’s no original thought in your words. You’re just parroting some of the most ridiculous, evil rhetoric this side of Mein Kampf.
And there are plenty of people we disagree with, and we don’t treat them like this. The harm you do is the murder, and the suicide, of all those poor young people you’ve victimized with your irresponsbile, hateful rhetoric.
People die for your opinion, every day. That’s why we hate you.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 August 2005 @ 4:46 PM
Damn, J… good show! I was gonna jump in, but I’m obviously not needed.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 22 August 2005 @ 5:54 PM
Marriage really isn’t just about procreation. In the words of Jeff Foxworthy, “You don’t get married to have sex. Getting married to have sex is like buying a 747 for the peanuts. Well, if all you want is peanuts there’s a lot more cost efficient ways to get them.”
Comment by Mike Godesky — 23 August 2005 @ 9:08 AM
Somebody was watching Comedy Central last night
Comment by Janene — 23 August 2005 @ 10:07 AM
:p
Comedy Central shows that one pretty much EVERY night.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 23 August 2005 @ 10:36 AM