Depths of Acheron

My good friend Erin is quite perplexed (albeit puzzlingly histrionic) about what appears to be a boycott by gays and lesbians toward Target.  For the record, I mean “good friend” not in the ironic sense, which for those familiar with my interactions with her, might be the quickest assumption.  I respect Catholicism for its attempts at intellectual integrity compared to other Christian flavors and sects, even if I find that long tradition lacking in recent days.

With this situation, I honestly can say it doesn’t perplex me in the least.  Neither does it bother me when the American Family Association boycotts companies like Pepsi, McDonald’s, and whatever corporation of the week has slighted the AFA by being amicable toward gays.  I feel that people being able to use their money and time for what they wish compels this kind of attitude, though I can certainly find the reasons for such boycotts silly, ridiculous, dumb-founded, and a host of other descriptors.  Much like my good friend, Erin, is clearly capable.

With the Target situation, it’s pretty much people doing what they freely have been able to do:  support things they wish and retract support from things they do not wish.  If you prefer a company’s position on the environment, its hiring practices, its mission, and so forth, and you purchase from that company because of these reasons, I see no reason to be shocked if people might contrarily disfavor a company for its various positions and practices—to even make it known about their discontentment—and not support it with buying their products or granting it laurels.  To expect people to act differently seems almost derivative of an authoritarian desire.

But are these gays’ actions silly?

Target, as assessed by the HRC (which through its actions almost claims to speak for gays…or at least it makes it simpler for social conservatives to lambast gays as if the HRC speaks for them, I don’t know which is accurate), has a good record as a gay-friendly company.  Yet some of their political contributions went to aid a candidate who is against extending marriage rights to gay and lesbian relationships…something which might affect gays all over the state, not just the company’s principles or their records of being more sympathetic toward gays than other companies.  I am, myself, partially sympathetic to this viewpoint.  I don’t think it’s that outrageous for someone to decide to not patronage Target because of this reason, nor to organize such an effort and make it known why they are doing such actions.  I truthfully wouldn’t find it outrageous for any ideological group or assortment of people to stand up for their convictions in such a way.  If people are spitting on you, I can hardly oblige an untoward comment if you step aside.

As much as Erin might like to belittle the importance of marriage in this instance while fighting to her last breath about how important it is everywhere else…marriage matters.  Unfortunately in this case, not granting marriage to gays affects those trying to enter the institution (the gays and lesbians in question) much more than those who are trying to keep them out, who already have access and are probably blinded by a blanket of privilege.

What superficially makes little sense, however, is the regression Erin exposes later:

Homosexual activists will not, now or ever, live in peace with those Americans who believe that marriage is a union of one man and one woman. They will insist that holding this belief is the moral equivalent of racism. They will drive this belief from the public square and punish anyone who holds it.

Two issues must be addressed in this.  The first is that is not the case that those Americans to which Erin refers simply believe that marriage is a union of one man and one woman.  It’s not like saying they believe that a “car” can only be defined as having a particular shape and function, and everyone (i.e., other people) is out to get these car formalists when they (i.e., other people) dare suggest another object, similar in many respects, might be a “car” too.  Implied further in this vein of belief is that only those things called a “car” by the car formalists are, by strict definition, better than anything else that could be added to the category.  It transforms from a claim of a difference to a claim of superiority, when differences are not always indicative of superior features (though perhaps better in the exact respects of their difference).

For example, pretend we have salt and pepper.  They are different food additives, and they are genuinely distinguishable and can be used for different functions.  If we wanted to assess which were better at making a food more flavorful, it could certainly be addressed and quantified.  Which might be better in drying out slugs?  Which might melt ice on sidewalks better?  Which might make a better paper-weight when in a shaker?  A more attractive table ornament?  There are many different qualities that could assessed without even approaching the idea that no matter the circumstances, salt is always better in every situation or pepper is always better in every situation.

The two ideas above are easy to demonstrate as false without requiring a self-evident claim.  We can set up dimensions we wish to measure, such as the paperweight idea, and see which works best (or see if the difference is even significant).  Same can be applied for many things like melting ice and flavoring a good dish.

Secondly (and which will tie quickly into the first point), it seems as if the suggestion here is that the “union of one man and one woman” proclaimers (Proclaimers) merely hold this idea as an opinion in their mind, no more important than their indifference to the amount of syllables in the word “the,” where everyone who disagrees with them is suddenly irrational and hounding them because these Proclaimers merely have an opinion, a piece of thought that is threatened by disagreement…

But with this particular issue, or even the issue of gay morality abroad, that’s not the case.  The opinions carry with them a weight of action, importance.  Some Proclaimers, in their beliefs, would not merely just hold their belief, they would act on it.  Perhaps they would work to put in place constitutional amendments to prevent gays from entering marriage.  Similarly, those who support gays entering the institution of marriage, who believe that two men or two woman can meet the requirements of a marriage, may not be content to just sit by and let that belief be idle.  It’s almost like saying, “I like chocolate,” but never batting an eye if chocolate suddenly disappeared from the earth, essentially a belief with little importance.  But with all the fuss over this issue, clearly it’s not that people have respectable differences on the issue, like whether to wear red or white to work in the morning.

Obviously, connected to the Proclaimers is that idea that one man/woman marriage is inherently better, inherently superior, and I would not doubt some of them would be driven to make things in our country more aligned with those views:  not allowing gay adoption, for example….not allowing gays to hold some positions, to teach children, to rent houses, etc.  If they’re correct, if the salt in this case works better than the pepper, then I would be inclined to agree with them.  Given the appropriate evidence and the reasoning behind it, I would agree with them.  It is not, however, sufficient to say that salt is different than pepper, and therefore salt is better.  And to then expect everyone to nod their head.

This is where, unfortunately, the analogue to racism creeps in. I don’t think it’s made nearly as pungently as Erin fears, however, but comes as a natural consequence of the discussion, of her side’s general reluctance to engage and instead rely on “self-evident” claims which happily only convince people who already agree with you.  Racism, the idea that one race is superior to another or should be favored over another, is abhorrent to our society because it is based on generally false principles.  The moral opprobrium with racism comes from the actions that stemmed from such beliefs, an atrocious, heinous, and dark stain in human history, one that soaks through to today.

With these Proclaimers, unless they start making a better case, start engaging the secular arguments (since, although not all but likely most, antagonism toward allowing gays into marriage and general antagonism toward gays is rooted in religious views), their idea of heterosexual superiority will be likened to racism—not because people say it is so—because, as it stands, that tends to be the way it goes with all evidence the research is showing us about gay relationships and straight relationships…about what anthropology has allowed us to see about even the institution of marriage and our unique hubris to claim things traditional about it that have only been in place for a few decades.

If I can’t provide a reason for my salt chauvinism, when favoring it in all examples and forums even when it might damage the purported goals of what I’m trying to achieve, then you’d be seeing the same actions of prejudice that work in racism.

My salt chauvinism might not reach the level of moral opprobrium that exists for racism (likely wouldn’t), but that’s merely a factor of how I act in accordance to my chauvinism, how it affects others around me.  And when the harms imposed here with regards to not allowing gays enter marriage aren’t on the Proclaimers…they better, as I say, come up with a better case.  A court might call it “rational basis.”

This Target example illustrates the very problem the Proclaimers are going to face as time goes.  Without principled opposition–by that I mean good reasons for it, justifiable reasons not in the realm of transcendence–the rest of society will tend to move forward.  A few years ago, Erin and her cohorts could probably have Target turning on its toes if it dared support a candidate who was in favor of gay rights.  The pendulum is swinging the other direction now, and it will be a painful, existentialist awakening for those who were too comfortable with the pendulum on their side, not realizing that what held it there wasn’t firm bars of reason but spiderwebs of ignorance.

In the minds of gay activists, it is already immoral bigotry for a person to say that he or she believes that marriage is between a man and a woman. In a post-gay “marriage” reality, they will use every available resource the law allows to shut down the belief in traditional marriage–and the freedoms, religious and otherwise, of those who hold that belief.

I can only speak for myself, but the first sentence is off the mark, if I read it literally.

If I am to believe that the person saying “marriage  means a man and woman” means that that arrangement is unconditionally better an arrangement than a man/man or woman/woman relationship, then yes, without the evidence, I would think the person is prejudiced.  If they are obstinate in that prejudice, unable to go beyond their prejudgments even when faced with genuine counterexamples, then, well, I’m afraid they meet the requirements of the definition of a bigot, and I would feel none the worse if social disapproval castigated them as such, much as we currently do to people who do offensive things in public.  However, I’ll personally be reluctant to call them a bigot because, in our culture, it’s so much more bothersome to be called a bigot than to recognize that bigotry exists, that prejudice exists.

That, and I’m quite comfortable with knowing my limitations

I am prejudiced, and although I strive to do my best not to be so, it is a difficult task, especially when you are going against your very human nature.

Some time after I came out, I was speaking with one of my close friends about sexuality in general. My friend, a straight male, went through the usual questions that many gays are familiar with, such as the triad of “when did you find out,” “are you sure,” and a general description of how exactly I knew.

It was during this conversation with him and a flashback to many others along this vein that it dawned on me that any gay person put through this scenario probably has a been understanding of sexuality than a straight person. I mentioned this to my friend, only to be met with confusion (probably due to my not being able to explain it well).

On further reflection, I believe now it’s a product of privilege. People who are straight are not faced with the same challenges when it comes to their sexuality. It is affirmed, deemed normal, rarely questioned, and often encouraged. I’m reminded of the awkward dinners with my family where the questions would come up of whether I were seeing a girl or not, and the kind-hearted laughs when I would become evasive or even blushing.

It’s said that with issues of privilege, you don’t become aware of just how privileged you are until you are put in an identity or situation that is not as privileged.

A good highlight of this is when I broke my wrist a few years ago. I never noticed the many challenges that arise the minute you’re missing the use of a limb, the creative solutions you concoct, the new existential awareness you create around the circumstance. I remember with some disappointment how I would have dreams where I had the unimpaired use of both my arms, only to be shocked to the reality upon awakening.

When I regained the use of my hand, all the hindrances and privileges were soon forgotten, never accessed until moments like these where I encourage myself to empathize with my past self. It’s the same way it works for recognizing where heterosexual privilege exists (or racial privilege, religious privilege, gender privilege—all upon lines that we draw identities).

My friend had never undergone the same questions to himself. At what moment did he fully realize he was straight? Was there ever a reason to question his attractions, so affirmed by society? And how often would he be aware of the conflicts when his family would be asking questions more aligned to what they assumed he was doing?

This issue ties in well with the theories of complementarity. For the uninformed, arguments of this type tend to follow the line of “bringing together/uniting the two great halves of humanity” in concordance with denying marriage rights to gays. There is an unquestioned aspect of complementarity, this essentialism that’s assumed of every man and woman that makes them automatically complements of one another.

Obviously this just isn’t true. While there are differences that can be recorded on average of the groups on a whole of men and women, these differences do not typify each and every men or women of their respective group. There is an amazing amount of diversity in this world, and it’s difficult to peg down what exactly femaleness or maleness is when you realize the overlap of behaviors and aspirations of both groups. The complementarity they believe exists can only be defined along the line of a genital complementarity, if we were to truly try to find that essential feature of male or female (and even then it’s circumspect). You can find a man and woman who act almost identically in attitudes, aspirations, fears, personality, and the mere fact they are designated “man” or “woman” meets the standard of complementarity. Why is this, if not for genitalia?

The other damaging aspect of this unquestioned privilege is how easily the focus becomes that gays are selfish or they have eroticized body parts to create fetishes.

If we examined heterosexuality in the same way we did homosexuality, scrutinized it under the microscope of pathology and classifying exactly why it happens, if it can be changed—I’m sure the same “issues” of eroticizing body parts would come up.

What attracts a straight man to a woman and vice versa? It’s not that they are perfect complements to one another. That’s the consequence of taking heterosexuality for granted, for assuming that kind of essentialism that doesn’t exist. Heterosexuality is then seen as more normal, transcendent even, than the evidence would justify. How hard it is to claim that men are simply focusing on female body parts of breasts, buttocks, or a shapely figure as arousing stimuli? Why should the standard be so much harsher for gays?

It’s also the privilege that leads to theories of attachment for creation of homosexuality. When we consider the transcendent position given to heterosexual couples, that unquestioned, ubiquitous order of nature, the privilege lies in the lack of scrutiny applied to their position.

I’m not advocating a return to Freudian examples of Oedipal conflicts and Elektra complexes—neither solve the question—but until that standard of scrutiny is applied equally, that veil of privilege removed, it will always be hypocritical to call a gay’s desire for companionship and recognition thereof as selfish. My guess is that the pot and kettle need to confront a mirror.

Another case of talking points gone wrong. I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to see seemingly intelligent people pull out this relic and brandish it about as if it were the damning evidence that seals a conviction. Despite the spittle running down their face and a face as glowering as their confidence, the glove sadly does not fit.

I don’t know the intentions of those who drafted the platform. I also, like my position on the APA’s declassification of homosexuality in the same decade, don’t think it’s nearly as relevant as the gay detractors believe it to be.

The main issues seem to be linking the platform as evidence of gays wanting to prey on the young, a stereotype that pedophilia is associated with homosexuality and the darker stereotype that people are initiated into being gay by an older, more corrupt individual. Both are patently false, and if there weren’t back in the day, they are now (unless such initiation rites are the same that heterosexual teens engage in with one another in junior high and high school).

I am aware that there existed in some states’ laws a disparity between the age of consent for heterosexual pairs and homosexual pairs. There were known as Romeo and Juliet laws, where if an older male had sex with a younger female, the sentence would be mitigated to a shorter punishment, but no such mitigation existed for gay couples. This may or may not have been the incentive for gays wanting to remove all laws regarding age of consent.

Another possibility I can speculate (since I wasn’t there, nor did I sign in blood the platform when coming out, nor hear of it until a gay detractor brought it to my attention as if it were hand-in-hand with being gay) is that there is some novelty to the idea that age of consent infringes with due process of the law. Putting an arbitrary date as when one is “able” to give consent can hardly seem justifiable, and it is entirely up to the subjective whim of whatever body creates the law. Why should someone who is fourteen in one state be considered a pedophile when in crossing the border to where the age of consent is two years lower be perfectly acceptable?

It’s like many status limit crimes. What exactly is different about being sixteen that makes one more able to drive? Why not one minute before? One week? One month? Or even one month after? The same little spectrum can applied to other areas like drinking, voting, serving in the military, and smoking. It belies the truth that people are individuals, with individual maturity and rates of responsibility. Arbitrary dates do little to ensure that the person is truly capable at that point in time.

I don’t agree with the outcome of this view, however, as I find age of consent laws to serve a beneficiary purpose, at least if controlled to not giving the status of “sex offender” for every minor infraction. Today the price is too great for some of juvenile antics that can get out of hand.

But what is ignored in some rational people is: do people follow that platform today? Who besides the anti-gay movement brings it up as the list of demands?

If it’s reasoned as obscured because of being some part of the hidden gay agenda, they need to take breath and consider their paranoia and their outlandish expectations of gays. Given that gays…infect, if you will…every conceivable population, they do not hold the same values and opinions on things. A quick look through the blogosphere is testament to that. You have gays who would rather be celibate (ex-gays), gays who are conservative-minded (Andrew Sullivan), gays for marriage, gays against marriage, gays who dislike heterosexual culture (gay essentialists)—all a part of the mosaic of what it takes to have that small identity of being gay.

It’s like an overlapping circle, several other circles being different affiliations. Just as the category “men” can include Muslim, Christian, Hindi, Atheist, black, white, brown, old, young, Republican, Democrat, conservative, moderate, liberal—”gay” can do much the same.

We do not assume that all men hold the same ideas on things. We should not assume that all gays agree on the same thing, nor should we relegate them to some conspiratorial group because the paranoid theories fit so well with our prejudices.

Homosexuality as a disorder was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) used by the American Psychological Association (APA) in the 1970s. An often repeated rhetorical point is that it was only declassified as a disorder because of pressure from gay activists.

I’m a big fan of the show House. The format might become repetitive after a few seasons—I barely can connect which case goes with the storyline and key plot points—but a defining moment of almost every episode is House’s epiphany. Some random comment jars him to approach the problem in a different way and solve the case with a quirky, atypical answer that no one anticipated.

House is the genius in this series. The authority. Though at times it’s the unwitting and tangential comments of some people less experienced, less knowledgeable, and in some cases, stupider that leads to these insights. It’s another to thing connected to logic: people can have the worst reasoning to support their position (none at all) but their position could be correct in the end. A way to grasp is the axiom of a broken clock being right twice a day.

I don’t care if the APA bent to political pressure to declassify homosexuality from the DSM. It doesn’t matter. To focus on that point is to paint gays in a bad shade, to engage the genetic fallacy where the source is assumed to make the conclusion invalid. To mention it is only blowing smoke into the air, tinged with scorn that homosexuality never should have been removed in the first place.

What we need to investigate is whether the classification was valid. The DSM has three criteria for meeting a disorder. One of which is significant impairment or distress to the individual; another is if it impairs with family, social life, and others; and the last is whether it is outside the range of behavior typical of that culture.

As a tangent, I’m not thrilled with the idea of disorder classification to begin with. Within psychology, I feel too little may have been spent on studying what it is “normal” (how I hate that word) in mental health, and it’s far too subjective to the culture of the time.

That aside, I remind anyone who brings up the bad gays manhandling the APA to remove homosexuality as a disorder to explain to me why it should fit. This ties in to the clock being right twice a day: whether it was removed because of evidence or not obscures the point. Should it be classified as a disorder? Would we classify it as such with what know about sexuality now?

With the first condition, research doesn’t seem to support it. Trying to disentangle where society is the factor producing the distress in gay individuals is a tricky matter. Are distressed gays distressed because they are gay or because they might be in an environment that is not safe for them? In an environment that is not supportive? These same questions could tie quite nicely into the second condition.

The third condition is sadly where I fault the subjectivity of it all, though I have no suggestions at this time how best to frame and define disorders. Over time, within the United States, homosexuality certainly is becoming more culturally acceptable. Whether or not that is a direct result of the APA’s declassification is arguable…but if such a stance is required to paint something as wrong, it’s shaky ground to begin with for people who want to use the APA’s unethical switch as evidence against gays, especially if the attitude changes and levels of distress are directly dependent on the cultural whims of the time.

If there is no intrinsic wrong or disordered pattern with being gay in the first place, and with the varied population that it is, then it doesn’t meet the classification criteria. It’s the assumed and unscientific prejudice of the times.

A better question would be: why did the activist psychologists classify homosexuality as a disorder without any evidence? Insert all the scorn of being swayed by unscientific measures.

Being identified with a group heralded as the harbinger of the end of days, the destruction of society, the return of fire and brimstone, indoctrinating the youth and whatever the random flavor happens to be this week has never left me short of interesting and seemingly irrational bleating of paranoia.

What fuels all this? Why are gays and other groups put as the lowest common denominator of everything leading civilization to ruin?

Psychological research has been able to suggest which groups are more likely to be scapegoated for actions, to be subsumed into mass conspiracy theories. Whether it’s Jewish men and women controlling the mass media, the liberals trying to roll back whites into chains, or gays destroying the institution of marriage, there are common characteristics by which groups become scapegoats and the perceived motivators of evil machinations.

Groups that can be more easily set off as distant and “other,” and linked to having access to large resources are easier to scapegoat. In the day, Jews were seen as reclusive and clannish, all the easier to use a perceived cold exterior as evidence of a larger plot. The same could be said for perceptions of Mormons today, particularly even the response of gays after the heated battle of Proposition 8 in California.

But groups that have been seen as weak or have no real power are not often sources of scapegoats. It’s why you don’t see the same conspiracy theories about women (except those feminists!), and blacks, or the poor. They don’t pose a threat, have been historically subjugated, and don’t necessarily have the presumed resources to do damage.

Homosexuality has its own unique characteristics that act toward its occlusion as the “other.” It is one of the sins that many vocal Christians can claim to have no part. It’s not like complaining about greed, gluttony, or divorce. Those are problems to endemic to most people, most groups, and to shout off about them only draws an eye to your own hypocrisy. With homosexuality, however, there isn’t a glaring hypocrisy in the position you hold. It’s a very simplistic idea of “I’m not acting homosexually; you shouldn’t either!”

Scapegoats are powerful. With enough supporting ideas, they can be enduring, especially since they reinforce one another with the theories of conspiracy.

What it doesn’t change, however, is that often there is an underlying prejudice that makes us more open to believing these rumors and theories of conspiracy. Why do people suspend some of their rational thinking to endorse these ideas? What made the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” enduring when it was distributed? … Because they align with our preconceived notions, those comfortable truths that would take too much effort to change, too much are they invested in other beliefs that maintain our worldview. Whether it’s just we dislike Jews or dislike gays, these theories fit snugly with our prejudices, making it all the more believable since it aligns with what we are duly prepared to accept.

It’s much easier to believe that gays are controlling the media, trying to dominate and subvert religion, than to believe the perhaps the innocent claim of asking for legitimate equality. If the claim of the group sounds harmless yet the threat of the group in your mind must be worse, the darker information of something deeper, more insidious must surely be true.

How much of a leap is it that they’re just lying? That there’s a big coverup? How much does it take to convince someone like this it’s not true? Wouldn’t the person attempting to do this just be another enforcer of the conspiracy? Or perhaps a hapless wit with no notion of how he’s being used by others.

My imagination suggests these people can’t be reasoned with, solely because they don’t want to believe anything other than the evil they suspect.

Heard slightly less often is the claim that homosexuality is unnatural.

Well, who am I kidding? It’s still flung around, but it’s lost its potency due to the easy refutations that come with the talking point.

Discussing this with any sort of respect raises the bile in my throat. It’s peppered with so many complications and issues that it’s a wonder people don’t choke, fingers flailing on a keypad for 911, so foolishly being expected to receive it as given. “Homosexuality is unnatural!” “Not even animals would do it!”

My own distaste comes from the very definition of natural. While I might be held up more than others with the way we use words, their connotations, what they are meant to convey (see any of my posts on ex-gays if you want an example), natural is probably the trickiest in the whole debate to peg down to a rigid meaning. Even if we managed to do so, such an accompanied definition would render the whole talking point fangless in a debate meant to stir fear and disgust toward gays.

But let’s examine it. For some, to say that homosexuality is unnatural means that it does not occur in nature. Unfortunately, even this position is tricky since there are differing points on what “homosexuality” is, whether you believe it to be attractions or behavior. Sadly, I can’t speak of nor do I know how well the research has been conducted in measuring how critters feel about one another when romping in the field, but there is evidence of same-sex behavior in the animal kingdom. That in itself would defeat the definition of unnatural based on whether it occurs in nature.

But hold on! “Animals also eat their young! We don’t base morality on what animals do!” I agree, and that’s why even claiming something happens in nature doesn’t solve the issue, not if there’s a moral claim involved. What is natural is not always good or right for our own society (eating the young, for example).

If one is speaking about unnatural in the sense of atypical or abnormal, well, it might certainly be true. Just as it’s odd for someone to use their left-hand in a world where most people are right-handed, people being attracted to the same-sex rather than the opposite is not typical. But once again, this doesn’t answer the question of morality, which is assumed in the outburst of “homosexuality is unnatural!”

While there was a time when using one’s left hand was actually seen as immoral, possession of a demon or devil, perhaps, the very unnaturalness of it lost any moral implication over the years. The better we understood it, or perhaps some institutions realized the ridiculousness of it, the better we were able to apply the understanding and mesh it with our moral values. It’s no longer demons…it’s an inherited trait.

Some have taken it further that it’s inherently obvious that it’s “unnatural” because the very parts involved in the behavior don’t fit together properly. There’s a certain design that needs to be respected.

I don’t know many gays who would refute that (from an evolutionary perspective) penes go in vaginas as a part of a grand reproductive process. I don’t think they would also refute that the sex organs in question can have ancillary uses.

But this is true with most things. This segment of the argument hinges on their being a singular design behind the form, an intended purpose from which we cannot deviate. Walking on our hands is certainly unnatural. We have feet seemingly designed for that purpose, so the walking on our hands perverts the very nature of how we seem to be intended, upright individuals who don’t have to either crane their neck or look backward as they brave the streets on their fingers.

It’s not natural for people to drive cars, to use computers, to have cochlear implants that stimulate the nerves rather than bona fide sound waves and organic function—yet we don’t import a moral significance to these conditions. They are neither wrong nor evil because they don’t fit the seemingly intended use our body. To give that significance requires a step further…mostly in the way how they used.

We also don’t consider it uniquely unnatural (in the intended use) for people who, when aligned to how their body works and seems designed, act in ways in concordance with such. Most people can only dream of running a mile under four minutes, to swim as fast Michael Phelps, sing or act with the same talent as Frank Sinatra—yet these people, these outliers, are unnatural in the sense of being atypical to the norm, but their actions are not alone immoral because of being outside the norm of human function.

Likewise, if a blind woman copes as best she can without her eyes, her state of being is not immoral. A paraplegic or quadriplegic working within their confines are not automatically immoral. They certainly are unnatural (not the center of the bell curve), but we don’t import moral significance to them or condemn their state of being as evil.

Whether the religious right or other gay detractors wishes to admit or not, same-sex desires have proven to be very immutable, and certainly within the [seeming] design of gay men and women.

The onus then becomes clarifying why homosexuality is or should be immoral, a task I don’t believe has been met. Whether or not it’s ‘natural,” whatever permutation or definition of the word one chooses for that moment, doesn’t matter.

The one analogy I absolutely loathe when it comes to talking gay morality is that comparison to alcoholism.  No matter how often I feel this argument has been shot down with the very people I’ve debated it with (them admitting the flaws in the analogy) it will then rear its head later, both as foolish and ignorant as it was the first time.  Some social conservatives have tried forcing this pet analogy through a few iterations of evolution, to the point where the functions of its new form completely undermine the point they’re trying to make in the first place.

As with many talking points, I think the alcoholism analogy was first heard, sounded genuine, and then regurgitated as a pet response for people not sophisticated enough to argue it down.  Given its lack of successes in my experience, I have to wonder what sort of reinforcement these people are receiving that makes it likely to come up in the future (I suspect variable-ratio, which, like gambling situations, makes it very hard to extinguish and all the more patently stupid to the outsider, though it has its run of success at some point).

And unfortunately, as common to most analogies, they don’t work past a certain point.  They are marvelous for illustrating a simple feature for comparison, but if that feature is proven false, we should throw the analogy away rather than shape-form it to the situation.

The alcoholism comparison states that homosexuality is analogous to alcoholism.  A person will struggle with alcoholism, the desire to drink alcohol, but they have the will to overcome it.  Likewise a gay man or woman has a desire for a certain object, and they thus have the will to overcome it.

What makes the alcoholism analogy so appealing is its avenue for inborn tendencies.  So when a gay person claims, for example, that they had no control over their desires, that they might have been born with those desires, the social conservative can say, “Well, yes, but people are born with a genetic (and provable) disposition toward alcoholism” and that means we shouldn’t make allowances for their behavior even though it is inborn.  Fair enough, up to this point.

My issue is that the analogy is on the whole faulty.

First, alcoholism is an addiction.  Being gay, having those desires, is not.  To my knowledge, there is not the same extent of structural changes in the pleasure centers of the brain over time from being gay that there is from using an addictive substance (at least if you compared sexually active gays compared to sexually active straights).

Second, alcoholism requires an introduction to the chemical to become dependent.  One can be gay without ever having sex.

One can have that innate, higher propensity to be an alcoholic, but if they never drink in their entire life or never drink above that threshold, it won’t be actualized.  They won’t have that desire in the future.  Gays can have that desire and attraction without ever “imbibing” or being introduced to it.  And if the one pushing the analogy wanted to claim seeing others of the same sex as possible exposure or behavior, then they need to reconsider just how ubiquitous human interaction is and the impossibility for someone with “gay tendencies” to never have their desires develop.

Third, there is no corollary for safe consumption in the analogy.  Alcohol in small and controlled amounts can even be beneficial.  Drinking alcohol does not automatically determine that one becomes an alcoholic.  However, there is no such moderation in the analogy for gays.  They cannot even have sex in safe or controlled amounts.  The analogy applies a teetotalism that doesn’t exist in real life.

Fourth, it assumes that homosexuality and alcoholism are equivalent in their danger to society.  If using a biblical mandate, such as “it’s wrong because it’s wrong” as justification (seen more with conservative evangelicals) a lot more work needs to be done to convince people why homosexuality should be seen as bad, especially when you have couples with no adverse quality traits.  It has all the value of saying that wearing the color red is morally reprehensible.  Why?

With alcoholism, we can see quite easily the problems associated with it.  Drunk people at work are not as productive, can harm others while driving, may not be as able to care for children or family, and so on.  Comparable issues in gays cannot be replicated, however.

The further implication is what this analogy has for gays being able to change.  Alcoholics remain alcoholics.  They always have that desire for alcohol, and it’s why the mantra can often become how many days they have abstained.  The people most strident in using this analogy tend to hold the view that gays can change, can live fulfilled lives as heterosexual beings.  Perhaps they can, but if so, it shows that the alcoholism analogy (like most) can’t be as rigorously applied as they expect it to be, not to the point where it’s recited as what is intended to be the closer to a discussion.

In recent months I have been exposed to various accounts of invective on multiple topics, some so ridiculous to make me question whether parts of humanity have taken a turn in a great circling down the drain to ruin.  While I do not profess to be an expert on any of the things I cover, I would be remiss to not comment on some of the more shallow arguments I’ve come across–those where it’s more or less a repetition from the various echo chambers and “talking points” that crystallize in the conscious.

What will come of this journey, I cannot know, but if I’m lucky enough to acquire readers, ones who will press and encourage me to inspect my own ideas and beliefs, it will be worthwhile, if only to be something other than a journal exercise.

The topics covered will seem to have no true theme, simply what appeals to my palate.  Perhaps an interest will evolve into a passion, and I know that my own biases will focus my attention.

Welcome all, I hope you enjoy the ride.