[Vision2020] Homosexuality

[josephc at mail.wsu.edu]

Michael,

My comments follow your comments.

“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.”

So the Founding Fathers were not Christians? And, since this is the view
that I believe, I am not a Christian either?

“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.”

All of this is nonsense. The so-called “epistemological issue” crops up
with any moral system -- yours as well as mine. I would argue that Doug
Wilson’s insistence (and apparently yours) that slavery in the US was not
as bad as earlier reports is absurd. But just because he reasons to this
absurd view on the basis of his (supposedly) Christian views does not mean
that Christianity is a corrupt moral system. Similarly, I am not Dan
Barker. Nor do I have a purely secular view of human rights. The slope is
not as slippery as you suggest.

“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.”

Joan made this point but it is worth repeating. Donkeys cannot consent to
sex and that is why it is wrong to have sex with donkeys. Every instance
of human-animal sex is analogous to rape, I would argue. So there is an
explanation for why donkey-sex is wrong that cannot be used to support a
similar claim about “homosexuality.” Your overly generalized conclusion
does not follow.

“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.”

I agree with most of this. But I don't see any answer to my initial
questions: “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?”

Let me rephrase the questions in another way. Count up the number of
sexual acts that you find “objectively aesthetically grotesque.” Of these,
I would venture to guess, “homosexual” acts are a relative minority. (Some
conservatives say that the “homosexual” population is as little as 1-2%.)
So there are all these other sexual acts -- masturbation, oral sex, etc.
(I’ll save the details) -- that are left unaddressed. Why not address
them? Clearly they constitute a much greater moral problem. While you are
up on your high horse of condemnation, why not cast the moral net more
widely, and offend a larger class of individuals?

Until I can get some satisfactory answers to these questions, it is
difficult for me to interpret the attack on gays and lesbians as anything
other than the mean-spirited act of a cowardly bully. That it is done in
the supposed name of the Christian God offends me to no end.

Joe