Homosexuality, immoral, un-natural, or just misunderstood?

[IndieC]

Quote by: SuperChief You are, of course, correct, IndieC, but the generally accepted standard of the Christian faith, would you agree is that homosexual behavior is immoral.

No, i would say it is against God, not immoral. In the end, homosexuals behave in the same way as we do, go by the same morals, but are just attracted to the opposite sex...

[Harpist4u]

Homosexuality is immoral, but in the Bible we must hate the sin and love their sinner. Some of my friends are homosexual even if I disagree with their sexual preference. It is their life and as long as it doesn't affect mine I really don't care about their preference. I just don't think homosexuals should make a mockery of the Bible by getting married in the church or by a rreligious leader. Homosexuals should be accepted into churches because Christians must not judge but if they try to get married in the church then it is a mockery of the Church and the Bible's teachings.

[IndieC]

Again, the marriage bit i agree with, but i will not call homosexuamity itself immoral, and i do not understand people who do...

[Harpist4u]

I guess I feel like it is immoral because that is how I have been raised. I have been raised not to agree with their sexual preferences but not hate them or discriminate against them. Also I base my beliefs on the Bible and what it says. That is why I think it is immoral. It all depends on how you are raised and your religious or lack of religious beliefs.

[CJFreeman]

The following is a response my wife and I put together for a debate at another site. Have fun!

Summary of Kitten’s points:

1. People fear homosexuality.

2. Historically, people have feared what they don’t understand, hence God was invented to explain and assuage human fears (such as homosexuality).

3. Pleasure is not a sin, even if derived from homosexual intercourse.

4. Pleasure and love are different. Love entails caring and includes pleasure. Pleasure doesn’t necessarily entail caring, and is engaged in simply for its own end.

5. Homosexuality is not on level with other unlawful acts like murder.

6. Homosexuality is not harmful.

7. People have the right to love as they see fit in the privacy of their bedrooms.

8. Humans are not the only species to exhibit homosexual inclinations; animals display the same leanings.

9. God does not punish good people. People punish good people.

10. Some homosexuals have no problems with commitment, and stay together longer than some heterosexual couples.

11. No one has the right to impose religious beliefs on others.

12. No one should hate another.

13. Faith should not be the only informing factor in an argument against homosexuality.

14. People should think for themselves using the logic that God gave them.

15. Anybody repeating the “words [God] gave to others” is an automaton, of less intelligence than a free-thinker (such as Kitten), and thereby, incapable of being reasoned with.

16. “Being programmed by someone else is far different that writing the program yourself.”


Responses to Kitten’s Points:

1. People fear homosexuality. Yes, in many cases people do fear homosexuality. However, disagreeing with homosexuality is not the same thing as fearing it. Phobias are not polarized opinions. Believing a thing wrong is not at all the same thing as fearing that thing.

2. Historically, people have feared what they don’t understand, hence God was invented to explain and assuage human fears (such as homosexuality). This is true of mythology (e.g., Volcano gods), and Freudian psychology. It has no direct bearing, however, on the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality.

3. Pleasure is not a sin, even if derived from homosexual intercourse. Pleasure is not a sin, agreed. However, pleasure is an end, the event sought after, if you will; it is not a means. Homosexuality is a means to the ends of pleasure, and the ends do not necessarily justify the means. The utility of homo-erotic intercourse is not a sound moral justification for the pleasure it may bring.

4. Pleasure and love are different. Love entails caring and includes pleasure. Pleasure doesn’t necessarily entail caring, and is engaged in simply for its own end. Agreed. Still, this does nothing to advance the morality of homosexuality. In fact, it calls it into question: if one is willing to engage in non-normative, erotic practices simply because it’s an option, then the issue of “right or wrong,” concerning homosexuality becomes a bagatelle. And since this article exists, along with myriad other articles and books, we can clearly see that the former point does not reflect reality, and so, the differences between “pleasure and love,” are merely thoughtful reflections along a rabbit trail.

5. Homosexuality is not on level with other unlawful acts like murder. True. It’s not unlawful anymore. Still, this point was a misinterpretation of my example of a person not needing to experience the “giving or receiving” of murder in order to know it is disagreeable. In no way was I saying that homosexuality is equivalent, or on par with murder. Moreover, if the morality of an act is determined by the amount of harm it inflicts, then how are we to judge such issues as “active euthanasia,” or, “just wars”? Things get pretty mixed up at this point if we apply the logic of deliberate harm as a means of measuring the morality of an action.

6. Homosexuality is not harmful. A moot point, to be sure. There is no denying that homosexual intercourse does have biological consequences. These consequences beg the question of the morality of homosexuality, and we are left with the same mix-up as in #5. That is, the degree of harm done through homosexual interactions is a very unstable platform to be gauging its morality.

7. People have the right to love as they see fit in the privacy of their bedrooms. Acting on a right does not necessarily make the act right. Moral rightness or wrongness does not change with location. Enforcing the right does become more difficult when the wrong is done in seclusion. Also, the ability to enforce right, or not, does not determine whether something is right or wrong. So saying, doing something in the privacy of a bedroom is not a logical standpoint for the moral justification of homosexuality. To wit, a simple Reductio Ad Absurdum and the whole argument goes out the window, as it were. Rights are not morals, they're civic allowances. So saying, different people can practice the same rights while holding to different morals. If that's the case, then arguments in favour of homosexuality, based on the right to practise same-sex relationships, are entirely immobile. Nothing has been said beyond, "I have a right to because I have a right to."

8. Humans are not the only species to exhibit homosexual inclinations; animals display the same leanings. Yes, animals do display some behaviours that, by their appearance, validate to those who believe human beings to be animals as well, the behaviours of homosexuality. A dog, for example, will hump another of the same kind. It will also hump any of the various, available objects within its reach. The problem here is that animals act out of instinct, and are incapable of higher reasoning. Presumably, human beings can formally distinguish between legs, basketballs, and men or women. If the argument were “since dogs can hump basketballs, humans should be allowed to hump basketballs,” then it may have some merit. Happily, animals do not determine normative behaviour for human beings. Thank God! I do.

9. God does not punish good people. People punish good people. What is a good person? And what god is being spoken of here? If it is the Christian God, then the issue has nothing to do with goodness, but with belief or disbelief. Those who disbelieve in Christ as the Son of God who was raised from the dead, despite how altruistic they may be, will be punished. Good minus God equals nothing. Simple. As for people punishing people, what does that have to do with the issue of homosexuality? Are homosexuals suddenly to be esteemed as martyrs and saints? It would seem that any punishment that arises from a sinful lifestyle would be punishment brought upon oneself by oneself. God has already set out the consequences for sin, so doing what effects the punishment, and then receiving the due penalty, is not the fault of people who denounce homosexuality.

10. Some homosexuals have no problems with commitment, and stay together longer than some heterosexual couples. Some apples stay red longer than other apples. Some homosexual couples stay together longer than some heterosexual couples. So? What’s the point? This is an issue of definitions and pragmatics. Commitment is defined by the O.E.D. as “engagement or involvement that restricts freedom of action.” So, commitment is a matter of whatever parameters one wishes to put in place within a relationship, and then deciding to act within those parameters. This, again, has nothing to do with homosexuality. It also does not lend any strength to homosexual relationships to suggest that they are committed. It’s a tautology: the people involved commit to live within the parameters to which they have committed to live. This is the same in all human relationships, whether proper, or improper.

[CJFreeman]

Continued...

11. No one has the right to impose religious beliefs on others. You are right. No one has the right, nor the ability to impose (in the most literal sense) one’s religious beliefs on others. But one does have the right to espouse and eschew certain points of view, and to observe religious precepts, and to voice them, even. Others, by extension, have the right to not listen; and there seems to be a lot of that happening these days. Besides, the one who believes that no one has the right to impose religious beliefs on others seems to be perfectly free to endorse and solicit this belief. Ironic, hey?

12. No one should hate another. Yep.

13. Faith should not be the only informing factor in an argument against homosexuality. To those faithless few, and to those who regard faith as a simple tool, or a hobby, faith cannot be the informing factor. Goes without saying, really. However, those same few, in fair turn, cannot use logic as their only informing factor. Now what? Get it? The point is, one cannot divorce his/herself from those domains germane to his/her being. We don’t develop in a vacuum. We’re all informed by something, and very often more than one thing. The trick is to line stuff up so it’s consistent.

14. People should think for themselves using the logic that God gave them. “With all respect to free-thinkers, I am still free to think” (G.K. Chesterton). Still, Kitten's point #14 needs some explaining because it appears to stand out in direct opposition to point #2. If it is true that people invented God, then they've given themselves the logic they use to trap themselves. So what happens then to this whole idea of free-thinking? It becomes a useless, contrived category on par with imagined gods, and equally limited. Not to mention, some people still fear homosexuality regarless of the plethora of available invented "gods." Shall we suggest they are incapable of imagining? Enough said.

15. Anybody repeating the “words [God] gave to others” is an automaton, of less intelligence than a free-thinker (such as Kitten), and thereby, incapable of being reasoned with. Really, a person of greater intelligence should be capable of explaining something in a way that a less apt thinker could understand, don’t you think? And a person who quotes, or cites an authority is not ipso facto incapable of being reasoned with, but rather someone who has reasoned well-enough to properly apply quotations, and cite authorities within the confines (ahem!) of a well-constructed argument. Repetition is not synonymous with automation; nor is consistency and order. These are the marks of a liberated mind. Moreover, if the right to sexual preferences suggests intellectual capability, then we're all equally intelligent because we all have sexual preferences and the right to practice them.

16. “Being programmed by someone else is far different that writing the program yourself.” Agreed. It is far different, isn’t it? It’s why I reject popular culture and its notions of relative morality. Why do you subscribe to them?

Christopher & Sarah Freeman (Here's to multi-sourcing!)