Is it objectively meaningful and functionally correct to class Same Sex Attraction as a genuine form of human Sexuality?

[John21652]

The gays are the shock troops of the sexual revolution, whose aim is to undermine the sexual morality that underlies the marriages laws. They hope to establish the dogma that reproduction is a moral evil, that humans are not subject to biologicalk laws.

You mean like fetal hormones altering the development of the brain?

I think RobbyS probably meant something like this -

Lesbian couple want to help boy become girl.

That article tells us -

A LESBIAN couple in California who say their 11-year-old son Tommy wants to be a girl named Tammy are giving their child hormone blockers that delay the onset of puberty, so that he can have more time to decide if he wants to change his gender.

One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that children model the behaviour of their parents. Now here we have a boy, parented by two lesbians, who supposedly needs time to make up his mind about whether he wants to be a boy or a girl and are going to use drugs to control the situation until he makes up his mind. Isn’t that a little weird, considering mother nature has worked quite well for millions of years in helping us to decide what we are?

A professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, Dr Paul McHugh, got it right when he said -

“This is child abuse. It’s like performing liposuction on an anorexic child,”.

You don’t really need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the truth of that statement either.

This is where the so called “equality” that gays sought is leading us. It is an issue that is far wider than the simple issue of gays wanting to be left alone and to be not discriminated against. They wish to normalise their perversion and this is now leading to messing with kids minds, all because they want to play mummy’s and daddies like normal people.

 

[Elizabeth502]

John, this article, called “Designed for Sex…”

www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-06-022-f

…which is also featured and being discussed on a current thread in Moral Theology (see especially Post #5, recently added) eloquently addresses points that you have raised when human nature denies our nature – part of which is innate gender. I hope you will bear with me, as I have condensed the article to focus on the thread topic, because it does relate, and does relate to what you just posted. Biology, and specifically, heterosexuality, has an objectively meaningful function in terms of the integrity of social institutions. When individuals or groups try to pervert nature by subjectively redefining it, mental, emotional, physical, and social ills result which affect all of us. (It can never be true that someone else’s “homosexual marriage/unit/union” does not affect “my” marriage/family, because societies are built on the collective character of such units – be those units healthy, dysfunctional, imbalanced, abusive, unnatural, etc.)

The human design is the meaning of the ancient expression “human nature.” Some ways of living comport with our design. Others don’t.

Flouting the Design
From a natural-law perspective, the problem with twenty-first-century Western sexuality is that it flouts the basic principles of the human sexual design. …
Now if we are going to be serious about the human sexual design, then we have to attend to its purpose. If it has more than one purpose, then these purposes have to harmonize. The first question to ask about our sexual design, then, is, “What is its purpose, or purposes? What is it for?” I’ll answer that question in a moment. Before I can do so, I have to take time out to deal with two inevitable objections to natural law.
The first objection is that it is rubbish to talk about natural purposes, because we merely imagine them; the purposes of things aren’t natural; they are merely in the eye of the beholder. But is this true? Take the lungs, for example. When we say that their purpose is to oxygenate the blood, are we just making that up? Of course not. The purpose of oxygenation isn’t in the eye of the beholder; it’s in the design of the lungs themselves. There is no reason for us to have lungs apart from it.
Suppose a young man is more interested in using his lungs to get high by sniffing glue. What would you think of me if I said, “That’s interesting—I guess the purpose of my lungs is to oxygenate my blood, but the purpose of his lungs is to get high”? You’d think me a fool, and rightly so. The purpose of the lungs is built into the design of the lungs. He doesn’t change that purpose by sniffing glue; he only violates it.
We can ascertain the purposes of the other features of our design in the same way. The purpose of the eyes is to see, the purpose of the heart is to pump blood, the purpose of the thumb is to oppose the fingers so as to grasp, the purpose of the capacity for anger is to protect endangered goods, and so on. If we can ascertain the purpose of all those other powers, there is no reason to think that we cannot ascertain the purpose or purposes of the sexual powers too.
The second objection is that it doesn’t make any difference even if we can ascertain the purpose or purposes of the sexual powers, because an is does not imply an ought. This currently unquestioned dogma, too, is false. If the purpose of eyes is to see, then eyes that see well are good eyes, and eyes that see poorly are poor ones. Given their purpose, this is what it means for eyes to be good.
Moreover, good is to be pursued; the appropriateness of pursuing it is what it means for anything to be good. Therefore, the appropriate thing to do with poor eyes is to try to turn them into good ones. If it really were impossible to derive an ought from the is of the human design, then the practice of medicine would make no sense. Neither would the practice of health education…

What Is Sex For?
If it weren’t for the birds and bees stuff, then it would be mighty hard to understand why we have sexual powers at all. Even a Darwinist must concede the point.
Besides procreation, two other purposes are also commonly proposed as the inbuilt purpose of the sexual powers, so let’s consider each one. The first suggestion is that the purpose of the sexual powers is pleasure. That their exercise is pleasurable can hardly be doubted, but to call pleasure their purpose does not follow and is deeply misleading…Although pleasure accompanies the exercise of every voluntary power, not just sex, it is never the purpose of the power. It only provides a motive for using it—and a dangerous motive, too, which may often be in conflict with the purpose and steer us wrong.

cont’d…

 

[Elizabeth502]

Unitive IntimacyThe other common suggestion is that the purpose of the sexual powers is union: the production of an intimate bond between the partners. This is a much more interesting suggestion, but only half-true. What I mean is that it makes an intriguing point, but that it is not correctly put.
Here’s what’s intriguing about it. We aren’t designed like guppies, who cooperate only for a moment. For us, procreation requires an enduring partnership between two beings, the man and the woman, who are different but in complementary ways. But this implies that union isn’t a different purpose, independent of procreation; rather, it arises in the context of procreation and characterizes the way we procreate.
A parent of each sex is necessary to make the child, to raise the child, and to teach the child. To make him, both are needed because the female provides the egg, the male fertilizes it, and the female incubates the resulting zygote. To raise him, both are needed because the male is better designed for protection, the female for nurture. To teach him, both are needed because he needs a model of his own sex, a model of the other, and a model of the relationship between them. Mom and Dad are jointly irreplaceable. Their partnership in procreation continues even after the kids are grown, because then they are needed to help them establish their own new families…
The longing for unitive intimacy is at the center of our design…Unitive intimacy is more than intense sexual desire leading to pleasurable intercourse. The sexes are designed to complement each other. Short of a divine provision for people called to celibacy, there is something missing in the man, which must be provided by the woman, and something missing in the woman, which must be provided by the man. By themselves, each one is incomplete; to be whole, they must be united.
We can say even more about this gift, because the union of the spouses’ bodies has a more-than-bodily significance; the body emblematizes the person, and the joining of bodies emblematizes the joining of the persons. It is a symbol that participates in, and duplicates the pattern of, the very thing that it symbolizes; one-flesh unity is the body’s language for one-life unity.
In the case of every other biological function, only one body is required to do the job. A person can digest food by himself, using no other stomach but his own; he can see by himself, using no other eyes but his own; he can walk by himself, using no other legs but his own; and so on with each of the other powers and their corresponding organs. Each of us can perform every vital function by himself, except one. The single exception is procreation.
If we were speaking of respiration, it would be as though the man had the diaphragm, the woman the lungs, and they had to come together to take a single breath. If we were speaking of circulation, it would be as though the man had the right atrium and ventricle, the woman the left atrium and ventricle, and they had to come together to make a single beat.
Now, it isn’t like that with the respiratory or circulatory powers, but that is precisely how it is with the procreative powers. The union of complementary opposites is the only possible realization of their procreative potential; unless they come together as “one flesh”—as a single organism, though with two personalities—procreation doesn’t occur.

Sexual Landscape
Why do I spend time on these matters? I do so in order to emphasize the tightness with which different strands are woven together by our sexual design.
Mutual and total self-giving, strong feelings of attachment, intense pleasure, and the procreation of new life are linked by human nature in a single complex of purpose. If it is true that they are linked by human nature, then if we try to split them apart, we split ourselves. Failure to grasp this fact is more ruinous to our lives, and more difficult to correct, than any amount of ignorance about genital warts. It ought to be taught, but it isn’t.
The problem is that we don’t want to believe that these things are really joined; we don’t want the package deal that they represent. We want to transcend our own nature, like gods. We want to pick and choose among the elements of our sexual design, enjoying just the pieces that we want and not the others. Some people pick and choose one element, others pick and choose another, but they share the illusion that they can pick and choose.
Sometimes such picking and choosing is called “having it all.” Having it all is precisely what it isn’t. A more apt description would be refusing it all, insisting on having only a part, and in the end, not even having that.
To destroy the unitive meaning of the procreative act is to turn it into a different kind of act. It’s no longer procreation, but production; the child is no longer an expression of his parents’ love, but a product. In fact, he has no parents. He was orphaned before his conception. His relation to his caretaker is that of a thing bought and paid for to the one who bought and paid for it.
Feelings of union are no substitute for union; their purpose is to encourage the reality of which they are merely a foretaste. The procreative and unitive meanings of sexuality are joined by nature; they cannot be severed without distorting or diminishing them both.

The author’s overarching point in the entirety of the article (as I say, I condensed it) is that what we have described as “progress” or [sexual] “revolution,” has produced profound unhappiness. He includes in this so-called “liberation” all of the sexual ills: heterosexual promiscuity and shallow sexual experiences, the move from reproduction to Production, the profound dissatisfaction of non-unitive heterosexual and homosexual sex, etc. )

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

I think RobbyS probably meant something like this -

Lesbian couple want to help boy become girl.

That article tells us -
One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that children model the behaviour of their parents. Now here we have a boy, parented by two lesbians, who supposedly needs time to make up his mind about whether he wants to be a boy or a girl and are going to use drugs to control the situation until he makes up his mind. Isn’t that a little weird, considering mother nature has worked quite well for millions of years in helping us to decide what we are?

A professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, Dr Paul McHugh, got it right when he said -
You don’t really need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the truth of that statement either.

This is where the so called “equality” that gays sought is leading us. It is an issue that is far wider than the simple issue of gays wanting to be left alone and to be not discriminated against. They wish to normalise their perversion and this is now leading to messing with kids minds, all because they want to play mummy’s and daddies like normal people.

That appears to be a case of a child with severe gender disassociative disorder that has only been made worse by a complete absence of a father figure. If this child actually had a father he’d probably just end up gay

Elizabeth, that article seems to position celibacy lower than marriage even though really it is the inverse.

 

[Sair]

Which is exactly the reason why I used this little icon :banghead:

Uh-huh. Another unsupported assumption of rational superiority…

Oh, that opinion/theory has been floating around for quite a while now. Firstly, it reeks of abnogating responsibility and blaming someone else for the problems of gays. Secondly, why should the vast majority of people have to wrestle with a great change in moral and social structure changes just to accomodate the 1-3% of the population who are claiming victimhood? First they wanted to be left alone and not abused, bullied, or villified. Fair enough, said society. However, that wasn’t enough for the hard core gay lobby. They next wanted something more and that was to have their minority behaviour normalized and so then came the demand to be able to marry and even preach their lifestyle as a normal alternative. .

Actually, it places the blame where it belongs - upon those who assume they have a reason to condemn homosexual behaviour and fail to back it up with anything other than superficial prejudice. After all, why should the vast majority of people make any effort to accept any minority? Since there, but for circumstances, go they…

Who am I? Well, I am a member of the human race and a member of the 97% who aren’t homosexual, so on those two facts alone, I have every right to condemn homosexuals claiming the same rights as the rest of us enjoy.

You have every reason for prejudice, but no rational reason for condemnation of those who are different in one respect but the same in most others. Those who have empathy, compassion and a sense of social responsibility should not be condemned by those who differ from them in sexual orientation, especially when the latter are perfectly willing to accept those whose sexual orientation apparently absolves them from empathy, compassion and social responsibility.

Who are you, or anyone else for that matter, to say someone, or anyone, has the ‘right’ to condemn children to being brought up by same sex couples?

I have more right to acknowledge good parental couples who happen to be of the same sex than you do to condemn children to be brought up by heterosexual parents who abuse them. How does the biological status of any heterosexual parents privilege their actions, no matter their nature, over and above the actions of loving, caring, nurturing, responsible homosexual parents/guardians? You need to start looking at facts over superficial appearances…

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Uh-huh. Another unsupported assumption of rational superiority…

You have every reason for prejudice, but no rational reason for condemnation of those who are different in one respect but the same in most others.

As a (sorry) pantheist, you have no rational objective reason to morally condemn anybody, and yet here you are morally condemning Christians for their beliefs, dictating what rights people have, as if what you say has any meaningful significance to the truth of the matter. You look delusional. You seem to be claiming to be an expert on a morality which does not exist for you. Given that you lack knowledge of objective moral truth, i fail to see why we should think that you are more morally superior than your opponent.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Who am I? Well, I am a member of the human race and a member of the 97% who aren’t homosexual, so on those two facts alone, I have every right to condemn homosexuals claiming the same rights as the rest of us enjoy.

Not for being only a 3rd of the population you don’t. I am sorry, but thats an unreasonable argument.

 

[Sair]

As a (sorry) pantheist, you have no rational objective reason to morally condemn anybody, and yet here you are morally condemning Christians for their beliefs, dictating what rights people have, as if what you say has any meaningful significance to the truth of the matter. You look delusional. You seem to be claiming to be an expert on a morality which does not exist for you. Given that you lack knowledge of objective moral truth, i fail to see why we should think that you are more morally superior than your opponent.

Leaving aside your derogatory and presumptuous judgement of my being a ‘sorry’ pantheist, for the time being…

Firstly, I have not laid claim, at any stage, to moral ‘superiority’ to anyone.

What I have done is questioned the basis upon which theistic believers construct their concept of morality.

How do you imagine that morality exists without subjectivity? If we are blank slates, free of interests and preferences, independent of the observable natural web of cause-and-effect relationships, what basis could we ever have for making any moral decision whatsoever?

Secondly, what do you assume to be ‘objective’ morality? That which is subject to the whims of a being necessarily outside the interplay of cause and effect? Is immorality merely that which derails the story arc of the ultimate author?

What you are doing here, yet again, is rehashing the oft-debunked trope of human morality having an extra-human source. You assume that homosexual behaviour does some kind of harm on a level indiscernible to actual humans. Sure, you can go on to list the harms done by homosexual interaction in terms of emotional trauma or sexually transmitted disease, but I can just as confidently assure you that such harms are far from exclusive to homosexual behaviour. If you find homosexuality distasteful, you are entitled to your opinion and within your rights to dissociate yourself from people with homosexual tendencies. You do not have the right to dictate how they live and express their desires, when it is far easier for you to accept or ignore their behaviour than it is for them to change their very nature for what appears to be nothing more than your aesthetic satisfaction.

If anyone is assuming moral superiority here, it is not I - it is those who assume they have unique and privileged insight into the will of some divine being to whose existence they are most fortunate to be privy.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Firstly, I have not laid claim, at any stage, to moral ‘superiority’ to anyone.

Are you not telling Christians that they are wrong for not wanting their children to be taught that its okay to be gay?

What I have done is questioned the basis upon which theistic believers construct their concept of morality.

And i question yours.

How do you imagine that morality exists without subjectivity?

Moral truth exists with out human subjectivity, but i am not going to waste my time explaining it to somebody who doesn’t want to learn.

If we are blank slates, free of interests and preferences, independent of the observable natural web of cause-and-effect relationships, what basis could we ever have for making any moral decision whatsoever?

You certainly don’t have any rational basis for objective moral truth

Secondly, what do you assume to be ‘objective’ morality?

What do you assume it to be?

That which is subject to the whims of a being necessarily outside the interplay of cause and effect? Is immorality merely that which derails the story arc of the ultimate author?

Is that what Catholics have been saying?

What you are doing here, yet again, is rehashing the oft-debunked trope of human morality

What you are doing is rehashing the fantasy that you have debunked it.

You assume that homosexual behavior does some kind of harm on a level indiscernible to actual humans.

I don’t assume anything. I have demonstrated my position rationally. SSA is evidently a disorder, and has been rationally demonstrated as such. Basically, all you have given us in return is a rant about how it hurts the feelings of the people you support.

Sure, you can go on to list the harms done by homosexual interaction in terms of emotional trauma or sexually transmitted disease.

I don’t really subscribe to those kinds of arguments since they are besides the point. If all heterosexuals had a std that would not prove that heterosexuality is a disorder. It would merely point out that the kind of sexual activities they engage in is not healthy.

If anyone is assuming moral superiority here, it is not I - it is those who assume they have unique and privileged insight into the will of some divine being to whose existence they are most fortunate to be privy.

We are fortunate. But deep down, all rational people know that its truly wrong to rape children; and i think that most rational people also know that same sex attraction is a disorder of humanities true nature and the purpose of human sexuality. The ones that don’t are either brainwashed, or fear confrontation and thus follow the crowd, or they lack reason. Some people just don’t want to admit it because they don’t want to let God put one foot in the door.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

You do not have the right to dictate how they live and express their desires

There you go again telling us what we can’t do. According to you there are no true rights. Good is merely relative. Therefore those who are strongest, or have the greatest influence on those with power, get to dictate what they would like to be right. Your reasons for supporting homosexuality has nothing to do with moral truth, and everything to do with taste.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Leaving aside your derogatory and presumptuous judgement of my being a ‘sorry’ pantheist, for the time being…

Is it wrong to say derogatory things sair? If the word derogatory does not mean something that is truly wrong, then why bring it up and accuse me of it? You are not being reasonable.

Anyway, you have misjudged what i meant. I described you as an Atheist instead of pantheist. I then realized that i had made a mistake and therefore felt changing it would be the right thing to do. But i thought that you might have seen the mistake anyway, and so i corrected it with the addition of “sorry” in brackets.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Elizabeth, that article seems to position celibacy lower than marriage even though really it is the inverse.

The article mentions celibacy as a spiritually purposeful exception (related to consecration). It does not state that celibacy is “lower” than traditional marriage & procreation.

 

[Benadam]

The author’s overarching point in the entirety of the article (as I say, I condensed it) is that what we have described as “progress” or [sexual] “revolution,” has produced profound unhappiness. He includes in this so-called “liberation” all of the sexual ills: heterosexual promiscuity and shallow sexual experiences, the move from reproduction to Production, the profound dissatisfaction of non-unitive heterosexual and homosexual sex, etc. )

I think he describes well the modern trend towards turning human life into a crop to harvest.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Sair,

Sorry I am late in joining … i’ve been reading a lot of the post in an effort to catch up… and your post definitely caught my attention… Allow me to make a comment or two…

Uh-huh. Another unsupported assumption of rational superiority…
Actually, it places the blame where it belongs - upon those who assume they have a reason to condemn homosexual behaviour and fail to back it up with anything other than superficial prejudice. After all, why should the vast majority of people make any effort to accept any minority? Since there, but for circumstances, go they…

Actually, I think the poster hit the nail squarely on the head, Sair.

Accepting minority beliefs, opinions or behaviors is not an automatic given in any society. One really has to see where it is we are going with a particular view. For example, there are people who have a psychiatric diagnosis of Personality Disorder… and to the best of my knowledge, they represent a real numeric miniority in society. These people are, by definition, mentally ill - and have a general tendence to emotional instability, poor judgment and violence so that they can easily be a danger to themsselves and to others.

Notwithstanding this mental health issue - these people demonstrate the range of IQ scores, and for the more intelligent, to go and get advanced academic degrees. They are also quite good at making an intellectual arugument and advancing their point. A classic example is Ted Bundy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy - a guy who knew the difference between right and wrong but did not let that stand in his way of expressing himself in violence and murder. i mention this because society as a whole, rejects the behaviors of those with Personality Disorders, and does not try to advance their agenda for the simple reason that such behaviors are against the basic nature of humanity and society. And, that is the take-home message: where does anyone really think they are going or going to wind up with homosexuality.[/FONT

You have every reason for prejudice, but no rational reason for condemnation of those who are different in one respect but the same in most others.

This is truly a profoundly misleading generalization in a desperate effort to support this totally unsupportable position. It leads nowhere - at least nowhere healthy.
Sair;8480981:

Those who have empathy, compassion and a sense of social responsibility should not be condemned by those who differ from them in sexual orientation, especially when the latter are perfectly willing to accept those whose sexual orientation apparently absolves them from empathy, compassion and social responsibility.

The logical flaw in this argument is the assumption that those with empathy, compassion and social responsibility can not differ from the position you have put forwad - but, this is far from the case. Trying to wedge basic and decent human emotions into vice for the purpose of distortion is hardly a nobel intellectual activity.

I have more right to acknowledge good parental couples who happen to be of the same sex than you do to condemn children to be brought up by heterosexual parents who abuse them.

You may be interested in knowing that ‘rights’ can not be quantified (“I have MORE right…”) like so many apples and grapes in a bowl. Additonally, every ‘right’ is really paired with a corresponding ‘responsibility’. The unsubstantiated generalization you offer is hardly proof of anything. Child abuse is not appropriate for any one at any time. Males and females not only look different - they ARE different - they look at virtually evey reality just a little bit differently and the reason for this is that, commonly speaking, they are ‘hard-wired’ that way. As we are seeing from the publicized lesbian case and their adopted male child now wanting to be female - tremendous violence has been inflicted by these two females on this minor.
.

How does the biological status of any heterosexual parents privilege their actions, no matter their nature, over and above the actions of loving, caring, nurturing, responsible homosexual parents/guardians? You need to start looking at facts over superficial appearances…

Quite simply, because THEY ARE the parents - one person’s sperm unitied with another person’s egg and a truly unique person was conceived. This is something naturally denied to two males or two females trying out sodomy as a recreational activity. This is hardly a ‘superficial appearance’ - the basic biology can be traced back to the parents - something that actually IS this person. Any form of simulation at this reality is the real superficial appearance - and a truly tragic one to be pitied rather than scorned.

God bless

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Sair,

I think you have made several unproveable assumptions here … let me point a few out…

What I have done is questioned the basis upon which theistic believers construct their concept of morality.

Now, Sair, i am sure you know that hedonism has been tried over and over and yes, over again - and it really fails badly every time. The more who try the faster the decline of the civilization involved. We really are more than the sum of various lusts. And, yes, this is strictly Natural Law that is written in the hearts of all - not just ‘theistic believers’.

How do you imagine that morality exists without subjectivity? If we are blank slates, free of interests and preferences,

The annoying problem with this approach is that we are NOT 'blank slates, free of interstes and preferences…" Such an argument may make sense to someone trying to defend their lust for another - but, if there was someone sneaks up and removes your wallet or iPhone or lap top - one would expect to hear, “Hey! That’s mine! And, you can’t take my stuff!!” The ‘lifter’ (don’t want to disparage his personhood by calling him a 'theif; ) may say, 'Oh, no, Sir - you see morality is subjective - and, I just need your stuff. Thank you very much." How does this ‘subjectivity’ vs ‘objectivity’ argument of your stand now, Sair?

You assume that homosexual behaviour does some kind of harm on a level indiscernible to actual humans.

Actually, Sair, it is you who are making the unfound assumption here - that you can act as you will, sodomize whomever or whatever, and think you are immune from consequences. While sexually transmitted diseases are not limited to homosexuals - there are other (and actually much worse) conditions to consider. Prior to 1973, homosexuality was identified as a mental disorder - and one that can be both recognized and a course of treatment initiated. After 1973 the APA simply wrote it out of their category of diseases - like writing alcoholism, or schizophrenia out of existence is really going to do something - except ignore the problem.

Here is a quote you may be interested in: “In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) declared that homosexuality was not a disease simply by changing the 81-word definition of sexual deviance in its own reference manual. It was a change that attracted a lot of attention at the time, but the story of what led up to that change is one that we hear today, from reporter Alix Spiegel. Part one of Alix’s story details the activities of a closeted group of gay psychiatrists within the APA who met in secret and called themselves the GAYPA…and another, even more secret group of gay psychiatrists among the political echelons of the APA.” And, the link: thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-words

The age old problem of treating people as objects leaves profound scars on the psyche and one that ultimately destroys the person. it is more than ironic that Oscal Wilde wrote the “Picture of Dorian Grey” - but, it unfolds multiple truths on what path the real destruction of the psyche takes. There are no immediate lab tests for this - so, the casual view is that there are no consequences - but, just think about it: what in life is without consequences (either for good or evil)? Virtue is simply the habit of doing good, while vice is the habit of doing evil - they do not determine the acts - but the more you lean to one side or the other the more you are inclined to follow that course. Just look around - there SIMPLY IS NOT GAY SOCIETY that has been in existence for any length of time. Yes there is a long and complex history of homosexuality throughout the world - but, they have ALWAYS been the minority - the abnormals amongst the normals. And the reason for this is that they can not shoulder the responsibilities of a real society. Like a paracite, they can only life off of the work of others who build a society - with the citizens of the next generation.

If you find homosexuality distasteful, you are entitled to your opinion and within your rights to dissociate yourself from people with homosexual tendencies. You do not have the right to dictate how they live and express their desires, when it is far easier for you to accept or ignore their behaviour than it is for them to change their very nature for what appears to be nothing more than your aesthetic satisfaction.

This is another half-baked idea that is presented as wonderous enlightenment - but, when fully examined it is found to be quite wanting. We are not talking about something like an art preference, like those who would argue abour Monet or Degas - it really isn’t a matter of taste… any more than your wallet, or iPhone or lap top are matter of discussion as I remove them from your property inventory sheet - to mine! This means that there really is objective morality - and one can honestly say that homosexuality is “objectively disordered” This means that there is nothing you can do to make it ‘ordered’ just like there is nothing that can be done to make my taking your property, morally acceptable.

Those who argue that stealing your property is evil are not ‘morally superior’ - if you just think about it as you hold on to your property - you will just consider them to correct.

God bless

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Hi, Sair,

I think you have made several unproveable assumptions here … let me point a few out…

Now, Sair, i am sure you know that hedonism has been tried over and over and yes, over again - and it really fails badly every time. The more who try the faster the decline of the civilization involved. We really are more than the sum of various lusts. And, yes, this is strictly Natural Law that is written in the hearts of all - not just ‘theistic believers’.

The annoying problem with this approach is that we are NOT 'blank slates, free of interstes and preferences…" Such an argument may make sense to someone trying to defend their lust for another - but, if there was someone sneaks up and removes your wallet or iPhone or lap top - one would expect to hear, “Hey! That’s mine! And, you can’t take my stuff!!” The ‘lifter’ (don’t want to disparage his personhood by calling him a 'theif; ) may say, 'Oh, no, Sir - you see morality is subjective - and, I just need your stuff. Thank you very much." How does this ‘subjectivity’ vs ‘objectivity’ argument of your stand now, Sair?

Actually, Sair, it is you who are making the unfound assumption here - that you can act as you will, sodomize whomever or whatever, and think you are immune from consequences. While sexually transmitted diseases are not limited to homosexuals - there are other (and actually much worse) conditions to consider. Prior to 1973, homosexuality was identified as a mental disorder - and one that can be both recognized and a course of treatment initiated. After 1973 the APA simply wrote it out of their category of diseases - like writing alcoholism, or schizophrenia out of existence is really going to do something - except ignore the problem.

Here is a quote you may be interested in: “In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) declared that homosexuality was not a disease simply by changing the 81-word definition of sexual deviance in its own reference manual. It was a change that attracted a lot of attention at the time, but the story of what led up to that change is one that we hear today, from reporter Alix Spiegel. Part one of Alix’s story details the activities of a closeted group of gay psychiatrists within the APA who met in secret and called themselves the GAYPA…and another, even more secret group of gay psychiatrists among the political echelons of the APA.” And, the link: thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-words

The age old problem of treating people as objects leaves profound scars on the psyche and one that ultimately destroys the person. it is more than ironic that Oscal Wilde wrote the “Picture of Dorian Grey” - but, it unfolds multiple truths on what path the real destruction of the psyche takes. There are no immediate lab tests for this - so, the casual view is that there are no consequences - but, just think about it: what in life is without consequences (either for good or evil)? Virtue is simply the habit of doing good, while vice is the habit of doing evil - they do not determine the acts - but the more you lean to one side or the other the more you are inclined to follow that course. Just look around - there SIMPLY IS NOT GAY SOCIETY that has been in existence for any length of time. Yes there is a long and complex history of homosexuality throughout the world - but, they have ALWAYS been the minority - the abnormals amongst the normals. And the reason for this is that they can not shoulder the responsibilities of a real society. Like a paracite, they can only life off of the work of others who build a society - with the citizens of the next generation.

This is another half-baked idea that is presented as wonderous enlightenment - but, when fully examined it is found to be quite wanting. We are not talking about something like an art preference, like those who would argue abour Monet or Degas - it really isn’t a matter of taste… any more than your wallet, or iPhone or lap top are matter of discussion as I remove them from your property inventory sheet - to mine! This means that there really is objective morality - and one can honestly say that homosexuality is “objectively disordered” This means that there is nothing you can do to make it ‘ordered’ just like there is nothing that can be done to make my taking your property, morally acceptable.

Those who argue that stealing your property is evil are not ‘morally superior’ - if you just think about it as you hold on to your property - you will just consider them to correct.

God bless

I can use that argument against celibates because they do not provide society with future generations.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Dakota,

Of course you can!

And, those who are celibate for selfish and self-centered reasons may just well fall into your categorization. By the way, celibacy is simply a renunciation of marriage. I was really addressing chastity as a virtue we are all to observe (Matt 19). Those reading the NT find that those who are unchaste in thought and/or deed - both in the married and the unmarried state - are not judged well. Christ clearly defined marriage as being between one man and one woman (Mark 10:4-9). Any other arrangement violates God’s Plan

God bless

I can use that argument against celibates because they do not provide society with future generations.

 

[Sair]

Is it wrong to say derogatory things sair? If the word derogatory does not mean something that is truly wrong, then why bring it up and accuse me of it? You are not being reasonable.

Anyway, you have misjudged what i meant. I described you as an Atheist instead of pantheist. I then realized that i had made a mistake and therefore felt changing it would be the right thing to do. But i thought that you might have seen the mistake anyway, and so i corrected it with the addition of “sorry” in brackets.

Firstly, my apologies for misinterpreting your opening comment in a critical light. I could attempt to brush it off by saying it was late and I was tired when I wrote my response (both of which are true) but it was an error in judgement nonetheless and I acknowledge it as such.

To build on the comments about whether it is ‘truly’ wrong to say derogatory things - no, I don’t believe that in your sense of ‘truly’ wrong, it is so; and it must be said that some derogatory comments are indeed warranted by circumstances. However, unwarranted derogatory comments run counter to the deeply ingrained (yet still subjective) human values of truthfulness and fairness.

And that’s the whole point - we have values precisely because we are subjective beings. I don’t claim moral superiority over those who insist they have objective justifications for their subjective attitudes - I just think their judgement in certain cases is incorrect or misguided. That doesn’t make me a better person - just one who understands things differently, in light of different information and experience.

The condemnation of homosexuality levelled in this thread is based on the idea that there is an objective purpose to human sexuality, that there are ‘correct’ uses of sexuality that fulfil the intentions of the being presumed to have created humans, and ‘incorrect’ uses that do not fulfil this intention.

I do not believe there is any extrahuman purpose or design involved in sexuality. That is not to say that sex does not have objective, scientifically discernible functions - but human sexuality, as I’ve already pointed out on this thread and elsewhere, functions on a range of levels, not all of them directly involved in reproduction. Therefore I believe it is incorrect to dismiss homosexuality as counter to ‘the’ function of sexuality (much less its cosmic or eternal ‘purpose’). The very fact that it has persisted, evolutionarily speaking, and obtains in the behaviour of other animals besides ourselves, indicates that it is on some level useful to the survival prospects of any species in which it manifests.

This is why I think that many people - though probably not all - who claim homosexuality violates some overarching purpose of sexuality do so because they have a different balance of values than those who accept homosexuality as another facet of human variation - a balance that privileges cut-and-dried rules and traditions (and the subjective fondness such people have for them) over other aspects of human experience and relationships.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Hi, Dakota,

Of course you can!

And, those who are celibate for selfish and self-centered reasons may just well fall into your categorization. By the way, celibacy is simply a renunciation of marriage. I was really addressing chastity as a virtue we are all to observe (Matt 19). Those reading the NT find that those who are unchaste in thought and/or deed - both in the married and the unmarried state - are not judged well. Christ clearly defined marriage as being between one man and one woman (Mark 10:4-9). Any other arrangement violates God’s Plan

God bless

What selfish and self centered reasons are there for celibacy? I’m referring to the Catholic concept of celibacy which includes chastity. I can fairly well slot in celibacy into what I bolded thus the argument needs to be revised.

 

[Sair]

Accepting minority beliefs, opinions or behaviors is not a given in any society. One really has to see where it is we are going with a particular view. For example, there are people who have a psychiatric diagnosis of Personality Disorder… and to the best of my knowledge, they represent a real numeric miniority in society. These people are, by definition, mentally ill - and can easily be a danger to themsselves and to others.

There are minority beliefs and behaviours that are not objectively harmful. Homosexuality is amongst these.

These people demonstrate the range of IQ scores, and for the more intelligent, to go and get advanced academic degrees. They are also quite good at making an intellectual arugument and advancing their point. A classic example is Ted Bundy - a guy who knew the difference between right and wrong but did not let that stand in his way of expressing himself in violence and murder. Society as a whole rejects the behaviors of those with Personality Disorders, and does not try to advance their agenda for the simple reason that such behaviors are against the basic nature of humanity and society. And, that is the take-home message: where does anyone really think they are going or going to wind up with homosexuality.

A primary characteristic of humans that allows society to function at any level, at all, is empathy. It’s one thing to intellectually understand why some things are considered wrong and why others are not - it’s quite another to feel that this is so, and to consider the feelings of others. This is where empathy comes into play, and where people like Ted Bundy, who was himself a victim of empathy-destroying abuse, deviate in destructive and thus intolerable ways from the rest of the human community. Homosexuality is not the same kind of thing at all - homosexual couples are perfectly capable of forming loving, nurturing, supportive and joyful relationships, and if you don’t see this as a good end in itself without being productive of offspring, that is a matter for you; it is not one that will carry weight with those who experience deep, romantic, sexual love for others of their own sex; nor, for that matter, with those of us who see nothing intrinsically wrong in a loving relationship of this kind. Again, it comes down to values - do you value love, generosity, compassion, shared experience and pleasure? Or do you privilege the reproductive function of sex over all its other functions?

The logical flaw in this argument is the assumption that those with empathy, compassion and social responsibility can not differ from the position you have put forwad - but, this is far from the case.

These are basic, decent human emotions that are shared amongst homosexual and heterosexual people alike; not amongst those who have no capacity for empathy or compassion, with whom you’ve just lumped homosexual people.

You may be interested in knowing that ‘rights’ can not be quantified like so many apples and grapes in a bowl.

Rights must be quantified, weighed in the balance when it comes to any moral calculus. Does your right to eat meat, for example, outweigh the right to life of any animal? Most people would say it does. Does one person’s right to express themselves outweigh another’s right to do the same, when there is no discernible harm involved? Those who condemn homosexuality would probably say it does.

Additonally, every ‘right’ is paired with a corresponding ‘responsibility’. The unsubstantiated generalization you offer is hardly proof of anything. Child abuse is not appropriate for any one at any time. Males and females not only look different - they ARE different. As we are seeing from the publicized lesbian case and their adopted male child now wanting to be female - tremendous violence has been inflicted by these two females on this minor.

There is more variation between individuals of the same sex than between the two sexes as a whole. I am not very familiar with the case you mention, but it’s one amongst many that have been studied. People seem very quick to blame the lesbian parents for their adopted son’s gender confusion, without acknowledging that many more children and young adults who experience the same had a ‘normal’ upbringing with heterosexual parents. I do not claim that homosexual parents are less capable of abusive behaviours than heterosexual parents, nor that there is a greater proportion of such behaviours in heterosexual couples than homosexual couples; what I object to is the assumption that homosexuals automatically make poor parents and guardians because of their gender, when it is more than apparent that some people just make poor parents, period.

Quite simply, because THEY ARE the parents - one person’s sperm unitied with another person’s egg and a truly unique person was conceived. This is something naturally denied to two males or two females trying out sodomy as a recreational activity.

A number of things to remark here. First, you obviously privilege biological parenthood over compassionate care; secondly, homosexual males do not ‘try out’ sodomy as a recreational activity - it is an expression of their innate proclivities; thirdly, homosexual females are not capable of unassisted sodomy. I don’t think homosexual parents are under any illusions that they are biologically capable of unassisted reproduction - I think they want to raise new humans, just as heterosexual parents do. There are plenty of unthinking heterosexual parents who abandon or neglect their offspring; are their biological capabilities to be valued over the caring capacity of those who cannot, themselves, produce offspring? If so, why?