Liberals and Democrats often complain that they are being unfairly characterized as the amoral and irreligious party, and that conservatives don’t have a lock on morality. Of course, this is true. Both parties have their own set of morals and ethics that they aspire to and try to push use as a basis for their approach to legislation.
And while being a “moralist” is now a pejorative label (see EO’s In Defense of Moralism), both parties do want to be seen as not being in opposition to morality.
The problem with liberalism, however, is that it has lost ground in the moral arena, in both reality and public opinion, because it has (1) taken mature movements like black civil rights past the point of justice to supporting injustices like reverse discrimination, and (2) has taken their love of freedom to a point of supporting irresponsible behavior and trampling the rights of others in the name of freedom.
Going too Far
As I wrote in The Civil Rights Movements of our Times, every movement for rights has within it the seeds of extremism which can take over and end up disgracing its founders by fighting beyond the point of equal rights to special consideration over others. Black hiring quotas is only one example. The anti-masculine man-haters in the feminist movement set back male-female relationships for decades by their insistence that equal rights also meant erasing any biological or psychological distinctions in the general male and female genders.
Today, the pro-choice and pro-life movements are both making this error, pushing for their own respective either/or solutions, rather than a reasoned compromise, like that made at my pet-project-that-never-got-off-the-ground, Citizens for Responsible Abortion Limits.
Using Freedom to Trample Rights
The best example of this is abortion rights – liberals are so pro-choice, they have basically supported infanticide. They deny the unborn child’s right to live in the name of freedom for the mother. That may seem moral to them, but it seems morally repugnant to many.
Using Humanism and Tolerance to Promote Immorality
Nowhere are liberals looking more immoral than in the sexuality department. I mean, with regard to teen sex, they take what appears to be a defeatist position (“they’re gonna have sex anyway”) and therefore set low expectations regarding chastity and self-control, opting instead to not only show them how to have sex “safely”, but encouraging them to do so!
And with respect to homosexuality, to boldly try to push this questionable identity choice onto a society goes beyond equal rights – it is pushing for special consideration. This is not moral, it is extreme. Male and female is the foundation of a family unit, and of a healthy society. To push to morally validate gay marriage as a civil right is and should be viewed as wrong-headed and immoral.
How the Liberals Can Take Back the Hill of Morality
If liberals really want to be seen as moral and religious, they need to, um, line up more with the conservatives ;), and not take such extreme stands on the the issues. And BTW, extreme conservatives ought to move towards the middle a bit on these as well – conservatives may be seen as the party of morality, but their weak environmental stand is just one of their sins that need to be abandoned. OK liberals, to be seen as moral, you need to deal with these issues:
- Abortion: support the rights of the unborn, at *least* in the 3rd trimester, if not the second
- Church/State: abandon the secular fundamentalist view of “separation of church and state” and adopt a view that is religion-friendly without being religion-establishing.
- Teen Pregnancy: start giving more than lip service to teen abstinence programs and make an effort to reduce teen sexuality, not just teen pregnancy
- Gay Marriage: Sorry boys, but pushing for gay marriage is just not going to cut it with those of us who look at nature and see that such relationships may make you feel better, but they aren’t what creation intended. And BTW, if you are going to go for it anyway, you can’t exclude other loving family relationships like polygamy and polyamory without being viewed as hypocrites. Liberals should drop this cause like a hot potato, and leave it at civil unions. And don’t teach our kids that it’s OK because “it’s now the law – see, that makes it right.” Public education already has enough problems without you encouraging our kids to test out their homosexual possibilities.
As usual Seeker, your arguments are fair, cogent, and correct…wait, I mean the opposite. The real moral people are those that allow for the freedom of others to make their own decisions, particularly when those decisions don't hurt anybody else. You may think you're being moral by legislating your beliefs onto everybody else, but in fact you're being dictatorial. The truly moral acknowledge that there are different, and completely acceptable, ways to lead a life.
For the millionth time, I believe that you should be free to do as you please. I also believe that gays should be free to do as they please. That's the moral positions. Yours? That gays shouldn't be free, and that equal treatment is "special consideration" instead of equality? Not so much.
So quickly, I'll address your suggestions.
1. Abortion: we ought to encourage as much help as possible be available for unprepared parents, rather than using their unplanned for pregnancy as a punishment for sexuality, as allegedly pro-life Christians suggest. For all of your nonsense about liberals refusing acknowledge that the unborn are children, (Some) Christians are all to happy to see children as punishment for immoral behavior.
2. Do not abandon the secularist approach, but scale it back ever-so-slightly. Let there be Christmas decorations, but don't force Christianity on students.
3. Teach the students who are going to engage in the behaviors; don't worry about the Christian kids who aren't going to have sex anyway. (Well, except for all of the Christian kids that do have sex without being properly prepared. How do you Christians explain away the Christian teens who have sex despite abstinence education? The media?)
4. There's nothing wrong with homosexuality. There's nothing wrong with consensual polygamy, which doesn't seem to exist very often. I'll note that one of your socially conservative Mormons is now on the FBI's top-ten list…you know, because social conservatives are so moral and upstanding.
I would also note that creation seems to provide many examples of homosexual relationships in many species, so nature's intentions do not go against homosexuality.
I also believe that gays should be free to do as they please.
Yeah yeah, blah blah. For the nth time, gays are free to marry as they please, they just don’t have the right to force their lifestyle onto our tax system and school systems by trying to get legal sanction.
Again, you emphasize freedom to the point of trampling the rights of others – you illustrate my point. Rights are limited by the rights of others.
we ought to encourage as much help as possible be available for unprepared parents, rather than using their unplanned for pregnancy as a punishment for sexuality, as allegedly pro-life Christians suggest.
Your assessment of the pro-life movement is incorrect. In fact, there are currently more volunteer-supported pregnancy support centers in the U.S. than the governmentally supported Planned Parenthood centers, and the former do exactly what you are specifying. But you are right, the left could do more of that for sure. But they also need to make the changes I suggest, or they will be rightly accused of treating symptoms, not root causes – they would still have only the veneer of true moralism, which deals with motives and root causes.
Christians are all to happy to see children as punishment for immoral behavior.
Um, I seriously doubt it. That’s your negative twist. The non-straw man version of the pro-life view is that there are consequences to our actions, and you can’t kill a child in order to avoid the consequences of sex. Children aren’t punishment, they are the very real product of sex, and we need to change our root behaviors, not try to avoid consequences by doing evil to cover our mistakes – it’s like lying to cover lies.
Do not abandon the secularist approach,
No, DO abandon the secular *fundamentalist* approach.
because social conservatives are so moral and upstanding.
As I said, conservatives don’t have a lock on morality, and there are certainly those who go all whacky on both sides of the debate. My argument stands – liberals are not seen as moral because of their extreme, unbalanced stands on issues.
Many times you have derided Europe as being too liberal and immoral.
I have never accused them of being immoral. They are more secular and non-xian, and they have low birth rates in large part because of their liberal ideologies – not because they are successfully reducing teen sex (because again, measuring birth rates is not the same thing – we need to measure abortion rates and STDs, not to mention broken marriages to see the affects of sexual permissiveness), but because adults are choosing not to have kids (again, abortion may be occurring).
But all I have ever said about Europe was that they have an anti-child liberal policy and a failing social welfare system.
You have brought up some good points about the relative "success" of the Netherlands and all, which I have not had time to do research on.
But I have not said anything about morality. Hope that clears up your confusion.
Cin,
Regarding your stats, I make these quick observations:
1. The report says "The low birth rates in countries such as the Netherlands reflect their more open attitude towards sex and contraception." – but they don't give any supporting data, just a nice liberal claim. The question is, do they have lower teen sex, STD, and pregnancy rates?
2. I don't disagree that sex education is helpful, nor that contraception is helpful in preventing disease and pregnancy. What I am saying is that, though these are somewhat effective, by not addressing the real cause, you may be effective in the short run, but in the long run, you can not be seen as morally virtuous if you are not discouraging teen sex, rather than being seen as encouraging it.
You have brought up some good points about the relative "success" of the Netherlands and all, which I have not had time to do research on.
Why would you need to do research on this? These are facts and they are not complicated. You can respond to them with your own opinion.
We need to measure abortion rates and STDs
You ignored the articles didn't you? They speak to this directly. I ask that you please read them again and I hope that your response will be more relevant. I think people who read your previous response can see you are dodging the issue because you don't have an adequate response. Asking all American teenagers to wait to have sex before marriage is stupid. Yes, stupid. It's an unrealistic expectation in the United States. If your country is run by the Taliban, maybe not.
Seeker, My apologies. You typed your reply before mine.
About point 1. The data supports the claim. The second article I posted comes to the same conclusion and I can find many more with the conclusion that sex ed and contraceptives lower STD, abortions and teen pregnancy. It is certainly not because the Netherlands encourage their teens to abstain. They are very liberal and open about sexuality there.
What I am saying is that, though these are somewhat effective, by not addressing the real cause, you may be effective in the short run, but in the long run, you can not be seen as morally virtuous if you are not discouraging teen sex, rather than being seen as encouraging it.
It's unrealistic to tell teens no sex until marriage. What would you do, legislate a law banning teen sex? It just won't work. I think secular countries like Japan and the Netherlands are on the right track. The statistics support this. We can learn from them and their sense of morality. They outpace the United States in so many quality of life statistics. As far as being seen as morally virtuous, religious conservatives will never see secular liberals as such because they are not religious. Though, I think secular liberals have morals which are just as good, if not better than religious conservatives. Having religion or not having religion will always divide these two groups; it's the nature of religion.
These are facts and they are not complicated. You can respond to them with your own opinion.
No, those are data that you have carefully selected and interpreted for me as fact. My initial opinion is that they are compelling, but I suspect that they (1) may not tell the entire story, (2) may prove correlation but not causation, may (3) overlook other important factors that they either take credit for or deny responsibility for, and (4) they may only show short term gains at the expense of long term prosperity – kind of like borrowing against the national debt in order to prop up the economy.
That analogy, btw, is a very good one, imho. There is a social economy that may, for instance, rob from our children to make ourselves comfortable now, kind of like what we do with social security and the national debt. For example, so what if education is free when your parents never see you and have to work two jobs to make ends meet becuase they are so heavily taxed to support the social welfare model that pays for your education? The longer term cost of such foolishness is harder to measure.
I'm not saying that is actually what is happening (though I did read a report that I will find about how difficult it is for small businesses to thrive in Europe because people take on average ONE sick day per WEEK in order to work a second job so that they can pay taxes), but I'm saying that your carefully selected numbers may not tell the whole story – i.e. I don't trust you yet ;)
Carefully selected numbers? I did a google search for "teenage pregnancy europe" and thats what I got :P Do your own search if you don't trust me then. You will find the same numbers and same conclusions. I tried to look for other causes because I anticipated this response. Also, I don't think you can't come up with a plausible explanation for the numbers other than what the articles already conclude. It's not just Europe that has better rates than we do, we one of the WORST of the industialized nations in regard to abortions, teen pregnancies, etc.
Something I am curious about is, can an religious conservative ever view someone who is a secular liberal as having better morals than themselves? If not, we are wasting our time talking about this.
Here's one possible cause. Poverty. It seems that in areas of the US where the child poverty levels equal those in the netherlands, the teen pregnancy rate is about the same. http://home.earthlink.net/~mmales/yt-sex.htm
So maybe your vaunted approach to sex isn't really the issue. Now, I'm not saying that's an ironclad argument, just one possibility that I don't have time to explore.
Then there's this report from the Washington Times which says that poverty can account for SOME but not all of the difference – much of it may be the high exposire in the US to sexual content in the media. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti…
But you do make a good point about what is effective. But I wonder about the other affects of this approach – are we borrowing from another area that we are not mentioning by encouraging teen sex?
And again, if you say that liberals are actually being moral AND effective, how do you deal with the perception that you are encouraging teen sex, which we KNOW it is linked to higher risk to STD's etc?
Something I am curious about is, can an religious conservative ever view someone who is a secular liberal as having better morals than themselves? If not, we are wasting our time talking about this.
It doesn't depend on your label, it depends on the issues. If you are a secular liberal that is pro-life, and your neighbor is a "pro-choice republican", I'd say you are the one with a better moral compass. And BTW, both may be equally ethical or unethical in their personal lives, or may be somehow immoral in a way that is hidden from us. This is about ideas, not people.
The problem for liberals is, they are percieved as amoral (or immoral) and anti-religious (except in the most generic and "inconsequential" forms of religion – see the quote at the end of my recent post Christianity and Liberalism for a good definition of inconsequential religion).
Their approach to teen sexuality, rather than being merely considerate of the realities of teen interest in sex, and their lack of moral judgement regarding premarital sex, makes them appear to be concerned only with immediate outcomes and treating symptoms rather than appealing to virtue and personal responsibility. Coupled with support for de-facto infanticide (abortion), liberals appear to be supporting immorality, or at best turning blind eye.
How can they claim the moral high ground? They'll have to do something to change that perception, and probably one thing they will have to do, beside trying to make their case as you have, is to adjust their emphases (like welcoming abtinence into their safe-sex arsenal) and start showing more than lipservice concern for the unborn.
that 4th paragraph above just doesn't make sense, sorry – here it is, written with some sense…
The liberal approach to teen sexuality, rather than being merely considerate of the realities of teen interest in sex, goes beyond pragmatism to defeatism.
In addition, liberal lack of moral judgement regarding premarital sex makes them appear to be concerned only with immediate outcomes and treating symptoms rather than appealing to virtue and personal responsibility. This de-facto support of promiscuity, coupled with support for de-facto infanticide (abortion) makes liberals appear to be supporting immorality, or at best turning a blind eye.
Yes indeed! Good point. Poverty IS a contributor to teen pregnancy. What is the next step then?
A. Sex education and contraception for poor people
B. Encourage poor people to abstain from sex
I think A, as you have recognized, would probably be more effective.
To your point how do you deal with the perception that you are encouraging teen sex? I think the media encouraging teen sex is conservative spin. I have been to many countries in Europe where there is sex all over the media. In France there were bare breasted women on prime time commercials. People are just more open to sexuality in Europe. They seem more mature about it to me which indicates good strong moral values. I guess it's a cultural thing. It's not as much of a taboo there than it is here. I would rather have my children have the open sexual attitudes of, say Sweeden, than a puritanical attitude where sex is something to be ashamed of. A puritanical attitude toward sexuality promotes ignorance. Like I said before though, religious conservatives find it difficult if not impossible to comprhend the European view of sexuality as moral.
I think A, as you have recognized, would probably be more effective.
No, I think a combined approach is the best, not one or the other. ABC.
A puritanical attitude toward sexuality promotes ignorance.
Despite your colloquial and pejorative use of the word "puritanical" (an unfortunate common usage), promoting chastity and shame at immorality may seem quaint to you, but this is your whole problem – you have no shame in your vocabulary.
And the options are not some anti-sex ideology (which the puritanical position is not, nor is the conservative approach) vs. your more relaxed attitude.
And as long as liberals attack such virtues as something inhuman and antiquated, they will continue to be rightly considered amoral and promoting immorality, and therefore, being part of the problem. Promoting sexual exploration and contraception (and abortion) may be pragmatic, but it can not be viewed as moral. If this is where liberals intend to stay, they can forget about being seen a a party with a moral imperative.
To discourage sex before marriage is common sense, as much as also instructing kids in safe sex (which, BTW, did not exist before the last 60 years – your technological approach to sex would have been totally ineffective in the past). To omit either is to be irresponsible, imo.
Seeker,
What rights of yours are being trampled by gays having their marriages recognized? That is the most ludicrous argument that I’ve ever heard, precisely because there is literally NOTHING to back up your insane position. In no way will your life change if gays are afforded the legal protection of mrriage. In. No. Way. And any Christian suggesting otherwise is clearly a liar.
Seeker, I think Europeans handle sexuality much better than Americans. Being open about sexuality is not an attack on virtue. They are not immoral. They don’t promote immorality.
And as long as liberals attack such virtues as something inhuman and antiquated, they will continue to be rightly considered amoral and promoting immorality, and therefore, being part of the problem.
Again, this is a conservative perspective, not necessarily a world view. Pro-Lifers consider themselves as having a better moral compass than Pro-Choicers. This is obviously false though I don’t think a Pro-life person can’t comprehend how.
To discourage sex before marriage is common sense, as much as also instructing kids in safe sex (which, BTW, did not exist before the last 60 years – your technological approach to sex would have been totally ineffective in the past). To omit either is to be irresponsible, imo.
It was not common sense for me. I am glad I didn’t wait for marriage until I had sex with my girlfriend. That was a wonderful part of my life I would have missed had I abstained. We were both responsible about it. I bet you think I am amoral or immoral having said this?
I’ll post on Christianity and Liberalism to help get a conversation started.
Sam,
As a biologist, Seeker must recognize that homosexuality is a trait and not a personal choice.
http://online.logcabin.org/talking_points/Burr_White_Paper.html
But to people like Aaron and Seeker, it does not matter that its a trait. It does not matter whether gay marriage infringes on the personal life of others, or not. I guess, because religious conservatives see gay marriage as a desecration of what they see as a sacred union in the eyes of their God. The problem is that marriage is not an institution limited to Christians. Many non Christians get married every day. Its a secular institution when two atheists get married. I’ll be accused of fear mongering when I say this but I think it’s the truth: Christians think that since, in the United States, marriage is a Christian ceremony (vows etc.) that they control the marriage institution from a moral perspective. Thus, same sex marriage is repellant and a sin, no exceptions. Sam, you and I know this is unreasonable but we can never convince the religious conservatives otherwise. They refuse to see it any other way.
Whoa! I found the same discussion we are having here about abstinence vs. Sex Ed. Ironically it's from my far left blog i frequent. 2or3 is my far right blog :)
Abstinence In Uganda
The comments are interesting.
Seeker, although I think you're a raging fundamentalist, and deeply misguided about the nature of the universe, in this case you're 100% correct. Gays do want to "force their lifestyle onto our tax system and school systems"
That's how taxes work! As any number of anarchists and libertarians will tell you, taxes are a system of forced payment, based on the threat of violence. And, although I personally feel that our taxes are capable of doing a great deal of good, that definition is essentially true. We simply do not, as individuals, have any say in how our taxes are spent. We're forced to go along with the program, regardless of our personal beliefs about our money's distribution. We may have a vote, which is rarely tied directly to a tax-related issue, but after that it's out of our hands.
And even if we did have a direct say in our tax distribution, by your own arguments and numbers, two-thirds the country believe that same-sex couples should at the very least have the right to civil unions.
So quit complaining about this forcing from gays; you sound like a child. Maybe I should start a blog and whine about how Christians are "forcing" their lifestyles on me by making me pay taxes that go towards their "faith based" work. I'm sure that either of us come up with an endless list of government programs that we don't approve of. I guess all those [INSERT DISLIKED SOCIAL GROUP HERE] are forcing their lifestyles on us, huh? Those selfish bastards!
I can't help but think you're being largely hypocritical about this. (1) For the reason I just listed, but also (2) because in this very same post, you suggested that gay people should settle for civil unions. How are civil unions different from marriages in this sense? Do you really think that civil unions won't affect taxes, social security, healthcare, etc? And if they didn't, what would the point be?
Why can't I ever correctly close my italics tags?
So quit complaining about this forcing from gays; you sound like a child.
I'm not just complaining. I am saying that the gay push for redefining marriage is unjust, illegitimate, perverse, an abuse of the legal system, and taking their movement too far, just like other movements have done, as I mentioned.
How are civil unions different from marriages in this sense?
That is a good question. My main concern is that once gay marriage is sanctioned, homosexuality as a lifestyle will have to be sanctioned in our school curriculums, which I think is perverse. Of course, maybe that has already happened, so my point might be moot.
My concern is in giving legitimacy to this lifestyle as if it were normal and healthy, rather than abnormal and unhealthy. Promoting unhealth as health can only be harmful. And gays have NOT made their case, either medically, naturally, or morally. Comparing homosexuality to race is not a close enough analogy. I'd say it is closer to other non-hetero sexual activities, all of which are morally questionable.
My second concern is, as I have written lately, the loss of religious liberty that most certainly will occur if religious institutions must now treat homosexuality the way we do race – that is, if we discriminate or call homosexuality sin, we can be condemned by the government, and have our tax statuses withdrawn, or worse.
Race is not a sin. Homosexuality is. We can't penalize people for saying so. Sanctioning gay marriage would lead to such penalties, just like it did for the other VALID civil rights movements.
I don't want to deny gays the right to vote, to get equal pay, to get housing, or to be free from fear of violence. But to elevate gay marriage to that of the status of hetero marriage (nature's and God's obvious choice for mankind ;), would be harmful to society, and to our children. I guess that's my bottom line.
As a biologist, Seeker must recognize that homosexuality is a trait and not a personal choice.
As I have argued many times
– the "choice" argument is a red herring. People often do not consciously choose their coping mechanisms and maladaptations. That does not mean that they can not choose to do the hard work of healing to change their ways
– no one has proved any genetic roots for homosexuality. As I said, it is most likely both genetic and environmental. There is some evidence for the latter.
– just because something has a genetic component does not make it ok – depression, aggression, and cancer all have genetic components
– the strong correlation between other antisocial and destructive behaviors and homosexuality need to be explored – are they related? These indicate to me that homosexuality itself may be part of an emotional illness, not a normal variant
– the argument from nature is still overwhelmingly convincing to me – gays can't procreate, and our bodies weren't designed for gay sex. The whole "evolutionary advantage" argument is weak, if not laughable.
Churches don't have to lose their tax exempt status Seeker. Nobody is forcing churches into making regressive, unAmerican decisions. If they choose to do so however, well then they're outside of the letter of the law. But they are the ones making the choices, not society, nor government. Don't act as if massive million dollar churches are the victims here. It is quite clear that the gays you seek to treat unfairly are the victims.
Repeated studies since 1985, under the U.S.'s "Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Act," demonstrate that the best way to encourage abstinence includes teaching proper condom use. Kids need to know how and why to be abstinent, and they need facts about barrier methods of birth control for use in critical situations.
The reality is that "abstinence only" has about an 80% failure rate. It's not liberals who need to explain their views: Why do conservatives promote disproven methods that guarantee kids will get pregnant out of wedlock, and that many will get diseases, and some will die? C'mon, Seeker: Why?
– just because something has a genetic component does not make it ok – depression, aggression, and cancer all have genetic components
– the strong correlation between other antisocial and destructive behaviors and homosexuality need to be explored – are they related? These indicate to me that homosexuality itself may be part of an emotional illness, not a normal variant
– the argument from nature is still overwhelmingly convincing to me – gays can't procreate, and our bodies weren't designed for gay sex. The whole "evolutionary advantage" argument is weak, if not laughable. -seeker
I would have a better argument for Religious belief being an emotional illness, if not a full blown mental illness. Let us study the last 2000 years of recent history to back me up on that one! How many deaths?
Ask yourself! , what is the definition of Bigotry!
Homosexuality has always been with us, and no, its not a choice, if you wish to generalize and place a judgement on this part of the population, you are no better than the racist ranting on about the Nigger that moved onto his street!
Actually, studies show that people of faith live longer and deal with stress better. While some people do cling to religion like an addiction, that doesn't make religion a mental illness.
Homosexuality has always been with us, and no, its not a choice,
As I said, choice is a red herring. I suspect that most gays don't choose homosexuality – rather, they subsconsciouly and automatically choose it as a reaction to their injurious childhood. As with most dysfunctions, they will later need to pry into thier subconscious with therapy and self-awareness to heal what is broken and to CHOOSE to become healthy. That part is most definitely a choice.
As I said, choice is a red herring. I suspect that most gays don't choose homosexuality – rather, they subsconsciouly and automatically choose it as a reaction to their injurious childhood. As with most dysfunctions, they will later need to pry into thier subconscious with therapy and self-awareness to heal what is broken and to CHOOSE to become healthy. That part is most definitely a choice.
Just like they subconsciously choose their eye color as a reaction to their injurious childhood.
Yeah, well that's your whole point, I suspect – that it is genetically predetermined. Too bad there's no scientific proof of your contention.
So go back and read My Genes Made Me Do It
Homosexuality is a trait. This article makes it clear. http://online.logcabin.org/talking_points/Burr_Wh…
Take your head out of the sand.
There are some outright logical fallacies there which I will address, as well as dependence on twins studies, which are dubious.
It matters not that you think it is a "trait" – so is pedophilia by this definition. As I said, a biological predisposition does not make something morally acceptable, and the evidence for environmental influence means that that, unlike eye color, such personality features may certainly be a disorder, not just a benign trait.
You may find this author's line of reasoning conclusive, but I find it fraught tiwh questionable assumptions, which I will address later.
Homosexuality is a developmental disorder, and a sexual sin. It is a perversion of what is intended. It can be healed. To think it the same as skin or eye color is to totally ignore any sociologic factors.
Pedophilia is not a trait. It's a sexual appetite like a shoe fetish. There is no shoe fetish gene as there is no pedphilia gene. These appetites do not exist in the animal world. Homosexuality exists in different species in the animal world. Therefore it's a gene.
Your moral argument from nature fails, haven't you been reading? We see canabalism in nature, as well as murder. We see multiple partners in nature.
Could you give me examples of homosexuality in nature? I'm sure they exist, but I haven't researched them.
We see canabalism in nature, as well as murder. We see multiple partners in nature.
None of these are genetic. As the article Do People Choose Their Sexual Orientation? shows, homosexuality is a trait like handedness.
Could you give me examples of homosexuality in nature?
I got this from wikipedia…
The presence of same-sex sexual behavior was not scientifically observed on a large scale until recent times, possibly due to observer bias caused by social attitudes to same-sex sexual behavior. It appears to be widespread among insects, birds and mammals, particularly the apes. Many male penguins that apparently mate for life have been observed in homosexual pairs and refuse to pair with females when given the chance [4].
One report on sheep cited below states:
"Approximately eight percent of [male] rams exhibit sexual preferences [that is, even when given a choice] for male partners (male-oriented rams) in contrast to most rams, which prefer female partners (female-oriented rams). We identified a cell group within the medial preoptic area/anterior hypothalamus of age-matched adult sheep that was significantly larger in adult rams than in ewes…"
I imagine Seeker’s great‐grandparents doing similar concern trolling: Listen, liberals, if you want to be seen as moral, pushing this women’s lib agenda is just not going to cut it with those of us who read scripture and know what God ordained woman’s role to be.
Seeker, your opposition to equal rights disqualifies you from any authority on morality, and will put you on the wrong side of history as well. If you bigots see we egalitarians as immoral, it is to your own shame. Go ahead and fume while we on the side of the angels (so to speak) fight for freedom.
>> ROBIN: I imagine Seeker’s great‐grandparents doing similar concern trolling
This is the problem with liberalism – living in the realm of imagination instead of fact. In actuality, my family has been involved in both environmentalism and feminism since before I was born. But the hateful, bitter, anti-masculine feminism went too far in establishing women's 'rights', as the pro-gay lobby does today, imo.
>> ROBIN: Seeker, your opposition to equal rights disqualifies you from any authority on morality,
I don't oppose equal rights, I only oppose the tacet approval of an unnatural dysfunction as normal. It's bad for children and society. So is abortion/infanticide.
Your accusation is like me saying "because you oppose polygamy/polyamory/bestiality (consensual), you have no room to talk about morality since you are against equal rights."
I would heartily approve of such a statement, however, applied to those who are pro-choice.
I oppose neither polyamory nor polygamy. There should not be laws against polygamy, and if the next civil rights battle were to repeal laws criminalizing those marriages, they’d have my support. (However, coercing young girls to be polygamous brides, as the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints no longer (officially) does, ought to be illegal.)
Neither polyamory nor polygamy by consenting adults is comparable to bestiality. Bestiality is not sex with a consenting partner, it is animal rape.