The Tactful Christian Response to Homosexuality, Part IV

Sometimes I get passionate about topics and use invective to underscore what I see as irrationality.  I try to stay away from ad hominem attacks and insults of any kind – but I generally have no problem calling someone’s argument ridiculous if that’s what I think.  But that’s an attack on their argument, not them.  I think the difference is important.

So it does with this latest attempt by Christians to be “reasonable” in their labeling of homosexuality as a sin.  The main thrust of the proposition is 1) Homosexuality leads to psychological problems like drug use, domestic violence, and unhappy personal relationships, etc., and 2) Since this is risky, self-defeating behavior, it is a sin.

The first point is nothing but an a priori assumption.  The main indicators of things like drug use, domestic violence and unhappy personal relationships are socioeconomic.  They cut across gender, racial, and cultural lines – they certainly cut across sexual lines.

Of course, this point also assumes that being gay is a choice, like one might choose to date irresponsible jerks or alcoholics.  As if gay people should simply refrain from pursuing same-sex relationships because the Christians warn that it might be correlated with risk factors.  Is that supposed to make them lead happier, more successful, less-risky lives?  Repudiate who they’re sexually attracted to?  Ignore who they wish to share intimacy with?  Or are Christians going to hold the position that they’re all delusional, and their “true” sexual orientation just needs to be brought out?

The second point is best summed up in a quote from someone I’ve been arguing with: “Risky behavior which isn’t necessary for greater good is indeed a major category of sin.”

I think a statement like that is ludicrous.  Are people supposed to weigh every risk they take in their lives to see if it coincides with the goal of the “greater good”?  Choosing some dangerous careers aren’t necessary for a greater good.  Skydiving or climbing Mount Everest isn’t necessary for a greater good.  Driving on a busy freeway at rush hour isn’t necessary for a greater good.  Eating butter with your meal every day isn’t necessary for a greater good.  By this rationale, people who do these risky things (all of which are much riskier than being a homosexual) are sinning.  A couple hundred people die every year from fires caused by Christmas lights – am I reaching to call putting up Christmas lights a risk that isn’t necessary for the greater good?

Besides, how do you define the “greater good”?  Are we talking about what is best for society at large?  If so the only two tenents we need be concerned with are: Don’t Victimize Anyone and Be Productive.  That’s it.  Granted, it’s a generalization, but that’s all that’s required for a healthy, stable society.   As long as you’re following those two rules, you’re contributing to the “greater good.”  At the very least, you’re certainly not harming it.

The Tactful Christian Response to Homosexuality, Part III

Recently in a blog I read two more of the Christian justifications for why it’s reasonable – and not just the result of God’s command – to designate homosexuality a sin.

The first is a higher instance of drug use and domestic violence.  This blog tried to create a line of causation, stating that since these issues are symptomatic of “deep mental duress,” they are “an indication of the psychological problems caused by the choices under discussion.”  And this gives, “great weight to the American Psychiatric Association’s original stance on homosexuality as a mental disorder.”

First of all, the American Psychiatric Association reversed that original stance because science – unlike religious dogma – changes when new evidence is presented that suggests an opposing conclusion.

Secondly, drug use and domestic violence are not always symptomatic of anything other than personal choice.  When I was a kid, I was stoned every single day, yet I was never under any “mental duress.”  Poor people have astronomically higher instances of drug abuse and domestic violence.  is it because they’re all suffering from mental disorders?  Sure, why not?  If you play fast and loose with what it means to be under “mental duress,” everyone can use this excuse for everything they do.  No one would have to take responsibility for anything (much like some drug addicts, drunks, and child molesters who claim that they have a “disease” and thus don’t have any choice in the matter).

All gay people are not psychologically damaged.  And to state the obvious, all straight people are not psychologically ideal (whatever that even means).  If we want to discuss the “root causes” of social ills, they run a lot deeper than whether you’re attracted to boys or girls.  And further, if homosexuality is a mental disorder, what the hell is wrong with you Christians?  Are you so incredibly heartless as to designate a mentally handicapped person a sinner?  How can they be sinning if they’re mentally ill?   They have no choice in the matter, right?  They have a psychological disease.

My personal favorite is that homosexuality is bad because gay people can’t biologically reproduce.  This is no joke – this blog actually blamed declining birthrates across the world on homosexuality!  I’ve heard Christians blame secularism and women’s lib for declining birth rates, but this reaches new levels of absurdity.  Nations like Japan, Italy, and Russia (and several European countries) have abysmal birth rates, this is true.  But it’s not because more people are becoming gay; it’s because the heterosexuals aren’t having as many babies as they used to!  Look at the numbers: Family size is decreasing, and the age at which women have babies is increasing.  It is the straight people who have the problem here.  (On an interesting note, in ancient Greece and Rome homosexuality was far more tolerated and widespread than it is today, and yet they managed to increase their populations even while contending with much higher infant mortality rates.)

The blog summated with “Widespread homosexuality could end human history, but even moderate levels can damage the entrepreneurship, innovation, and capital investment associated with growing populations.”

I don’t know how to interpret this incredibly odd statement.  How do homosexuals damage entrepreneurship, innovation and capital investment?  Does being gay make you a Marxist?  And do Christians honestly fear that homosexuality is becoming “widespread”?  They need not.  The only thing that’s becoming widespread is tolerance, and some Christians are behind the curve.

The Tactful Christian Response to Homosexuality, Part II

I’ve said it before, it’s amusing when Christians try to use a reasonable explanation for designating homosexuality a sin.  Some are apparently not content with a simple “because the Bible says so.”  No, they try to use reason to justify their position – or perhaps justify God’s position and say, “See, He was right to proclaim homosexuality a sin!”

I recently read a blog that attempted to be more specific with the supposed causality links between homosexuality and social ills such as higher disease rates, more drug use, more domestic violence, etc.  Number one is the sodomy.  Anal sex puts the participants at a higher risk for infection than vaginal penetration, so this was cited as a reason for why homosexuality is immoral behavior.

Look at the argument this way: Anal sex is immoral because it’s high-risk.  Okay, fine.  But in this case, the immorality disappears if you eliminate (or at least significantly marginalize) the risk.  If the risk of disease is the problem, just get rid of that, and no more sin, right?

Good news for lesbians, then.  All you gay women out there – you’re okay in God’s book!  The same goes for gay men who prescreen each other for diseases before engaging in anal sex.  They’ve taken the risk out of the equation, haven’t they?  Wait a minute, this would also mean that the stars of gay male pornography aren’t sinning!  After all, they have rigorous health codes and check-ups for sexually transmitted diseases.

Additionally, there are plenty of staunchly straight women, even married moms, who engage in anal sex.  Even if the number of heterosexual women who have experimented with sodomy is as low as 5% (for example), we’re still talking about a few million women.  So the tally is this:  Studiously careful gay men, gay male pron stars, and lesbians are not sinning – but soccer moms who engage in anal sex with their husbands are.

As much fun as I’m having with this concept, I have to say that it’s beside the point.  Since when did risky personal behavior become a sin?  Is the amount of risk involved how God determines whether an act is a sin or not?  You know what’s really, reallyrisky?  Eating saturated fat.  Not exercising three times a week.  Driving while below the age of twenty-five.  Speeding.  Smoking.  These are all activities that put you at a huge amount of risk.  Certainly far more people die because of heart disease and auto crashes than because of STDs (contracted from anal sex or not).

So by this rationale – the same rationale that designates sodomy a sin – having butter with your dinner every evening should be a sin.  So should not doing twenty minutes of cardio, or applying for a driving license when you’re sixteen.  Have Christians now placed God in Big Brother’s shoes?  Is there a diet and workout plan hidden somewhere in biblical verse?

Excuse me if I chuckle at the idea of a God telling us that something is a sin because it might possibly be a little more risky than average, if you’re not careful.  God – and his followers – should stick to acts of victimization and stop nitpicking what people do with their private lives.

The Tactful Christian Response to Homosexuality

I don’t think disagreement with homosexuality is necessarily bigotry, but it’s always amusing to hear Christians give a “reasonable” justification for labeling it a sin.  It breaks down like this (taken from a blog I read): “Homosexuality is associated with higher levels of disease, shorter life spans, more substance abuse, more domestic violence, lower levels of monogamy, and an obvious impossibility of biological reproduction.  These things are bad for health, safety, good social structure, and the continuation of humanity.  Therefore, we rightly label homosexuality as a sin.”

Even assuming it’s true that the gay community contributes to those social ills more than the general population, the Christians often seem to forget the difference between causation and correlation.  Just because low stress is associated with a lower risk of cancer doesn’t mean that cutting your stress will cure cancer.  Likewise, even if we find that gay people are more prone to domestic violence, it doesn’t mean that being gay causes you to smack your partner around.  If you do that, it’s because you’re a violent bully and a general piece of shit.  Not because you’re gay.

Higher Levels of Disease: I will assume we mean STDs here.  This is absurd.  The cause of contracting an STD is unsafe sex with an infected person.  The gender of the infected person is irrelevant.  If this is a statement about anal sex being high-risk, then clarify it.  Because then it wouldn’t apply to gay women, but it would to straight women who engage in anal sex.

Shorter Life Spans:  Where is the line of causation?  Why does being gay shorten your life?  And even if it does, so what?  Soldiers and Alaskan crab fisherman are much more likely to die young than the general population.  Should it be a sin to pursue a dangerous career?

More Substance Abuse:  Rock stars are more likely to be substance abusers than average.  Should joining a Seattle grunge band be a sin?

Lower Levels of Monogamy: Causation, please.  How does who you’re attracted to affect your inclination to be monogamous?  And I find it ironic that Christians who decry a lack of monogamy among homosexuals also want to stop them from getting married!

Impossibility of Biological Reproduction:  This has to be a joke.  Now it’s a sin not to pass on your genes?  What about couples who decide not to have children?  What about nuns?  Is it a sin if I decide to marry a woman who can’t have kids, thus ensuring that I’ll never produce a biological child?

Again, I’m not calling Christians bigots.  But the argument “Homosexuality leads to immorality” is weak and arbitrary.  The line of causation is unclear or even ridiculous, if only because there are so many factors contributing to the social ills we’re talking about.  If simple correlation with immorality is sufficient to earn the “sin” designation, then Christians are going to have to vastly expand what behavior constitutes sin.

Why God is Ignorant of Love II

It’s humorous to me that many Christians who say that love is a gift that God grants to us, that this highest of emotional states can only come from a divine source, also say that homosexuality is a sin (or at least immoral).  The Bible literalists and fundamentalists even say that unrepentant homosexuals will end up burning in eternal torment.

What I want to know is this:  If love is so important to God, why does He define it by a person’s genetalia?  Why does He say that it only applies to heterosexuals?  Why does He place limits and regulations on it?  Why does He tell you who you can love and who you cannot?  God is said to value all forms of love: the love between a man and woman, brotherly love, neighborly love, the love of a child, the love of a parent, the love of strangers, the love of life, the love of virtue, the love of forgiveness, the love of God himself.  Why does he invalidate love between gay men and women?  Why is it that a homosexual is ostensibly capable and deserving of all of these types of love – except for one?

Isn’t this rather hypocritical of God?  Is the love that homosexuals experience not real?  Does it not live up to God’s standard of love?  What about platonic love between two friends of the same sex?  Why is that worthy to God, but suddenly unworthy if the two of them decide to express this feeling physically?  Does their love suddenly become false?  An illusion, a sickness, a trick they’ve played on themselves in search of comfort and companionship?

If not, why should God have a problem with it at all?  If so, why would God play such a cruel trick on them?

If a child grows up in a home with two loving, homosexual parents, would these Christians tell this child that what their parents feel for one another isn’t real?  If these parents are capable of expressing love toward their child, isn’t it fair to assume that they know something about their love for one another?  That they know something about love period?  And if gay men and women are capable of expressing and feeling love the same way a devout Christian married couple can, if they can reach that same level of commitment and trust, what exactly is wrong about the relationship? 

Is this what Christians think is moral to teach children, that love is conditional, that love is not for you to decide, that love becomes ugly and sinful if the arbiter of love doesn’t approve of who you choose to love?

Lesbians on The O’Reilly Factor

On The O’Reilly Factor the other night, I heard about a lesbian couple being kicked out of Safeco Field in Seattle for kissing.  In an interview, one of the women claimed that it was nothing inappropriate – apparently the two of them had been eating onion rings, so she said “the last thing we wanted to do was make out.”  But a woman who was nearby complained because she didn’t want her child to witness to horror of a same-sex kiss.

What country does this woman thinks she lives in?  From what I heard, it was simply a little smooching, like you might see between couples a dozen times a day in public.  Of course there are reasonable lines to be drawn about public displays of affection, but should it be drawn at kissing?  This has to be a joke.  We’re not living under the freaking Taliban.

Too often I hear these kinds of cases degenerate into the argument that “gay couples have the same right to show affection as heterosexual couples.”  This is obvious.  We all know it, and we all know that it’s an entirely moral position to hold.  Anyone who thinks a person should be afforded less rights because of their sexual orientation is a bigot and no longer worthy of the effort required to respond to them.  The real question is: Why should anyone care whether gay couples are kissing in public?

I have no gripe about how O’Reilly dealt with this story, other than how he pointed out that the gay woman had been “defiant” about her right to kiss her partner.  Good for her.  I’m glad she was defiant.  Who wouldn’t be?  Imagine if someone came up to you and told you to stop kissing your girlfriend or boyfriend in public.

I want to focus on the woman who complained.  It gets really tiresome to hear parents asking us to respect this position of theirs by using their kids as the excuse.  “My child shouldn’t have to see this, how can I explain this to my child, my child is too young to deal with this issue.”  These parents are starting to sound more like children themselves with their incessant whining.  In today’s culture, two human beings showing affection with a kiss is about the last thing we should be concerned about as a bad influence.

Hey, parents: Your kids aren’t morons.  They’ve seen people kiss before.  They’re going to see gay people kiss no matter what you do.  They’re capable of learning age-appropriate lessons about love, relationships, and sexuality.  And check this out:  They don’t care one bit about gay couples until someone else impresses upon them that it’s wrong.

That’s right – there would be no problem here whatsoever if parents would just try something “radical” like treating everyone the same.  Forget the bigots for a moment.  I say that even some tolerant parents need a wake-up call.  Stop telling your kids that gay people are “different but still have the same rights.”  Stop saying they need special treatment.  Stop making this an issue at all.  Why give homosexuals a special distinction?  Include them in the general lesson that all people deserve respect based on their character.  Impress upon your child the truth: that two women or two men kissing is no more wrong – and no more your business – than a man and a woman kissing.

If your kid sees two women kissing and asks why, try this.  Instead of ignoring the issue, instead of complaining, instead of getting into a discussion about gay rights, pretend that you’re confused.  Pretend that the question is no more relevant than asking why their aunt and uncle kiss, or why the sky is blue.  Simply say: “I don’t know, I guess because they feel like kissing each other.”  Stating the obvious can sometimes speak volumes.

Gay Marriage is Legal in California

Starting June, gay couples can get married in California.  Of course, the opponents of gay marriage are already out in force.  Their point is perfectly rational.  If gay marriage is legitimized, it will completely undermine heterosexual marriages and families, right?  Just imagine the horror of two gay married men moving in next door to a traditional family.  The husband who thought he was straight might see them kiss, get aroused, then decide to try it for himself.  The teenage sons are so impressionable, I’m sure they’ll be transformed into homosexuals in no time flat.  Within a generation, all the young men in America will be gay!  And all the women will want to become lesbians because they saw a celebrity like Ellen Degeneres get married to her girlfriend!

Okay, maybe I’m being ridiculous, but surely it’s at least harmful to the kids, right?  After all, it’s sucha sensitive issue.  Think how hard parents will have to work to explain the incredibly outrageous idea of love between two adults.  They might even have to find the words to express delicate notions such as, “They’re happy and they’re not hurting anyone,” and “Why should it be any of our business what they’re doing?”  Hell, they might even have to sit down and have a conversation with their kids about … civil rights and tolerance!  No good traditional parent should have to go through an ordeal like that.

Absurdities are more humorous when they’re close to the truth.  I’m so sick of hearing people in this country whine about how gay marriage is harming families.  Honestly, how exactly does allowing gay people to get married affect your family?  How could it possibly?  Why does it even matter, unless you force it to matter because of something objectively meaningless like tradition?

The opponents of gay marriage talk about how it should be up to the “the people” to decide.  Let them vote on it.  Why?  What makes you think you can legislate how others get to live their lives?  I don’t care how many such people vote.  I wouldn’t care if ninety-nine percent of the people in this country opposed gay marriage – just as I wouldn’t care if ninety-nine percent opposed women’s inheritance rights.  It’s awfully presumptive of them to think they can vote to alter someone else’s life just because they don’t agree with it.

I often hear things like, “If you’re for gay marriage, you should respect those who are against it and not call them bigots because they have a legitimate argument.”  Well, I’m not calling anyone a bigot, but I have no respect for that particular position.  I have only contempt for any position that seeks to control the lives and happiness of others.  I understand their point – I just think it’s foolish and pathetic.

I think it’s great that gay marriage was legalized in California, and I think it’s hilarious that opponents of gay marriage are on TV worried about Americans traveling to the state in droves to get married, then going back to their home state and pressing for the right there.  I don’t really care about whether marriage is a “right” guaranteed to all Americans, or what the courts decide, or what loopholes people slip through.  The question for me is not whether we should “allow” gay people to get married – this perpetrates the disgusting notion that they need someone’s permission.  The question for me is why anyone should even care.