Immorality of Homosexuality

"Hurt" can mean different things depending on context, NJ, you know that. Clearly, voluntary injury is not considered immoral, or boxing, wrestling, football, etc would all be considered immoral as well. "Hurt" in the context used implies non-consensual harm, and anything else is semantics.The question of morality concerning homosexuality or anything else depends entirely on one's definition of morality, and that derives from the system of ethics you ascribe to. One who believes that personal acts that don't harm others (just to be clear, I mean non-consensual harm or grievous injury) are ethical is going to have a completely different opinion on the morality of homosexuality than one who believes in the ethical system of "God said so."We all know this, and I don't honestly believe a person with a literal biblical ethics system will be convinced by the logic of other ethics systems. Whether you've heard of a civilization that condones it or not is irrelevant. Simple rule of majority opinion has never been and never will be an effective method of determining what is moral, or anything else (and before you say it, no, the US is NOT run by simple majority opinion - the three-branch system of government with checks and balances exists for the express purpose of preventing the oppression of minorities by the majority). It's a simply an appeal to popularity.Truly useful ethics systems for a society that does not oppress varying religious beliefs (or no beliefs) need to operate on something more objective than majority opinion (note that interpretations of ancient texts differ wildly enough to exclude them as an objective source or morality, even leaving aside the fact that to do so forces people who do not ascribe to a particular faith to follow the tenets of that faith). Objective, non-consensual harm is one effective method of determining the morality of an act. Murders and rapes cause objective, non-consensual harm or grievous injury. Squirrel urine and peanut butter do not. Comparing the two is ridiculous, despite the...oddness...of that particular fetish. Since homosexuality causes no objective harm, it cannot be immoral, even if you find the act as odd as "dousing yourself in squirrel urine."Of course, nobody is born covered in squirrel urine, or born a rapist or murderer, either. People ARE born attracted to the same sex. This means that considering homosexuality to be immoral is on the level of claiming that being black, or asian, or white, or male, etc is immoral. Clearly, states of being that involve no choice cannot be moral or immoral - they simply ARE. The evidence shows that sexuality is such a state of being. Those who believe otherwise are in denial, and I would challenge any of them to explain exactly when and how they decided to be straight.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Um, no they're not. Murder involves a murderer and a murderee. That's not private anymore. That's public.Nem, you need help. You are showing signs of socialpathology, or the inability to tell the difference between right and wrong. Murder is very public, because it involves the rest of us. You or I could be the next victim.On the other hand, what does sex between 2 consenting adults have anything to do with you or me? Um, I never said consent is the only thing. I don't know where you got that from. I don't know if it's immoral or not. I'm manly enough to admit that I don't have all moral problems solved yet. I don't believe for a minute that you have them all solved.Now, are you manly enough to stop sticking your nose into other people's private sex lives?

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

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He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

If you'll accept sibling marriage as a substitute, how about the example of your own civilization, where incestuous marriage among royal families was common? I can grab a dozen examples from the royal families of England, France, and Prussia, just for starters. (Ever heard of the "Hapsburg lip"?)

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In all seriousness though, society views it as immoral behavior. This isn't cultural bias either, as I've heard of no civilization where this practice has been accepted. (Not that the acceptance of something automatically makes it alright).

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I don't know about the U.S. but over here stepsons have married their stepmothers - and I don't think that many people objected or even thought it wrong. (I certainly don't think that it is wrong in principle, although individual cases might differ). Normally that is illegal, and the couples in question needed special dispensation (from the House of Lords IIRC).

This is just another rule enforced by the liberal nanny-state in knee-jerk reaction to the studies that show a son marrying his mother invariably leads to a mysterious plague upon the nation and the gouging out of someone's eyes.

Just wanted to respond to one of your earlier posts, sorry if I'm repeating other folks arguments: However, in those sorts of 'relationships' it is only one of the parties involved who are saying that this is an act of love. They are then presuming to speak on behalf of the other parties involved, who are either incapable of expressing their feelings or understanding such a situation. To take another example, if a rapist said he 'loved' his victim, this obviously couldn't be considered a loving relationship since the victim would disagree and point to the fact he forced himself on her. But if the rapist slipped his victim rohipnol so she was incapable of objecting to what was going to happen, that is still rape.
In a homosexual relationship, both parties involved are capable of expressing their feelings. Yes, at a basic level this is consent, but as others have pointed out, this is not the only consideration. As I understand it, the whole issue of consent is brought up not to justify homosexual relationships, but to show how homosexual relationships cannot be compared to paedophilia/bestiality/rape. Consent may not define an action as morally right, but would you agree that if consent is missing the act is morally wrong?
Also a homosexual relationship is more than just sex, another reason why comparisons to paedophilia/bestiality/rape are redundant. There is the emotional ties and reciprocated love, in fact exactly the same as heterosexual relationships. I don't think I can give a catch-all qualifier for sexual relationship without it being relativistic, but aren't you just as relative in your approach. For example, in the question of gay marriage you hold to a 'traditional' view that marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman. However, traditionally marriage has also often involved polygamy, and the marriageable age has been around 10-13. Why do you not include these in your definition of marriage?

I can see two problems with a son marrying his mother that are not related to Christian morality. The first is the issue of 'grooming' which then means the son, in the eyes of the law, becomes a victim. The second issue is the potential product of such a relationship. Children borne of incestuous relationships, this gives you another potential victim. Homosexual relationships don't produce mentally and physically handicapped children, last I checked they don't directly produce any children.That is why I disagree with your statement. I think you intended it to be an emotionally charged statement to induce a sense of revulsion in the general reader. I think that it is disingenuous in that respect.-x

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"Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact ” which creationists have mastered. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!"
-Stephen Jay Gould

Quote: But Christian does = good person! If they do anything to suggest they are not a "good person" then, by definition (and the good scotsman) they aren't a Christian.So by your statement there are no Christians in prison?

Good luck trying to get it through nem_jug's thick skull. I've been trying for months and failed to show him that you can't compare homosexuality to pedophilia and incest. If you can show him this, you are better than I am. I've given up talking to nem_jug on this issue.

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

NJ and other fundamentalist Christians literally believe incest and pedophilia are wrong only because of 2 reasons:1) God says so in the Bible
2) it's "icky"It's true that homosexuality, incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and even masturbation all fit those two criteria. They cannot even comprehend an actual ethics system that judges immorality based on actual harm, so it's impossible to change their minds. Morality to them consists of "my supernatural imaginary parent figure told me so" and "I dont want to do it, so you shouldn't either."

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

What could ever be "High and Nobel" about something that is an abomination in the eyes of the True and Living God?

Welcome StElsewhere,Glad you decided to add to our diversity. We have a wide variety of forums for your debating pleasure.When responding, please try to address the point of the post you're responding to and keep your argument in line with the topic presented in the opening post.As members, we are guests on this board and as guests we are asked to put forth our best behavior. Please read the Forum Guidelines carefully and understand the wishes of our host. Abide by the Forum Guidelines and you will be a welcome addition.In the purple signature box below, you'll find some links that will help make your journey here pleasant.Please direct any questions or comments you may have concerning this post to the Moderation Thread.Again, welcome and fruitful debating.

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Usually, in a well-conducted debate, speakers are either emotionally uncommitted or can preserve sufficient detachment to maintain a coolly academic approach.-- Encyclopedia Brittanica, on debate

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Even if this god did exist, and even if this god did think that something was an abomination, what does this god's opinion have to do with anything?

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

Lots of things, shrimp as one example. Eat them shrimpies.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

My whole point is that same gender attraction need not be expressed on a sexual level. There may well be a higher and nobler purpose for the attraaction than sex. There is nothing immoral about attraction...only motives and actions(behaviors)