Hey Garry,
You probably wondered why, against all odds, I did not reply
to your text. I sincerely tried to give a short response. As usual, however,
the extent of my verbosity increased with rage. The two things I hate in this
world most are the use of religion to be intolerant of queer people and the
thought of someone being impolite to you. So here is another unsolicited
defense of you (us as gay men ), which you can use part of, when or if you
choose to engage conservative Christians on the question of sexual diversity. I
got mad when I thought of someone having a stupid conversation with you
critiquing homosexuality. I don't have much more success, but it really helps
if you speak their language. Here is a non-essentialist theological defense of
homosexuality that I use on objectors quite often. It can be easily modified or
extended. You’ll have to dumb a lot of the arguments down, and you won’t be
able to use all of them, but presented in this way they give a more coherent
picture. I’m not suggesting you evangelize conservative Christians on the “Gay
question”, but you should try at least once using theology. And this will help
you do it. While I don't engage with most the "Bible says so people,” this
is an intriguing style of framing the discussion outside the parameters of the
way most people argue it. [If they are strict divine command believers,
contending that God is not subject to the rules of reason, this argument does
not work, but those people are lunatics. There is no point talking to a brick
wall… Believe me].
As you know, I applaud your desire to become a sex
therapist. I think sex negativity is a huge problem, whether or not one is
religious. I also think sex is a positive good, unlike some religious people,
and I think it may be used for many morally valid purposes, unlike some other religious
people. I know what you mean to say, when you argue that sex is “natural,” but
this is a bad way to approach the problem for the three following reasons: it
is easily contested by your opponents; there is nothing more natural to human
beings than culture and nothing more cultural than the various ideas of nature
we have devised; and much of modern ethics runs on the principle that one
cannot derive moral judgments from nature (this is often called the
naturalistic fallacy). You have training in biology, and so you are keenly
aware that the natural world around us is disorganized and cruel, at least from
the perspective of what would make a livable human life. Biological theories of
empathy notwithstanding, biological sciences cannot provide unmediated
resources for ethical judgments.
Bluntly, following
social Darwinism has caused moral depravity. Though it may seem to be logical,
it runs counter to our intuitive moral awareness. There is a paradox here
because you could argue that we are biologically designed to sublimate
biological impulses. I don't think biology has anything to do with definitive
moral judgments, otherwise rape may be permissible as the most common form of
"biological" sexual intercourse (considering all primates). You won't
convince hardliners, but I've had the most success with the approach below
Some notes on rhetoric. (Un)fortunately we will never
convince people of anything, no matter how compelling, on reason alone. Proper
and polite rhetoric is a vital part of winning any argument worth the cost of
victory. I have the rhetorical advantage over you with Christians, owing to the
weird dynamics of disability/impairment in the New Testament and Christian
history. No one wants to place extra burdens on people in wheelchairs, so the
sort of ethical question of why God would give me a disability and force me to
be celibate give even the most stubborn opponents a lot to think about. But you
and I have a shared advantage because we try to be exemplary individuals. This
is why I framed the argument in terms of getting mad on your behalf. I’m trying
to use pros to demonstrate my benevolent and enduring affection for you,
appealing to the passion of imagined audiences, so that they will have the
desired response to make them amenable to the arguments. I am also attempting
to establish us as ethical agents, by showing that I’m using my intellect in
defense of justice. Also, in this particular case, I’m using it in defense of
the less powerful (because you don’t have the theological knowledge I do). This
strategy, of course, appeals to a very strong Christian ideal/injunction.
You may rightly
ask — why is it my job to engage conservative Christians? Shouldn’t we just
leave them alone? Obviously, I have asked these questions a lot and answer them
negatively. Here are some reasons why. They don’t seem to be willing to leave
us alone. Conservative Christians have opposed and continue to oppose each
major advancement for queer equality in Canada and abroad. Though waning in its
official influence, theology still plays an important implicit legitimation
function in public discourse ,so it is
important to know it and engage with it
, even if you disagree. As you
know , we are often given moral dilemmas which we did not expect , and these can be the most rewarding parts of our life. I’m an optimist. I truly
believe that you have a particularly strong duty to act benevolently, because
you are more capable, and because your attractive, so it has more of an effect.
You know this already, but Christians are right to claim that persons can
change the world by loving their persecutors.
In my official writing, I often critique the
fact that to be considered acceptable queer relationships are often held to a
higher standard of fidelity, social responsibility, and selflessness.
Similarly, as a disabled person, to be integrated into society I can't just be
normal. To achieve social acceptance the sad fact is that I have to be
extraordinary. And many disabled people have failed to achieve my level of clout.
Among many other things, through no fault of their own, they don't have the
intellect or social privileges that I have. This is very unjust, and there is
not much we can do about it, but if we do show resolve, patience, humility,
reason, kindness and courage in the face of hostility, gay people will continue
to win social support. This is what my thesis project is trying to analyze. One
wins an argument with a devout Christian by proving yourself to be more like
Jesus than they are behaving. Though the experiences of discrimination are
awful and unfair, perhaps they give us new opportunities to understand what
unity and love are more fully and our affectionate ties with one another. Not
right away, but love will conquer everything, and hatred is always weakness. Of
course, you and I know this from our mutual appreciation of Star Wars.
1) God is perfect. Perfect things cannot give
rise to evil because then they would be imperfect. Thus, anything that produces
good, especially love, must come from God. God is the source of all things that
are good. God is the highest form of being, because we can think of nothing
more perfect or good. If God, good and being are synonymous, it follows that
“evil” doesn’t have independent existence, except as absence of good.
Consequently, for something to be evil it must be shown to have an absence of
the selfless love that characterizes God/Being/perfection (St. Augustine, Confessions, bk. X; St. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologica, part one question
six)
2) From a
Christian perspective, we must also concede that the ultimate goal of human
activity is to know and love God, since God is the highest conceivable
instantiation of being, in which alone our intellect and soul ultimately
desired to rest. This is so because human beings are desirous of that which is
good. Even when we seem to desire bad things, we are seeking what is good in
them (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2.1Q
5). Actions are to be judged as ethical based on whether they bring us closer
to what is good or the loving attributes of God. In other words, they must
improve persons physically, psychologically and spiritually. They must also
improve our fellow human beings. Aquinas, and Christians more broadly, reject
the notion of the liberal self, and so the good of the individual person is
always actualized in the common good. Hence, any sexuality must be judged on
the criterion of personal betterment, communion with the divine, and communion
with our fellow human beings.
3) Homoerotic
activity will fall not on natural law criteria, since the gospel has made that
subordinate to grace, Jesus rising from the dead and so on, but on whether it
can satisfy the criteria of communal existence. The argument usually goes that
the alleged complementarity of heterosexual relationships is the necessary
criterion for actualizing this communal good. Men and women are not confined by
their gender roles, and it is very unclear how ancient societies used Genesis
to support gender role assignments in antiquity. Nor did Jesus completely
follow norms from early nomadic Israel. And so, theologically and logically, neither
should we. If he did, Jesus would not have had so many male companions, except
for purely instrumental reasons, and nurtured such close relationships with
them. Indeed, Jesus is quite representative of self negating and gender bending
friendship, when he routinely takes on a feminine role [at least according to
his culture] (John: 13 1-20, and sacrifices himself to demonstrate his love for
his male [as we have it in the Greek]
friends (John: 15:3). Jesus was queer in multiple ways. If he were not, He
would have been married. This was the normal, one may say, “straight,” thing to
do. Celibacy, at the very least, and sexual relationships with men, possibly,
consciously challenged ancient expectations about family and erotic activity.
It’s ironic that a sect of sexual outliers has become such a recalcitrant
defender of the erotic status quo.
4) You
can see that I am a good person. My sexual orientation is a large part of my
character. If it were evil, I would be, and it would not come from God. Because
this is a questionable supposition, we should at least consider the question of
whether homoerotic desire is evil. This statement contradicts our impressions
of kind queer people in public life. Our respect for them should require an
open investigation of the question, even if our inclination is to follow Paul’s
condemnation.
5) Good
actions produce good consequences, dispositions, and good people, and bad vice
versa. While actions may be morally neutral, they cannot be both virtuous and
vicious at the same time. This would be logically inconsistent. Just because
something is natural, it does not follow that it is good. Heterosexual
intercourse in marriage may be part of God's creation, but it is sinful when
rape occurs. From this example, we see that the morality of sex is not about
what you do (or what body part goes where), but about the kinds of
transformative relationships it can engender and must, at least from a
Christian perspective [we don't have to concede that point, but I at least want
them to accept monogamous same-sex couples. In any case, I would like sex to
have some form of regard for the other person, ideally compassion.].
6) it's
clear that being gay is an important part of my self-conception, from which my
actions follow, and through which I have learned to be loving and caring
towards others.
7) Compassion,
including that expressed in same-sex sex, as often as opposite sex sexual
activity, is a positive good
8) If
same-sex erotic inclination were evil, nothing good would flow from this, for
nothing good can come from evil, at least from the perspective of the agent who
does the action. This would be a logical impossibility. Bad actions not only
harm reputation but produce maladjustment and this is self-perpetuating. It
would also mean that I would become evil in other areas of life outside sex,
similar to the way that murder, as an intrinsically evil action, corrupts
agents' characters in other areas of life.
9) As we
can concede my good character, we are forced to conclude that homoerotic
inclination/action is at least morally neutral and at best a positive good.
10) Furthermore,
for me not to act on this inclination is to cut myself off from the loving
relationality necessary for most people's full development as ethical agents.
To not express myself in this way would be uncharitable. I would neither be
showing adequate compassion to myself or to other persons.
11) Get
your interlocutor to agree that Scripture must be interpreted in the light of
God-given reason and the selflessly loving example set by Jesus. St. Augustine
argues this in On Christian Doctrine.
Jesus is technically the word of God, not the Bible (John 1:1-10).
Consequently, the violent condemnation of homosexuality found in the letters of
Paul must yield to charity and reason.
12) Not to
do this is to ignore Jesus and to make an idol out of the Bible.
13) According
to Christianity, only God is God, and s/he is love; ergo, to value the Bible
over compassion on the question of same-sex eroticism is actually heretical.
One places a finite thing above the infinity that is God.
14) Christianity
tells one of the greatest love stories in human history. Humankind constantly
rejects what is good, does not heed the call of the suffering, and is selfish.
Yet God never gives up on humankind or a single person. According to Thomas
Aquinas, Grace perfects nature. This does not mean that there is one and only
one way to salvation. Rather, grace is unmerited, and it starts from where
people are; it doesn’t start from where we want them to be or where we think
the Bible wants them to be. It starts by taking the wager that what we think
might be a sin is actually a sign of God’s love working in the world. Jesus
made this point, when he scolded his disciples for moralizing about a man’s
blindness. It wasn’t a marker of sin, but it gave Jesus an opportunity to
demonstrate the power of the gospel against convention (John: 9:15). The early
Christian churches were faced with a similar dilemma, when they decided to
accept the Gentiles into the community against tradition (Acts: 15).
15) They did this because they were moved in the
direction of love. They wanted inclusion as opposed to exclusion. They decided
to show grace rather than judgment. If the word gospel means good news, it has
to mean good news for everyone. Your conversation partner has a similar choice.
Like those before him, this choice has a high risk of error, and there is much
at stake. But I would rather ruin society for the sake of love than preserve it
on the basis of hate. In the end, grace will win because those who love with
their whole heart, while having faith in justice, can move mountains, whereas
those who hate are moved only by their own self-righteousness.
16) Love
is patient and kind. And it is not prideful or quick to anger, and it suffers
all things and hopes for all things (CF I Corinthians: 13)
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