Ethical Debate
I just was thinking of some arguments concerning homosexuality and morality, and felt like recording them (publicly).
Some thoughts and arguments
In address to those who argue against the morality of homosexuality:
It seems to me that the eternal debate has two dimensions. One, the debate over whether homosexuality is a choice or innate; the other, over whether it is moral or immoral. The second part of the debate seems the more important to address: if homosexuality is considered immoral, it doesn't matter whether it's a choice or innate. If it's a choice, then homosexuals should choose otherwise or be condemned; if it's innate, medicine should try to 'cure' it. So either way, if it IS wrong, something should be done about it. So for those willing to debat the issue, it makes most sense to consider the question of its morality first.
Now, there are two dimensions to the morality debate. One, the religious; two, the arreligious. If with the religious arguments homosexuality is proven wrong, then one still would require to accept the religion used to prove it wrong to suggest its will should be imposed, or homosexuals condemned. That's a whole nother can of worms; and I know I, for one, as well as many others, don't/will never ascribe to a religion that has such arguments. So religious debates are arbitrary in much the same way as the choice/innate debate is; any conclusions reached require the acceptance of further tenets in order to actually make hard conclusions.
So I'm writing about the arreligious arguments.
There are two (again!) dimensions to the arreligious arguments, as far as I can see. The first is that homosexuals are provable more harmful to society or themselves - either by increased rates of abuse etc. or the spread of disease. This argument is more a matter of science that ethics, however. If hard, objective science can prove homosexuals are harmful/dangerous, that's a pretty strong condemnation of homosexuality. However, there's a couple problems with such arguments: 1) Currently, as far as I can tell, science is very much unagreed on the subject. There are hard reports I've seen showing both that homosexuals are dangerous/diseased/etc., and that they aren't. Many investigations are funded by special interest groups and the results are untrustworthy (on both sides). Thus, at the present time at least, science seems objectively unhelpful. 2) Even if a preponderence in our society of homosexual dangerousness could be proven, it would be nearly impossible to prove (in fact, requiring closed experiments rather than social recording) that this was a natural condition of homosexuality, rather than just the social result of homosexuals having a different place in our society - i.e., much like minority races that have higher incidence of crime because of their overall less-privileged place in our society. If it's a social problem and not a problem with homosexuality, then that's an argument to change our society to be more accepting, not to condemn homosexuality. 3) Finally, even even if it could be proven that homosexuality, by choice or by birth, equates to a more dangerous/harmful lifestyle, one would have to prove a ridiculous level of certain danger for condemnation to be reasonable. After all, there are plenty of heterosexuals who are abusive, or people in various categories who, for whatever reason, are more predisposed to harmful behavior; this is not reason to lock up or condemn the entire category, especially if there are clear examples (as I myself could gladly provide in the case of homosexuals) of members of the category who are good, helpful or harmless.
So it comes down to the second dimension of arreligious argument - direct ethical objection. As far as I can tell, the major (only?) argument in this dimension is that homosexuality is "unnatural." In other words, the argument is: 1) homosexuality deviates from nature, 2) deviating from nature is immoral, 3) therefore homosexuality is immoral.
First, is homosexuality deviating from nature? (I'm going to ignore the natural occurence amongst animals.) It depends on what you mean. "Nature" may be defined in this case as the basic drive of life - i.e, survival and procreation. In this case, the argument is that homosexuality is an avoidance of procreation, and thus wrong, because, hell, if everyone was homosexual, we'd go extinct. If this is the case, then the argument is not actually against homosexuality - it is against non-procreation (in other words, the problem isn't who a homosexual IS having sex with, but who they are NOT - so a bisexual is totally fine). Someone whose problem with homosexuality is that homosexuals don't produce children must have a problem equally with someone who just doesn't have any children regardless of their sexuality. As well, if it is immoral for us to deviate from our natural course of survival & procreation, then we sure do a hell of a lot these days that deviates. Driving cars, watching movies, feeling emotions, having sex with contraceptives - if deviation from procreation is in itself a problem, then the majority of our society is problematic, and the only moral course is to return to a state of pure nature.
I don't think anyone really is so hard-line.
Is homosexuality really so unnatural, anyways? What is natural? Whether you believe we were created by God or evolved, one way or another we were given faculties and abilities beyond that what is required to live in a state of pure nature. Our emotions, our science, are all a result of of natural state, even if the products are artificial. They are not superficial. In fact, our evolved capacities are part of what make us the dominant species on our planet: we don't have to just eat and make babies, we can use tools and communication and medicine to increase our chances of survival. We survive as a society now, not as individuals - using our abilities to not only increaset those chances of survival, but to create something not required by the simple survival instinct: quality of life.
What this means for the homosexuality argument: We have evolved abilities to ensure our survival that don't require every individuals' participation in procreation directly. A homosexual person can still contribute to a society morally based on survival & procreation in various ways - besides the ways in which a homosexual can still procreate and contribute to the gene pool (artificial insemination, etc.) thanks to our naturally-evolved science - ways including adoption, medicine and caretaking. It takes a village to raise a child, right? We can do many things to help ensure the betterment and survival or our species. If you have a problem with this idea, then you really have a problem with our whole society.
We've also evolved (or been created with) emotions. It's undeniable that our physical and sexual well-being is inextricably linked with our emotional well-being; it is entirely natural to look out for our feelings and those of others. If a person contributes to society in the normal spheres (being a good samaritan, or a doctor or what-have-you), and they also look out for themselves - in a homosexual's case, by loving or having sex with the people of the same gender, because it makes them happy - then they are doing nothing but good by doing good for themselves.
I've run out of steam. This isn't organized totally along hard logical lines, but I just wanted to get down the concept of the arguments. Hope it was fun!? :-p
Some thoughts and arguments
In address to those who argue against the morality of homosexuality:
It seems to me that the eternal debate has two dimensions. One, the debate over whether homosexuality is a choice or innate; the other, over whether it is moral or immoral. The second part of the debate seems the more important to address: if homosexuality is considered immoral, it doesn't matter whether it's a choice or innate. If it's a choice, then homosexuals should choose otherwise or be condemned; if it's innate, medicine should try to 'cure' it. So either way, if it IS wrong, something should be done about it. So for those willing to debat the issue, it makes most sense to consider the question of its morality first.
Now, there are two dimensions to the morality debate. One, the religious; two, the arreligious. If with the religious arguments homosexuality is proven wrong, then one still would require to accept the religion used to prove it wrong to suggest its will should be imposed, or homosexuals condemned. That's a whole nother can of worms; and I know I, for one, as well as many others, don't/will never ascribe to a religion that has such arguments. So religious debates are arbitrary in much the same way as the choice/innate debate is; any conclusions reached require the acceptance of further tenets in order to actually make hard conclusions.
So I'm writing about the arreligious arguments.
There are two (again!) dimensions to the arreligious arguments, as far as I can see. The first is that homosexuals are provable more harmful to society or themselves - either by increased rates of abuse etc. or the spread of disease. This argument is more a matter of science that ethics, however. If hard, objective science can prove homosexuals are harmful/dangerous, that's a pretty strong condemnation of homosexuality. However, there's a couple problems with such arguments: 1) Currently, as far as I can tell, science is very much unagreed on the subject. There are hard reports I've seen showing both that homosexuals are dangerous/diseased/etc., and that they aren't. Many investigations are funded by special interest groups and the results are untrustworthy (on both sides). Thus, at the present time at least, science seems objectively unhelpful. 2) Even if a preponderence in our society of homosexual dangerousness could be proven, it would be nearly impossible to prove (in fact, requiring closed experiments rather than social recording) that this was a natural condition of homosexuality, rather than just the social result of homosexuals having a different place in our society - i.e., much like minority races that have higher incidence of crime because of their overall less-privileged place in our society. If it's a social problem and not a problem with homosexuality, then that's an argument to change our society to be more accepting, not to condemn homosexuality. 3) Finally, even even if it could be proven that homosexuality, by choice or by birth, equates to a more dangerous/harmful lifestyle, one would have to prove a ridiculous level of certain danger for condemnation to be reasonable. After all, there are plenty of heterosexuals who are abusive, or people in various categories who, for whatever reason, are more predisposed to harmful behavior; this is not reason to lock up or condemn the entire category, especially if there are clear examples (as I myself could gladly provide in the case of homosexuals) of members of the category who are good, helpful or harmless.
So it comes down to the second dimension of arreligious argument - direct ethical objection. As far as I can tell, the major (only?) argument in this dimension is that homosexuality is "unnatural." In other words, the argument is: 1) homosexuality deviates from nature, 2) deviating from nature is immoral, 3) therefore homosexuality is immoral.
First, is homosexuality deviating from nature? (I'm going to ignore the natural occurence amongst animals.) It depends on what you mean. "Nature" may be defined in this case as the basic drive of life - i.e, survival and procreation. In this case, the argument is that homosexuality is an avoidance of procreation, and thus wrong, because, hell, if everyone was homosexual, we'd go extinct. If this is the case, then the argument is not actually against homosexuality - it is against non-procreation (in other words, the problem isn't who a homosexual IS having sex with, but who they are NOT - so a bisexual is totally fine). Someone whose problem with homosexuality is that homosexuals don't produce children must have a problem equally with someone who just doesn't have any children regardless of their sexuality. As well, if it is immoral for us to deviate from our natural course of survival & procreation, then we sure do a hell of a lot these days that deviates. Driving cars, watching movies, feeling emotions, having sex with contraceptives - if deviation from procreation is in itself a problem, then the majority of our society is problematic, and the only moral course is to return to a state of pure nature.
I don't think anyone really is so hard-line.
Is homosexuality really so unnatural, anyways? What is natural? Whether you believe we were created by God or evolved, one way or another we were given faculties and abilities beyond that what is required to live in a state of pure nature. Our emotions, our science, are all a result of of natural state, even if the products are artificial. They are not superficial. In fact, our evolved capacities are part of what make us the dominant species on our planet: we don't have to just eat and make babies, we can use tools and communication and medicine to increase our chances of survival. We survive as a society now, not as individuals - using our abilities to not only increaset those chances of survival, but to create something not required by the simple survival instinct: quality of life.
What this means for the homosexuality argument: We have evolved abilities to ensure our survival that don't require every individuals' participation in procreation directly. A homosexual person can still contribute to a society morally based on survival & procreation in various ways - besides the ways in which a homosexual can still procreate and contribute to the gene pool (artificial insemination, etc.) thanks to our naturally-evolved science - ways including adoption, medicine and caretaking. It takes a village to raise a child, right? We can do many things to help ensure the betterment and survival or our species. If you have a problem with this idea, then you really have a problem with our whole society.
We've also evolved (or been created with) emotions. It's undeniable that our physical and sexual well-being is inextricably linked with our emotional well-being; it is entirely natural to look out for our feelings and those of others. If a person contributes to society in the normal spheres (being a good samaritan, or a doctor or what-have-you), and they also look out for themselves - in a homosexual's case, by loving or having sex with the people of the same gender, because it makes them happy - then they are doing nothing but good by doing good for themselves.
I've run out of steam. This isn't organized totally along hard logical lines, but I just wanted to get down the concept of the arguments. Hope it was fun!? :-p