I am always so torn when people make the argument that homosexuality is natural and therefore okay.
It relies on the naturalistic fallacy which I don't like, but it also shuts down people who make the argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore bad, which I do like.
Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
> Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
This is so important and so regularly gets ignored by people on all sides. Once, a long time ago, I was talking to a much-smarter-than-me gay friend about the gay marriage debate in the US, and I said that being gay wasn't a choice and that _therefore_ yada yada. He said the only thing that in hindsight ever really matters, though at the time I'd never heard anyone say it before. He said "So what if it were a choice? What exactly does that change? You can't choose who to spend your life with? You can't choose who to share resources with? You can't choose who gets to be your proxy? Why is choice not important?"
The motivation behind the "it's not a choice" argument is that society can't reasonably enforce a rule that people can't follow. For example you and I are against Down's syndrome, but we can't make any progress by telling people to stop having it. Your friend's argument would not work at all against people who are against homosexuality, because their answer to all of those questions would simply be "no." The "it's not a choice" argument only makes sense if you put yourself into the shoes of the other side and ask the question "given the resources I have, how could I conclude that gay marriage was acceptable?"
This is more or less correct, though the relevant scriptural passages put more shape and nuance on it.
As for why that should influence our votes for public policy, the reasoning goes that sin always brings trouble, death, and non-well-being to society, therefore influencing public policy away from sinful societal patterns and acts is one important way to love one’s neighbors, since it will result in greater well-being for them.
Right, people are talking about what's spiritually natural. Talking about what's biologically natural is just missing the point.
Also, why do you feel the Christian sacred texts doesn't really condemn homosexuality? I feel you have to do a lot of extra-textual analysis and theory-crafting to reach that perspective, so it's no surprise that Christians in general don't buy that idea.
It's been a while, but IIRC, the Bible only condemns homosexual sex specifically. The concepts of "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" are modern inventions. Many ancient cultures (such as the Greeks) saw no conflict between their ideals of what we would consider "straight" sexuality and homosexual relationships.
And... it also condemns masturbation, marrying foreigners, eating fish, letting menstruating women inside the city limits and mixing fabrics.
Someone living in Biblical times probably wouldn't have any concept of someone being "straight" or "gay," just of someone following cultural norms or violating cultural taboos. So to say the Bible condemns homosexuality is a misappropriation of the intent of the text outside of the cultural and temporal context to which it was intended to apply.
I don't normally do this, but I believe it's very relevant:
This comment you're reading has a dead sibling that pointed out the commonly-held Christian doctrine that some of the Bible's laws don't apply to modern Christians.
The commenter is absolutely correct, and here is a link from a famous and well-regarded theologian on the subject (R.C Sproul).
In summary, there are civil, ceremonial, and moral laws in the Old Testament. For example, "no murder" is a moral law, while dietary restrictions are a ceremonial law.
I'm not commenting on the validity or "correctness" of this doctrine, as I am not a theologian. I just think it's worth confirming that this is something a lot of Christians believe.
There's a NT-only argument against homosexuality that derives the prohibition from the general ban on adultery, combined with the definition of marriage as man + woman.
In general, NT has plenty of stuff that can be appropriated for fire-and-brimstone preaching. Most of it is Paul's, which is why some consider Pauline Christianity to be a mutilation of what was preached before.
Paul was a moralizing moron, and he only gets such top billing in NT (and TBH, even considered some sort of apostle at all [0]) because NT was compiled by fellow moralizing morons. Anyone who has done any critical reading in any other context has seen Paul in the proper light and already tuned him right out. Readings from any of Paul's 47 letters are naptime for me.
[0] never met Christ, so he had to pretend he had some sort of vision to get in the club... Jesus treated the money changers better than He would have treated Paul.
> it also condemns masturbation, marrying foreigners, eating fish, letting menstruating women inside the city limits and mixing fabrics.
There is a very convenient Christian doctrine where there are "three types of law in the Bible", which explains that some rules are meant for Israelites and some are meant for everyone (and you [or the church] basically get to guess which apply to you).
The Old Testament is there for context. It's not a matter of guessing or choosing, and the decision was made early on not to force non-hebrews to follow Old Testament law (meant specifically for Israelites) if they joined up.
It’s perhaps a digression, but where does the Bible condemn masturbation? The verses that are commonly-cited (at least in my experience, which is mostly among Protestants) are pretty clearly grasping at straws.
Could the argument be made that in the New Testament, it's not necessarily homosexual activity that is condemned, but rather it's the act of emasculating a man. The criticism against the Romans was that they were laying with men as they would woman, which at the time would mean to rob a man of something absolutely sacrosanct. 2000 years of history, and a lot of progress on the front of women's equality (probably not enough still), and it seems less of an issue for two consenting adults to engage in homosexual activity, whereas in Roman society, could a slave, or a man of lesser status truly consent to a homosexual relationship?
It always read to me that it was more about turning men into women than it was about actually performing homosexual acts.
When you say "homosexuality" do you mean homosexual proclivities, or homosexual acts? It's an important nuance.
Judiasm/Christianity/Islam teaches that humans have a proclivity to sin (fallen nature), but God commands them to not sin, i.e. to act ccontrary to their nature.
There is no theological contradiction (or least, not anymore than normal) between natural homosexuals and God forbidding homosexual acts.
EDIT: The actual consequence of natural homosexuality is a difference of understanding. Birth condition vs self-inflicted. "Crack baby" vs "crack head".
> But if that's true, homosexuality can't be a sin, because sin is always a choice.
Not if you believe in total depravity combined with unconditional election. Which just happens to be the cornerstone dogmas of one very popular Christian denomination.
> The motivation behind the "it's not a choice" argument is that society can't reasonably enforce a rule that people can't follow
I understand what you mean, but it doesn't seem to be the case. In regards to sexual preferences, for example, there are some that are, arguably, not a choice either, and still are considered absolutely forbidden.
> For example you and I are against Down's syndrome, but we can't make any progress by telling people to stop having it.
Nope, that would be ridiculous. But at the same time having Down's syndrome is not devoid of legal consequences. You'll probably be denied a driving license or the possibility to own guns, and you can argue as much as you want that your condition is perfectly natural and you didn't have a choice, it won't make any difference.
Having moved on from biblical interpretations, sexual preferences are usually considered absolutely forbidden if participants can't give informed adult consent. So - voyeurism, anything involving children and animals, and so on.
There doesn't seem to be much evidence that sexuality can be changed by conscious choice. So if your sexuality runs along those lines you're going to have a bad time, because you'll either have to repress your urges, or risk actions that damage others, possibly with criminal consequences.
The edge cases of this can become ridiculous - but still tragic. E.g. there are people who are primarily turned on by paving stones and/or drain covers.
It's not really obvious what "natural" means in this context. Is this imprinting? Genetics? Something else? There aren't any good answers. Criminal law does the best it can with them, but it's not clear that choice really applies, and criminal punishment is pointless and ineffective anyway - either as a deterrent or as rehabilitation.
The bigger moral question is maybe why some social groups seem obsessed with what they consider sexual deviance - including their beliefs about homosexuality - while apparently ignoring other moral and social questions.
What is the psychological process that turns homosexuality into a uniquely disturbing moral problem for them, while other hot-button issues - poverty, diet, government and corporate corruption, take your pick from a long list - are relatively uninteresting for them?
Sex is personal, visceral, and highly emotionally charged, while the other concerns you mentioned can easily stay abstract. There's no mystery there, people are just obsessed with sex. It's another side of the phenomenon by which any idea at all can be made into a sexual innuendo. It's where our mind goes.
This seems to be conceding ground that shouldn't be given, though. One of the underlying principles of liberal government is that the government needs to justify any and all restrictions placed on the people. The mirror image of this, is that people don't need any particular reason for doing something.
He argues for gay marriage and the right to an abortion substantially on the basis of limited government. The existing regulations are often substantially motivated by religion, which is contrary to the establishment clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...") -- and outside of these motivations the government has not proffered any credible reasons for regulation.
In short, there is no reason for the gay community to prove anything; the government has no reason for its regulations, or at best reasons proffered in bad faith.
With regards to Professor Bedi's over-arching philosophy, of focusing on reasons, I do have some reservations. In particular, I wonder how he proposes to limit government with only this focus. Just the same, in this case he argues clearly and well, that putting the onus on gay people to prove they deserve the right to marry is a strange place to start from, if we are starting from within a framework of limited government.
>The homosexual community has a strong distaste for bisexuals because their existence undermines the argument that no one chooses to be homosexual.
No they don't, and no it doesn't. Bisexuals aren't people who "choose" to be gay one minute and "choose" to be straight the next. Rather, they are attracted to both genders, just as homosexuals are attracted to the same gender, and heterosexuals are attracted to the opposite gender.
I think people are talking past each other when discussing "unnaturalness". Opponents of homosexuality often use the word "unnatural" in the sense of "not in humankind's nature". This is distinct from "unnatural" as "not occurring in nature".
The argument is more like "eating dirt is okay for earthworms, but it's unnatural for humans", so appeal to the behavior of other animals completely misses the point.
This is a profoundly metaphysical debate about the nature of a life well-lived and the nature of a healthy society. Whatever one thinks of it, that's the level on which it ought to be discussed.
It should be made clear that "unnaturalness", when used by opponents of homosexuality (and in many other debates of moralistic kind), is used in a question-begging way which carries no information at all and is nothing more than a shorthand for "I don't like it and I think it's bad". But, alas, it does sound like it has some meaning beyond that, which is why it's used in debates in a first place.
I think they're talking about spiritual aberration, and not merely what's biologically common for humans. By natural people mean a perspective rightness, as opposed to merely some notion of statistical frequency.
because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together
Why? This strikes me as a very shallow moral principle. As 'presscast notes it completely misses the point of the nature of a life well-lived.
Ironically, in practice it goes against human nature. Atomized society of people passing each other indifferently is certainly freer in some sense but it's also lonely and depressing for many of its members. It goes directly against our most basic needs for social belonging.
The modern emphasis on individualism is understandable as a reaction to the collectivism of the past. But as usual, we over-corrected. So now we're entering a period of reaction against individualism. We'll almost certainly over-correct again, but it won't be as severe. "Progress" is not a straight line, it's an attenuated wave.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights in at least one well-known country. Being able to bang who you want (assuming they feel the same way) presumably falls under the third?
>>because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together
>Why? This strikes me as a very shallow moral principle.
that is a circular argument as morals are the behaviors that society allows consenting adults to engage in.
Wrt. [un]naturality based arguments - there is nothing natural about humans using smartphones, flying in airplanes, etc. yet billions of people shamelessly engage in those unnatural activities everyday. We're way past natural... Why are we so hellbent about whether it is natural or unnatural of how some people enjoy each other company?
I think, however, general understanding that homosexuality is something a person is 'born with' -- had huge impact on policies and public debate around legalizing homosexual marriages.
Being born with it, rather than a choice -- meant that unfair treatment of homosexuals was morally equivalent to race/ethnic origin based prosecutions.
Therefore, civil rights accomplishments, and modern legal framework resulting from those -- would apply to homosexuals.
If 'being born with' would not have been recognized as scientific truth, then homosexual marriages would likely be treated the same as consenting adult polygamists.
I think this is one of reasons why non-binary people having hard time being recognized in same policy/morality structures as homosexual people.
> Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.
Having had the same sort of thought, I believe what I was reacting to was the feeling that this idea seemed just slightly too convenient to be the result of entirely open-ended inquiry.
But then again I have seen the terrible devastation that was brought upon some less fortunate friends when they realised they were gay: teenagers driven into isolation (and, once, suicide) by their former "friends"; beloved members of their respective communities and/or families having to start from scratch, just because those communities happened to be "conservative".
I'm having a hard time believing anybody would choose such suffering with anything approaching a sensible definition of the term "free choice".
It's also important to remember that "born that way" is mostly just the headline of a more complex story of how sexuality is understood, one that even progressive activists wouldn't oppose. This sees homo/hetero-sexuality not as a binary choice, but as a spectrum. There's a set point you're born with. Then there's an overlay of culture–just think how much more acceptable it is for women to kiss than it is for men. Finally, there is some wiggle room any individual may experience over the span of their lives, or even just the span of a day given the right intoxicating substances.
This doesn't contradict the idea of inborn sexual orientation, because (see above) cultural and experiential factors are almost definitely not able to overcome biology for many. But it may help to overcome any cognitive dissonance you feel.
>we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together
When does "by default" become "actually, no, that's bad and even consenting adults shouldn't do that"? If you want to take a strong position that there should be no such thing as a victimless crime, then that's coherent and valid - but if you want to hedge with "by default", I think you have to provide a stronger framework why this thing is okay and that thing isn't. You still have to say something pragmatic like "homosexuality has no documented negative social effects".
(Although personally, I do think that the very idea of a victimless crime is suspect - while some behaviors between consenting adults do have unambiguously negative consequences, criminalizing actions for their invisible second-order effects seems to often cause other, nastier second-order effects. But it's certainly up for debate - applying this rigorously would mean e.g. legalizing all drugs, which is a difficult sell.)
> I think you have to provide a stronger framework why this thing is okay and that thing isn't.
I don't think this is abstract ethical argument, but practical argument about policy. So we don't have to provide any stronger framework. Whoever wishes to argue that something is not OK has to provide detailed arguments backed by evidence about harm that is being produced and demonstrate that someone non-consenting is actually suffering from that harm (even if the effects are second-order). And the burden of proof needs to be significant.
Starting from "allowed by default" would already be a big improvement.
> applying this rigorously would mean e.g. legalizing all drugs, which is a difficult sell
Homosexuality was also a difficult sell. That doesn't mean anything.
Whoever wishes to argue that something is not OK has to provide detailed arguments backed by evidence about harm that is being produced and demonstrate that someone non-consenting is actually suffering from that harm (even if the effects are second-order). And the burden of proof needs to be significant.
Yes, this is what limited government is about. It makes policy makers accountable to the people, not the other way around.
Because the government can not really implement a ban per se, but rather a particular policy that hopefully eliminates the harm, policy makers actually have to make a case for something and not just against something. Otherwise, it's just the government proclaiming that the world would be better off without something. In which case, let us start with war, margarine and bad coffee.
I agree, but as a gay ex-Mormon, I have seen that educating people about the (mostly) biological origin of homosexuality is the most effective way to break through people’s dogmatic shields and make them start empathizing with gay people.
The danger of assigning a biological cause is that now with CRISPR there is the argument that we should find the site(s) responsible and edit them out in future embryos. Just accepting the result without assigning a cause doesn't have this problem.
Are you predicting that CRISPR will succeed at this odious task? Or that it won't? Because either way... that would seem to settle the question, wouldn't it?
I'm not predicting either way. Nobody really knows if human homosexuality is genetic, developmental, social, or a mixture of the three. I'm saying that if it is shown to be genetic, the idea that this will help acceptance is flawed.
I think it's bad, as it opens the door for the "valid" retort of ducks being necrophiliac. Is a fallacious argument the hill we want to die on? I'd rather just support the positives of a liberal approach.
It's easy to side-step that. If someone argues that homosexuality is wrong because it's unnatural just incorporate the retort into the counter-argument: there are gay giraffes and necrophiliac ducks, and, while we're at it, lots of species that eat their own young. Do you really think we should be modeling our behavior on what is "natural"?
This debate, like most political debates that touch on philosophy, is amazing but impossible to conduct with the general public. It's the kind of thing you can only discuss with people who are already open to question certain norms.
Right in another thread is an article about a pacemaker. Almost nothing in a car, let alone in any electronic device, is untouched by human invention and chemical/physical transformation. Tradition — what "natural" ultimately amounts to — is prologue, not fate.
> I am always so torn when people make the argument that homosexuality is natural and therefore okay.
I always thought that the argument was just for the sake of proving that this natural/unnatural thing is worthless. Homosexuality is natural and nonetheless someone opposes it on the grounds that it's not. Illnesses are natural but nobody is opposed to curing people.
Anyway, it's the old observation that conservatives tend to confuse the is with the ought to be- in other words, to argue that because something is natural or common then it is morally justified and should be enforced.
I've noticed what could be an exactly opposite tendency in liberals though, and I think it's interesting: confusing the ought to be with the is. It's not used as an argument, but it seems to inform some reasoning. For example:
(these are just some examples and I'm thinking out loud, so please don't crucify me)
- there shouldn't be any racial or sexual discriminations -> there are no differences whatsoever between ethnic groups and genders;
- gay couples should be allowed to raise children -> there is absolutely no difference between a heterosexual family and a homosexual family;
- there shouldn't be rich and poors -> money can be removed from society and everybody will be equal;
It's a great observation. I think the conservative tendency feeds the liberal tendency.
Take racial differences. If any politically problematic difference between races were to be found, then a liberal will be very inclined to suppress this. Why? Because if the conservatives ever got ahold of it, they'd go "aha! racism is justified!" and there wouldn't ever be an end to it - arguing that racism is immoral is a lot harder, pragmatically, than arguing that it's simply mistaken.
I wonder if there's feedback the other way, as well. I can't immediately see the mechanism but I suspect there is one. Perhaps seeing liberalism associated with a deranged sense of reality causes people to reject it wholesale...
Why? Indeed "unnatural=bad" is pointless, there are just so many "unnatural" things people do that are considered ok (btw the mere fact they do already suggests it's not unnatural, umans are a part of nature to and they are doing something without being forced). Even simple medication or agriculture or exercising can be considered "unnatural". Besides that why can homosexuality be considered bad? I'm straight but take it as a matter of taste, males just don't feel attractive to me. I can see no reason I could take seriously. If a significant percent of homosexual acts between healthy partners would result in serious diseases or trauma I would consider this as a clue but I haven't ever read about any evidence suggesting this.
Exactly, an appeal to nature is not needed. Humans could be the only species ever observed with homosexual traits and it wouldn't make a difference when it comes to matters of whether something is ok or not.
Neither of you are wrong, but given that this is a political issue as much as it is a [insert your favorite label here] issue, I think it's a mistake to pass up an opportunity to discredit the opposing side's fallacious arguments.
"Fact X exists, therefore it is useful as evidence in debate Y."
"Should" is inherently subjective. There is not, in either principle it practice, any evidence that can answer a "should" question without reference to an established "should" presupposition. Get used to it.
Overcoming our nature, in which life is famously solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, is sort of the defining feature of humanity. The sum of everything that is not nature is referred to as "culture". It includes democracy, Shakespeare, The Simpsons, and SpaceX.
The "naturalistic fallacy" is therefore a fallacy because it proofs too much: "nature" doesn't want us to go to the moon; it doesn't want us to vaccinate; it sees absolutely no point in rewriting a browser in Rust.
Wild humans were probably social. For comparison, Chimpanzee and Bonobos are social, they live in small groups. The next human relative is Gorilla, that are social too. Orangutans too. I don't know how far we must go to find a solitary relative of humans.
(Note that all of them have very different sexual behavior.)
> [nature] doesn't want us to vaccinate
I don't know a natural example in other animal, but I'd not be surprised if there are any. There were some trick to get a natural vaccination before there were good vaccines. Just wait until there is a year with a mild version, and try to get your kids infected, so the year with a strong version they will be already immunized. (Like a "chickenpox party" that is a very stupid idea now that there are good vaccines.) For example see the early methods to get smallpox immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation
It seems strange to me to see a discussion like this conducted in terms of only one principle.
For example, consider how would we know if someone consented to being killed? And how could a consent structure for it be abused? This is where we see it bump against another important principle, that we may not deprive another person of their life without due process of law.
I don't know why you got downvoted, that thing did happen and "consenting adults" was the murderer/cannibal's defense. Another counter-example I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned yet is incest.
"Between consenting adults" is a necessary but unsufficient condition.
It relies on the naturalistic fallacy which I don't like, but it also shuts down people who make the argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore bad, which I do like.
Ultimately, homosexuality in humans is fine not because it's natural, but because we should, by default, let consenting adults do what they want together.