clueless#2

Homosexuality: Let’s Talk About What We’re Talking About

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Reprinted from: BarbWire

 

 

The political left benefits every time someone on the political right ignores the basics when it comes to the debate over so-called “homosexual rights” or same-sex “marriage.”

This column has spent some time on the topic of the need for Republicans and conservatives to get serious about entering the information war. The true nature of homosexuality is like every other issue in that war — more Americans need to be reached with the truth. The less the public understands the more the nutty radical lefties gain ground.

Few should be surprised by the ignorance demonstrated by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Tuesday when she vetoed that state’s religious protection bill. As other big name Republicans weighed in it would appear that most elected Republicans share Brewer’s limited grasp of the facts.

Much of their wrong-headedness stems from a simple lack of knowledge about what homosexuality is. So can we please start to talk about what it is we’re talking about?

Pro-homosexual agenda arguments are “fact-less, emotional, and based on false premises”

According to the Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins, the extreme social left would have people believe the following unproven views:

  • That homosexuality is ontologically (of or relating to essence or the nature of being) equivalent to race.
  • That homosexual acts are morally equivalent to heterosexual acts.
  • That homosexuality is in all cases immutable.
  • That homosexuality is biologically determined.
  • That moral disapproval of homosexual acts constitutes hatred of persons.
  • That moral disapproval of homosexual acts is analogous to racism (or “hate”).

None of the above points are true. Our society has been allowed to be lazy on this issue because social conservatives do not emphasize often enough the nature of homosexuality. Assumptions are rarely, if ever, questioned. Claims—no matter how faulty—are accepted as fact.

In her writings Laurie Higgins explains that all of the arguments in support of the above points “are fact-less, emotional, and based on false premises.”

Let’s focus on the first bullet point above. Higgins writes:

  • Race is 100% heritable, homosexuality is not.
  • Race is immutable in all cases, homosexuality is in many cases mutable (capable of or susceptible to change).
  • Race has no behavioral implications that are legitimate objects of moral assessment; homosexuality is centrally defined by subjective experiences of desire and volitional acts that are legitimate objects of moral assessment.

On the mutability question, let me refer you to just one organization — Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays. There are an ever increasing number of men and women who have successfully left the homosexual lifestyle. The pseudo “experts” on the social left would have you believe ex-gays don’t exist. Since they do exist, everything else those “experts” say should be measured accordingly.

Higgins writes what she calls an unoriginal observation:

Whereas there are no former blacks, there  are scores of people who have at one point self-identified as homosexual, renounced homosexuality, and gone on to live successful heterosexual lives.

Higgins adds:

Homosexuality is not analogous to skin color, biological sex, hair color, or disability. Homosexuality would be analogous to many conditions that are defined by powerful persistent desires and volitional acts.

It’s important to be aware of the following – again, quoting Laurie Higgins:

There is no evidence for the claim that homosexuality is genetically determined. Every study that has suggested a correlation between some biological factor and homosexuality has been refuted or criticized for any number of test-design flaws or faulty conclusions.

The American Psychological Association says this about homosexuality causation:

“Most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors.”

The fact that same-sex attraction is persistent and seemingly intractable does not make it like race any more than the persistence and seeming intractability of pedophilic impulses make pedophilia like race.

The collapse of the radical left’s rhetorical house of cards

According to Higgins, the entire rhetorical house of cards of the so-called “homosexual rights” movement collapses once the nature of homosexuality is properly understood. To arrive at this understanding, however, requires critical thinking—a questioning of the claims and the premises of those who would toss out common sense morality in favor of a sexual revolution.

Those who attempt to use the powers of human reason to get at the true nature of homosexuality are accused of being “intolerant.” Disagreement, however, is not intolerance. It’s not complicated. It hardly takes much effort at all to see how the word is misused by those who are completely intolerant of anyone who exposes their emotion-based arguments.

Those who see homosexual acts as immoral are called “haters.” The notion that anyone who disagrees with a moral supposition “hates” those promoting it is silly. Plenty of advocates of the homosexual agenda do not support the legalization of polygamy or polyamory. Does that mean they “hate” those who wish to have that lifestyle legalized?

Those who oppose the propaganda put forward by the radical social left are also called “homophobes.” I addressed that childish notion in a post a few years ago—disagreement is not fear—but I did (and still do) wonder about the growing phenomenon of “moralityphobia.”

Like all human desires and volitional acts, the question of right or wrong, healthy or unhealthy, normal or abnormal, and recommended or not recommended comes into play. Those promoting the homosexual agenda want society to treat as beyond reproach or judgment the behaviors represented by the letters LGBTQQI (etc.). However, they present no rational basis for doing so.

Higgins writes:

Behaviors that result from powerful, persistent desires are not automatically moral. And every behavior that results from the influence of biology is not automatically moral.

To argue otherwise would be a very scary moral proposition. Are we going to apply consistently the principle that every behavior that results from biologically influenced impulses is automatically moral?

While homosexuality does not compare with race, it does compare with polyamory (plural relationships). Laurie Higgins writes that some find this comparison offensive:

[B]ut their experience of offense does not mean the analogy fails. Polyamory is a condition that is defined by emotional/romantic feelings, sexual attraction, and volitional sexual expression, and therefore is very much like homosexuality.

The comparison to race is the offensive analogy in that race has nothing whatsoever to do with feelings or volitional acts.

Another excellent observation by Higgins is this:

Some would assert that I ought not ‘diminish a person’s choices of meaningful fulfillment in life and love based on race, sex or sexual orientation.’ But why are those the only conditions that should not be allowed to diminish a person’s life ‘choices of meaningful fulfillment.’ Why should society have the right to diminish the choices of someone who loves his sister or of polyamorists?

With close observation it becomes clear what the social left wants. Here’s Laurie Higgins on the topic:

Their goals are to win social acceptance of alternative sexual “lifestyles,” especially homosexuality (but including transgenderism, et al), and to make room for a revolutionary new sexual code that glorifies self-indulgence and embraces promiscuity.

So, can we please spend more time discussing the reason why the “homosexual rights” agenda is in conflict with the First Amendment’s protection of our God-give religious liberty? More voices on the right need to stop granting the false premise that homosexual behavior is analogous to race. It is not.

As Americans learn more about the horrific nature of abortion, the nation becomes more pro-life. The same positive result will be seen when more of our fellow citizens are presented with the facts about homosexual behavior.