Rick Brentlinger
http://www.gaychristian101.com

I know of only ONE moral law: Do No Harm. The ancient Greeks Epicurus and Hippocrates are explicit about it. It is a bounden duty, proscriptive (banning), objective, and universifible to all humans. No other moral law meets these tests. J. S. Mill in the 19th century used the “Harm Principle” as foundational for the Utilitarian Calculus — the latter, of which, is largely rejected.

So, from the moral point of view, do homophiles acting homoerotically harm each other? Do they harm others? If so, I am unaware of it. (Cases of paraphilia may be exceptions.) Indeed, many, if not most, homophiles lead productive, loving, and engaged lives in their various communities. So, the issue of homophilia and morality is pretty clear cut: No reason exists for harboring ill will or moral repudiation of homophiles, based on the moral law.

The other moral laws are Kant’s Categorical Imperative or the British Empiricists’ Benevolence Theory. The latter is hyper-rational, the latter is necessary, but not sufficient.

Conversely, from an ethical point of view, homophiles tend to be more “hit-and-miss” ethicists, and for very good reasons. Ethics is not a single “rule” in order to “follow a rule.” Its objective of choosing the “mean” between excess and deficiency most suited to the situation requires training and habituation as well as practical reasoning. By pursuing these objectives one flourishes as a human in human societies.

As for other axiological concerns, they are not the topic. But clearly, the values that homophiles share and differ is entirely desirable as human diversity and pluralism in a liberal democracy requires. Any particular homophile who harms another is subject to civil and criminal prosecution like all other citizens, but neither homophilia nor homoeroticism can be excluded on moral grounds, nor on ethical grounds.

Those superstitious people who think deities write laws for them really do need to get an education, rather than demand their theocratic impulses prevail in a liberal democracy. Those revolutionary sorts who use immoral resistance and lawlessness to achieve their objectives improperly use the ends to justify the means. In ethics, only the “mean” (virtue) justifies the means to any end. So, Marxists and Judeo, Christo, Islamic morality is not a “natural morality,” does not command “do no harm,” and thus excludes the ONE, TRUE, and ONLY moral law humans have acknowledged since recorded history — save for these folks’ sacred writings, which seems to have skipped the revealer’s mind.

Right, they don’t seem to get that freedom religion is for everyone, not just them, and that their religious rights end where another person begins.

Somewhere in cyberspace there is a video that puts it more bluntly : “Keep Your Jesus Off My P*nis”.

(I apologize to the mods if that’s not appropriate)

Their authority may be the Bible or the Pope or the Koran or the Torah but whatever they use someone stating that gay sex is just as good as straight “married” sex strikes directly at their authority – an authority they are scared to deat to lose.

As a practical matter convincing Bible believers that the Bible doesn’t say what they think it says seems to work with some people but legally I think that it avoids the real issue of criminalizing other people because of your religious beliefs.

I don’t care if they think it’s a sin – if thats what they think then I would advise they not enter into a same sex marriage and I am happy to have them follow their religion.

The problem always arises when they use the government to criminalize others who do not believe as they do.

I just watched the trailer for the new DVD. Looks great! Thanks for covering it here, Jim.

John

Here’s a snippet from my latest post at Charisma:

David wrote:
You’ve been told repeatedly, and in a gentle way, that such concepts are nonsense, yet you persist. I don’t believe you’re an idiot, all evidence aside, so you must be deliberately introducing these lies and strange rationale.

I don’t consider Jesus’ commandments to us in regard to how we treat others to be “nonsense”, “lies” or a “strange rationale.” I consider them the basic principles we go by in the conduct of our Christian lives.

David wrote:
There is nothing “primitive” about Christians who maintain the teachings of Christ by calling homosexual sin a serious sin that keeps one out of Heaven.

There you go again. Christ never taught that homosexuality was a sin. Saying he did when he didn’t is simply not telling the truth. The fact is, he never said anything about gays, one way or the other. Please stop disparaging Jesus’ character by implying he would treat gays in the same inappropriate way that you do.

David wrote:
We can show Christ’s love for the person while speaking the truth in love asking them to repent and turn to Christ so they can have eternal life and be free from the perversion of homosexuality. The Truth does set you free.

Being gay isn’t a perversion, it’s a normal variation in human sexuality, and one need not repent for the way one is born. Christ never changed anyone’s sexuality during his earthly ministry, so there’s no reason to suppose he would ever want to do any such thing.

Let Jesus and his teachings come first in your life and set these unwarranted anti-gay prejudices aside.

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The moral high ground is Jesus’ teaching. Anything else must be measured against this high standard.

Bill