Immorality of Homosexuality

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For me, it comes down to choice vs. nature.

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Why does that matter, though?If I choose to not have children, that is very unnatural, given that I am sexually active. My husband and I have taken all sorts of artifical measures to prevent unwanted pregnancy.Is it immoral for us to have thwarted nature for so long?

Don't blame those semen thingies, blame those testicle thingies. Cut those babies off and the dangerous thingies in the semen go away.”HM

No, not at all. But it could be immoral, by some relevant standard, to be forced into worrying about it, which I don't suppose you do.Is brushing your teeth immoral because thwarts nature?”HM

Gonna strip the drug stuff out of your comments, there's a drug thread.Health - Why homosexuality has had a problem with STDs in the past, this has more to do with a lack of knowledge about safe sex practices during the 70s and 80s than anything else. Currently the rate of infection among gays is lower than that among heteros. Does this mean straight sex is more immoral than gay sex?Cost to Society - I don't buy that homosexuality causes crime. Are you suggesting that all crimes are done by homosexuals?Unnatural - Is homosexuallity unnatural? More unnatural than nylon? Is Nylon therefore more immoral than homosexuality?

Well let me play devil’s advocate.A non-religious argument might be: One might suggest that in the traditional family structure (the extended family, not the nuclear family) homosexuality is less valuable to the clan as a whole and hence less moral, as it interferes with the creation of political/economical alliances, etc. Some have tried to argue that not intentionally not passing on one’s family’s name is disrespectful (another form of immorality) towards one’s parents.Since you said that “The Bible says so” and did not say, “Because God says so” I’ll offer up “Because God says so”. I offer this up as they are not the same. There are by the way people who believe that God speaks to them.When I was still a Christian I convinced myself that many of the seemingly contradictory answers different Christians received while praying was due to asking different questions. It was my opinion that people while praying usually asked rhetorical questions. To me it seemed clear that, “God if two people love each other and are not hurting anyone how can that be wrong?” was not the same question as “God, surely your plan is not for people to do disgusting things, can it?”If we can make a case for the eating of ice cream as immoral we can make one for pretty much anything. There are certainly applications of the Golden Rule which I would find immoral. For myself the larger question is why does society care so much even assuming it is immoral? There are certainly sins in the Bible given far more weight. Neo-cons regularly vilify homosexuals while electing adulterers and liars to office.

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Is brushing your teeth immoral because thwarts nature?

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No.But then, homosexuality being a person's "choice" rather than their "nature" is irrelevant, too.

Thanks for taking up Devil's advocate, since clearly the Fundies are steering clear of this one.1) The idea that homosexuality some how disrupts the extended family structure is false on two accounts. First, if homosexuality is biologically determined, then it's been selected for genetically and, since we spent so much of our history here on either in tiny clan groups, must therefore be advantageous, or at the very least not disadvantageous to extended family groups. Second, this presupposes that homosexuals are incapable of having/adopting/raising children. Even the conservatives aren't trying to take away adoption rights.2) "God says so" - there are people whom God speaks to directly and says "Homosexuality is wrong." Oddly enough there is an equal amount of people who God speaks to directly and says "Homosexuality is a part of my great plan, stop attacking them." This is largely for the same reason they cut educational funding. Neo-cons have discovered that the mentally lazy are OVERWHELMINGLY conservative. One need look no further than the Fundies here on the board. How many of the strict Creationists vote far right? 90% 99%?

If neither choice nor nature is relevant, then what is? God's word? Maybe God makes those kinds of choices for us. Maybe God, afterall, is responsible for all that sodomy. Maybe God meant for all of us to be gay but the Devil made most of us heterosexual instead. Please help me out with this. I wanna know why even Hillary Clinton looks better to me than Henry Waxman.MHOIAW”HM

Eating ice cream is immoral because it leads to higher crime rate. There can be no doubt that the eating of ice cream causes people to commit more crimes. I just find it hard to believe that it is only a coincidence that both eating ice cream and crime rates increase in the summer at the same time. Rev. Jesse Jackson had a whole other family for years and years before they were discovered, and within 24 hours everybody forgot about it. To this day, I can't watch news without seeing his face... it's like he has a sexual obsession with cameras...

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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!

You do seem to acknowledge that traits can be biologically determined and yet still not specifically selected for. No reason a trait couldn’t be a disadvantage to certain types of extended family groups. Presupposes no such thing as the argument is about marriage/political affiliations as was common in those cultures. I am speaking of marriage being used to cement/bolster the power/influence of people who are not those being married. Think of not being able to marry off a child as a lost business/political opportunity. This specific argument is a social and not biological one.Ultimately if obeying your parents/leaders is what is viewed as moral, then not obeying them would often be viewed as immoral. Are you familiar with the medieval worldview of ”chain of being’. Are you agreeing that point two meets the criteria in your OP? It feels like it is meant to be a dissent, but I can’t see that it actually is an argument against. I was going to put this in a separate message, but felt it might then drag the topic off somewhat. I wonder if there is enough here for its own topic. If you really would like to talk about it in depth I’m game if you want to start a thread.
Parents want their children to do better then they, but seem to rebel at the thought of their children thinking too differently from themselves. I realize there are exceptions to this. Education, especially liberal education often asks the children to question what they believe is true. This, I believe, is originally why I think the shift was make from critical thinking towards critical regurgitation and why schools now worship at the altar of the Test. It may be that neo-cons cut the funding for the reasons you cite now, I still believe that what got us to this point was parents panicking over the ”strange ideas’. Edited by Trae, : addendum: responded to school comment.

It would be foolish to try to deny that the vast majority, as in over 99%, of those in prison drank milk at some point prior to commiting their crime. It would be equally foolish to suggest that ice cream was not primarily concentrated milk. We don't need any scientific study to see what is so plainly clear with common sense.

liking butter pecan ice cream is very likely to cause you to become a serial killer. it's really just a matter of time for me.

this presuposes a ban on homosexual marriages. this is not necessary.

Traits which are disadvantageous to certain types of groups would either be weeded out, or the groups themselves would be weeded out.Either way, this has nothing to do with morality. If it's a biological condition, then homosexuality is no more immoral than having red hair. It sounds like your argument then is this: Homosexuality is immoral because it denies the ability to make cultures bonds between family groups.I disagree on the premise - Firstly, there's no reason that homosexuality necessarily denies bonds, in fact homosexual marriage and homosexuals in a hetrosexual marriage would both be solutions to this problem. Secondly, can an individual within a culture be considered immoral for not "fitting in" with that cultures norms? The Norm was segregation in the South, MLK didn't fit in. Was MLK immoral for opposing segregation? No. Your point 2 is simply "People claim God tells them that homosexuality is immoral". Firstly, we have no proof of their claim and no reason to believe it. My response was based on the fact that anyone can say anything at anytime and attribute it to "God". That is not how morallity is determined.As for the education stuff, we should probably hold off on that in this thread and maybe move it to another one.

You ask "If sex is not being used for procreation, what difference is it from mutual masturbation?"I ask in return, what makes heterosexual non-procreative sex different than mutual masturbation?What are the differences between homosexual sex and heterosexual non-procreative sex?