You’re being deliberately obtuse, MEBuckner. You were mocking the idea that anyone could consider imposing their personal standards on the public at large, and I called you on it–so you retreat into the details and refuse to acknowledge my point, which is that it happens all the time with varying degrees of success. (All of the “preferences” I mentioned have been the basis of lawsuits aimed at imposing an individual’s standards on the larger community.)
It’s a bit much for you to act, shocked, shocked at the notion that the State can encourage some types of behavior while discouraging others. Again, it happens all the time, and in other instances you would probably agree with it.
And this in turn addresses my earlier point, which is that private tolerance of homosexuality is a far different proposition from public endorsement. Of course, Fenris et al. have ignored this in favor of trotting the tired old cliche that since POWER_station doesn’t accept the orthodox line regarding homosexuality, he must be a closet gay himself. Yawn.
If I’m married, I’m married. If I’m boinking Bossie the cow, then I’m boinking Bossie the cow. I acknowledge this as two different things, and I’m not going to get all huffy and demand that you acknowledge Bossie as my “wife”.
Well, the discussion is moooot (couldn’t resist) because animals cannot be real partners in any meaningful sense.
You love a woman; I love a man. Why is your relationship any more important or “real” than mine? Shall I refer to Mrs, Doghouse as your “wife” and make snarky comments about the legitimacy of marrying a woman?
I’m sure that your love for a man is real and that it’s very important to you as an individual. The fact is, though, that society recognizes Mrs. Doghouse as my wife but does not recognize your man-lover as your husband. It just don’t. So you can just as well make snarky comments about the sky being “blue”.
Now whether that’s right and whether that’s fair is a separate question. Andygirl makes an instinctively powerful case in describing her own relationship and how she would like it to be legitimized in the eyes of society. However, there may be an equally valid argument out there that society may have an interest in defining marriage as an institution with certain characteristics that unfortunately do not meet her wishes. I’m not necessarily making that argument here, but pointing out that the argument could be made.
And again that turns to what I see as the underlying premise of this thread: is homosexuality to be privately tolerated or publicly endorsed? I believe the OP indicated that he has no problem with the former position but a bit of a problem with the latter. Does that make him a homophobe and/or a bigot?
“It happens all the time” does not equal “it is right”.
Well, the State quite forcibly discourages behavior which infringes on the rights of others, like murder and rape and robbery. Sometimes the harm to others can be pretty diffuse, as in counterfeiting the currency or polluting the water supply.
I’m not a libertarian, and I’m sure the true blue libertarians would consider my political views to be inconsistent (I don’t want to privatize all the national parks and NASA and end all foreign aid, which by strict libertarian logic means that I am endorsing the use of force to make others support my preferences for wilderness areas and space exploration and not letting Third World babies starve to death). I also support the indirect encouragement of some behavior by the State, by means more subtle than throwing people in jail. I wouldn’t really object to taxpayer-funded anti-drug education (although it should be honest, both as a matter of right and of policy). And I think the State ought to encourage the formation of stable human relationships and discourage such things as promiscuous sex (without necessarily throwing people in jail who don’t toe the line), by doing such non-coercive things as recognizing marriage.
I don’t think you’re making your point all that well. You seemed to be suggesting that anyone who supports gay rights or doesn’t think the mindless stigmatization of gays is ethical is some sort of ravingly hypocritical PC leftist. Did you manage to come up with a single example of social meddling which I actually endorse? Surely you could have come up with something where I support society trying to modify individual behavior. It’s not really that hard–of course I think society should encourage some behavior and discourage other behavior. I even believe that in appropriate circumstances the instrument by which “society” acts should be the State.
The question is, why should society encourage heterosexuals to settle down and have families and not have promiscuous sex, and not encourage homosexuals to do the same?
Just a matter of curiosity, but what’s your take on sodomy laws? And do you think telling homosexuals that they can’t enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals in the area of marriage or adoption is merely a failure to “endorse”, or is it an active discrimination against them?
Okay. But the question is, why should homosexual behavior be discouraged? What valid, logical reason does the State have for regulating said behavior? Now the State does regulate other sexual behaviors, sometimes appropriately so.
With polygamy ( which I would not be averse to legalizing, all things being equal ), one can make an argument that historically it has, at times, and in some societies, resulted in the exploitation of women.
With pedophilia ( and bestiality, perhaps, though it is a trickier argument ) there is the problem of informed consent.
But I’ve yet to see anyone come up with any convincing argument of how homosexuality harms any part of society. People thinking it’s “icky” is not a convincing argument. I think it’s “icky” that people eat balut ( to paraphrase MEBuckner’s point ) - in fact seeing people eat balut makes me slightly nauseous. I’d be willing to bet the majority of Americans find balut ( if they know what it isw ) pretty disgusting. Certainly very few Americans eat the stuff. Is this a good reason for the State to discourage it?
Homosexuality is different from every other regulated sexual arrangement, where one can at least make some semi-reasonable argument against it. There is no pathology ( at least none not found in corresponding heterosexual relationships as well ) exclusive to homosexuality.
So if homosexuality is healthy and of no particular threat to anyone ( and feel free to make the argument that it is, like I said I’ve never seen anybody do a good job of it ), why shouldn’t the state endorse it, at least tacitly, by giving it the same protections and rights under the law that it does heterosexuality? Other than it being a “minority” practice, what is the argument against ? ( and religious arguments don’t count - separation of Church and State, remember )
How about neither one? How about homo- and heterosexuality are treated neutrally?
The State should not pass laws which criminalize the private sexual acts of consenting adults. (Most sodomy laws apply to heterosexual as well as homosexual acts.)
Society has an interest in discouraging anonymous sex with strangers, and in encouraging people to settle down into stable, mutually supporting households.
Society has an interest in seeing to it that all children have stable, loving families. In cases where children unfortunately don’t have stable, loving families, society has an interest in seeing to it that they be provided with such. Society in general has a defensible preference for two-parent households over single-parent households; and a defensible preference for two-parent households in which the two parents have made a public and serious commitment to each other.
All of those societal interests can be satisfied in a manner which is neutral with regard to sexual orientation.
Or to take MEBuckner’s point above, given the same “lack of endorsement” as heterosexuality. If you want to be punitive this could be done by stripping married couples of tax breaks, inheritance rights, vistation rights, etc. .
But I doubt if anyone ( including gay couples ) is interested in that rather silly option.
I just logged in again briefly and saw MEBuckner’s and Tamerlane’s replies. I have to log off again, but I’ll print out this thread and give it some thought and then address your questions when I have time.
Before I go, however, let me get back to the OP: now that we are having a nuts and bolts debate on whether homosexuality should be legitimized or endorsed or whatever, can we agree that merely taking a contrary position–as in the case of POWER_station–does not automatically make one a “homophobe”?
Who gives a flying fuck what anyone does lets just all go and do whatever the fuck we want and fuck everyone else.
thats the jist of this argument then.
But that’s exactly what it would take to enforce a “lack of endorsement” policy. As I said early on in the thread, either you can take the position that the State does have the perogative of adopting a definition of marriage for the good of society (and then bicker about what that definition should be), or you can claim that the State has no role at all–and therefore any special privileges granted to any marriage-like relationship are illegitimate to begin with. As far as I can see, there is no middle ground here.
Actually, no - I can’t quite agree on that. Depends how you define homophobe", I guess. But if your only argument against “legitimization” is that it makes you uncomfortable, you’re at least a mild bigot. I’m afraid IMO it really isn’t all that different from enacting Jim Crow laws because you’re uncomfortable eating lunch at the same counter as Blacks.
Who’s asking for a middle ground ? Either endorse both homosexuality and heterosexuality ( in terms of special priviledges accorded married couples, etc. ) or endorse neither. Endorsing neither seems silly and unworkable to me, but at least it would be marginally more fair than the current situation.
“Homophobe”, like “anti-Semite”, is one of those words which tends to incite a lot of semantic quibbling debates. Can one oppose Judaism without being an anti-Semite? Christians may argue that Christianity is the only true path to God, and Judaism (and all other religions) are false, and not be anti-Semites. I myself–and other atheists–would argue that the beliefs of Judaism with regard to the nature of reality are untrue.
On the other hand, if someone advocated not legally recognizing Jewish marriages, not allowing Jews to adopt children, and talked about “privately tolerating” Judaism but not “publicly endorsing” it, then I think we’d have to call that person an anti-Semite. (Yes, Arabs are Semites too. English is a funny language.)
People who advocate things like the “Defense of Marriage” Act and keeping the ban on gays in the military are arguing for some degree of official repression of homosexuals and homosexuality. (Many of these people, amazingly enough, will still defend the remaining criminal laws against consensual “sodomy”, which is extremely repressive.) If people seek to repress certain behaviors or groups of people, it seems reasonable to say that they fear that behavior–not necessarily in the armchair-psychoanalyzing sense, but certainly they fear that not repressing that behavior will have adverse consequences. Describing that as “homophobia”–“fear of homo[exuality]”–doesn’t seem like a terribly big stretch to me.
You might want to work on that vocabulary a bit there–it’s just a wee bit monotonous, y’know?
And do you really see no middle ground between discriminating against and repressing people based on behavior which harms no one else; and total anarchy? That “argument” could be used to justify anything–the State should control all aspects of everyone’s life, including assigning sex partners to people for the purposes of reproducing new subjects–and anyone opposed to this policy is just saying “Who cares what anyone does; let’s just all go and do whatever we want, and never mind everyone else”. Anyone who opposes the State Reproductive Control Board is in favor of total anarchy and rape and pillage in the streets!
Thinking about it is where the problem lies, IMHO.
Why bother thinking about it? Who cares who loves whom and who puts what where? So what?
Even if you do think it’s abnormal, what good will thinking about it do? They won’t stop doing it, and they might even do it more often just for spite.
Being a homophobe doesn’t help you, harm them, or do anyone any good. It’s a waste of time. Might as well quit doing it.
Instead, devote your cogitating to more serious things that are in definite need of resolution…like what’s the third word that ends in -gry.
.
? Either endorse both homosexuality and heterosexuality ( in terms of special priviledges accorded married couples, etc. ) or endorse neither. Endorsing neither seems silly and unworkable to me, but at least it would be marginally more fair than the current situation.