[Vision2020] Homosexuality

[Michael]

Thanks, Joe.

 

Joe Writes:

(By the way, I put "homosexuality" in quotes because many members of the gay
and lesbian community regard the term as offensive. Nonetheless,
"homosexuality" is much easier to write .

 

Me:

I appreciate your willingness to stick with my chosen language. I wasn't
sure what was best, but I was thinking it was good to talk about the
(possible) misconduct of men since I'm one.

 

Joe:

1/ I'm sorry for the tone of last letter, Michael. After my sister, Linda,
died of breast cancer, I soon discovered that she had lived her entire life
as a closeted lesbian. Linda had breast cancer for a full year without
telling anyone, and it is hard for me to separate the silence of her sexual
life from the silence of the illness from which she eventually died 

 

Me:

I'm sorry to hear about Linda.  My mother in law died recently because of
unchecked breast cancer. I don't remember anything wrong with your tone, but
thanks for your sensitivity. 

 

 

Joe:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Note that this
is not a secular view; it is a religious view about morality. I would argue
that it is a Christian view of morality but we can talk about that at some
other time.

 

Me:

Some do argue that this is a Christian view, but I'd have to think it is a
Christian view that has been somewhat secularized.  Deism, 'enlightenment'
categories, and the like, would seem to play a role in this choice of
language. Note that this statement does not give us any ground for
determining where our 'rights' begin and end, or what the precise moral
grounding even is.  Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of happiness are just given
as important examples here; note the language "among these." What does it
mean to be created equal, and how is an unalienable right endowed by a
generic Creator? And what of the epistemological issue: Dan Barker (Wilson
debate) was confident that a baby has rights once it received a social
security number.  Until then, butcher the thing if you want. Do we have the
ability to determine where our rights begin or end? Ok, God gives people
rights; but, ummm, errr, that baby there isn't a person yet, so kill it.
Reasonable argument to me actually; assume that secularists have the ability
to determine the boundaries of human rights, and you get wonderfully valid
arguments, but valid arguments that have tyranny and slaughter waiting at
the end of a few more successful deductions.  The French Revolution should
be enough history on this point.  However, we do agree completely that this
is a religious view about morality and not a purely secular view.

 

Joe:

Because of the connection between rights and morality, I find it difficult
to understand supposed moral wrongs (e.g. "homosexuality") that are
unconnected with the violation of some particular human right. And I find it
equally difficult to understand how one could support the violation of some
human right (e.g. slavery) by appeal to some supposedly "higher"

standard.

 

Me:

I would think that a higher standard is crucial if we are to support the
violation of some human right.  I don't think we have a higher standard that
supports slavery (generally speaking), but I do think we have a higher
standard that supports locking people up for crimes.  Banging down someone's
door, putting them in cuffs, and hauling them away to a dungeon cell would
seem to require some sort of justification; by what authority could a group
of people do this to another person?  We have to have a higher standard
above the collective majority or the few in power to raise this up beyond
anything other than brute non-justified power; if there is no higher
standard, we are no different than a pack of beasts using utilitarian
calculus to keep our own greed, adultery, pride, and cruelty off the radar
screen. But I'm not sure we actually disagree here--so perhaps some of that
is for the other readers.   

 

Joe:

Not higher than God, of course. Nothing is higher than God. But perhaps God
has chosen to manifest morality by endowing certain creatures with a
particular nature, a nature such that they are worthy of a certain set of
rights. I would begin the discussion of the wrongness of "homosexuality"

with this question: Why on earth would you think that it is wrong? We can
talk about his in more detail later.

 

Me:

I agree that God endows creatures with a moral nature; we have a conscience,
an ability to determine and sense right from wrong, good from evil, and a
moral dignity that allows us to receive real moral praise or real moral
judgment. But this is given and sustained by God; if God is removed from the
picture, all of these other things no longer make any sense; we no longer
have any ground for them. I have dignity as a man in virtue of the fact that
I am Created in God's image; but remove God's image from the world picture,
and then you no longer have man's in-His-image.  Dignity is automatically
erased; slavery is a perfect example of the attempt to erase the image of
God from our view of certain people. Assuming a Darwinian universe would
make slavery seem very consistent with the nature of reality; and this is
partly because Darwinianism, by itself, erases the image of God from man.  I
think my note back to Keely explained a bit about how it is we might think
homosexuality is wrong: recall the first issue of design plan, the nature of
the goodness of Creation. 

 

I should perhaps note however, that a redemptive focus on homosexuality
understands it more in terms of a perversion of creation than it does the
more simple terms of 'wrong doing.' Joan and I are against bestiality for
similar reasons I would think; I doubt Joan is worried about the wrong done
to a donkey when a man gets on with it. But it is 'wrong.' Why is that? It
is a perversion of something holy.  It is to make ugly that which is
supposed to be beautiful.  It is objectively aesthetically grotesque. There
is not ultimately a separation from creational perversion and wrong doing,
but I think there are important nuances between the two.

 

Joe:

3/ I would have a lot more respect for the religious concervative view of
sexuality if folks promoting the view would be clearer that it ultimately
casts a very wide net. Why not speak out, for instance, passionately about
the evils of masturbation? Why withhold the right to marriage from same-sex
couples yet allow couples like my wife and I, who are either unable or
unwilling to have children, to partake in this right? The failure to do this
makes the religious conservative seem like a bit of a bully. He condemns the
"homosexuals" because they are few in number and because their history of
persecution makes them less likely to speak out.

(Not that all are silenced!) Why use the term "homosexuality" at all, when
really what you find immoral are sexual relations done in this way (fill-in
the blank).

 

Me:

Well, I don't really want to be left defending a "religious conservative
view."  We live in a time when there is a prominent voice of Religious Right
which seems more like a political activist group trying to maintain a Leave
It To Beaver world (which is a pretty cool place, but.) than it is an
embassy for the Kingdom of Heaven.  On this issue of ethics and morality,
the options before us become very interesting.  Christianity is not a
theory, or an answer to an ethical dilemma, or a system of morality.  It is
not something to be put in the same category as utilitarianism or whatever
other theory of ethics is out there. The Christian Faith is a experiential,
doctrinal, and liturgical communion with a world of creation and recreation,
death and resurrection, eternal judgment and eternal glory. It is a
relationship with the eternal Trinity; it is a process of being renewed into
the very image of the Son. But this does not mean that Christianity does not
therefore address things spoken about in ethics class; it does, and it does
so far more successfully and far more profoundly than any current
reductionistic ethical theory. I think there are answers to all the
questions you raise here.

 

Thanks for your thoughtful reply Joe,

Michel Metzler 

 

 

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