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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Thanks, Joe.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>(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 …<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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 <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>“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, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Liberty</st1:City></st1:place>
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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Liberty</st1:City></st1:place>, 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 (<st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Wilson</st1:City></st1:place> 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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>standard.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>with this question: Why on earth would you think that it is wrong? We
can talk about his in more detail later.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joe:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>(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).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Thanks for your thoughtful reply Joe,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michel Metzler <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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