Well, sure. :rolleyes: But Gomorrah, now that was a town! 
None of the great sages of Judaism would agree with you. According to them (and the Sanhedrin section of the Talmud) Sodom and Gamorrah were destroyed for the sin of being without loving kindness. Oh Rashi, Maimonides and the rest would agree that gay sex is a sin. But, they would hold that the cities were destroyed for the sins of cruelty, of being without empathy, and of being inhospitable to strangers.
So right away it’s brought up that gays target children and gays spread AIDS. Sheesh.
In his anti-same sex marriage book Outrage, Peter Sprigg brings up pedophiles and AIDS. Then he claims that “90% of all lesbians report being physically or verbally abused by their partners” and “there is evidence that lesbians are more opt to abuse drugs and alcohol, and may have higher rates of some sexually transmitted diseases.”
This seems right to me. The whole idea of “cultural decadence” seems to rest on a reading of history as a morality play, that the fall of a culture resulted from some cultural “sin” (specifically, something the culture could have avoided if they had been morally better).
And judging from the Nixon quotes, I get the feeling that folks who point to “homosexuality” as a sign of cultural decadence are using it as a stand-in for “lack of strength”: Real leaders are square-jawed manly-men who are ready to stand up and fight, whereas a “faggy” Roman emperor always backs down and allows his enemies to win. That would make the claim a rationalization after the fact, i.e. one that would apply to every civilization that ever declined simply because they were on the losing side of history. No wonder Nixon used it so indiscriminately.
Not only was Richard Nixon a despicable criminal, he didn’t pay enough attention to the TV shows he watched. The whole twist of that episode of All In The Family was that the effeminate guy was straight and Archie’s big, hulking football player buddy was gay.
Nixon supposedly had a phenomenal memory but I think it’s failing him here. I don’t recall “Mike” Archie’s son in law ever dressing or acting effeminately or wearing an ascot.
For a practice to constitute harm, its costs have to outweigh its benefits.
What is the benefit of having a society that is accepting of homosexuality?
Gay people are free to do what they want to do. Freedom is conducive for individual happiness and full productivity.
Happy marriages (or coupling) mean healthy families.
Straights have less competition than they would have otherwise. They also don’t have to deal with the heartbreak of courting people who are sexually repressed and/or in the closet.
Furthermore, homosexuality helps to subvert rigid gender roles. If only “fags” become nurses or “dykes” play sports, then people will not be comfortable doing what they are well-suited for. Society loses out when people put conformity over individuality.
The costs of a society open to homosexuality:
More people pairing up and having sex means more people with broken hearts and STDs. Which also means more exciting episodes of Jerry Springer.
Fight-the-gay counseling centers will lose business.
I can’t think of any more costs. I think the benefits win.
I’m just being a devil’s advocate here, but you did miss one. Bisexual men or women have more sexual options that will not lead to procreation. Though, in an overly populated world, I guess that could be a good side.
Still, that’s the one most people who have a rational objection at all seem to be concerned about. They don’t flat out call said people bisexuals, but they do seem to assume that, if same sex marriages are an option, a significant number of people will choose them over different sex marriages.
Besides the fact that God had wanted to destroy the city before any mob try to gang rape some angels. (Warning: Do not try that at home. May result in blindness or fiery death).
Not to mention halitic fossilization. And incest.
That’s what I always figured: Lesbians have more fun.
If we traveled back 3,000 years or so in time, we’d probably find that every society on earth had something that we would call “male privilege”. It was the norm for most of human history. But different societies had vastly different approaches to sex. Different sexual acts were normalized and different patterns of family formation existed. And those different patterns of social organization had different results. Some societies moved towards of a pattern where women had more rights and respect; others did not. That movement was not entirely separate from marriage laws and attitudes towards sex, if the two articles that I linked to are correct.
Wish you worried more about heterosexual pedophiles and rapists…,that’s the real problem
Society in general does worry about them, a lot, already, and nobody on this board will deny they do actual harm. The question of this thread is whether homosexuals do.
Actually it is a male problem…most men aren’t rapists but most rapists are men. Homosexuality cannot destroy society but homophobes reduce them to sex acts and dehumanize them By the way lesbians have the lowest rate of stds.
But people thought they were educated; they knew you could catch VDs from unprotected sex or from needles, but also that “when you get one, you just get it cured”. They viewed the bother of a course of antibiotics as lesser than the bother of wearing condoms and not sharing needles.
I think it could be seen as threat to certain cultural norms. So it isn’t that it’s objectively bad, it’s just bad for the success of Calvinism or whatever. Does that make sense?