On Homosexuality and Morality.

THE HOLIDAY SEASON is upon us, and with it come holiday dinners, which can be hazardous to your health. This is not because the dinners are fattening or because you might choke on the wishbone. It's because holiday dinners mean extended family gatherings, and your family can drive you crazy.

This is true even under the best of circumstances. But holidays are especially fraught with danger. Maybe it's the eggnog, or maybe it's the fact that when people buy you gifts they feel entitled to “express themselves”. Whatever the reason, these occasions give your relatives the wacky notion that they ought to tell you precisely how they feel about your lifestyle: “It's none of my business, really, but you're going to hell. Now please pass the eggnog.”

“My lifestyle? Hello, I live in kamanava area. Nobody here has a lifestyle!” But by this point Aunt Sally has moved on to the next offensive remark.

Never fear, dear reader: I've got your back. For over the next several weeks, I'm going to do a series of columns on homosexuality and morality. The point of these (aside from helping me to pay for my extravagant Christmas shopping) is to provide you with ammunition in the face of anti-gay attacks. The columns will be based on my lecture “What's Morally Wrong With Homosexuality?” which I've developed and presented around the country for the last ten years.

Let's begin with a thought experiment. Suppose I told you that reading the newspaper is morally wrong.

“Why?”, you might ask. “Does it corrupt the mind? Is it produced by child labor? Is newsprint environmentally unsound?”

“No,” I answer. “None of those things. It's wrong because you might get ink on your fingers, and ink-stained fingers are an intrinsic moral evil.”

The above exchange might lead you to think I had been hitting the eggnog a bit early. My claim about the morality of newspaper reading makes no sense — for two reasons. First, moral claims are only as good as the reasons that back them up. Second, those reasons must have some genuine connection with human well-being: not just any reason is a moral reason.

And this fact bears repeating: morality has a point. That's why the idea that ink-stained fingers are evil is just — well, stupid. Typically, ink on your fingers won't hurt anybody. It won't detract from your or your neighbors' well-being. There's no good reason to condemn it.

What about homosexuality? Most arguments against homosexuality fall into three broad categories: (1) the Bible condemns it; (2) it's harmful; and (3) it's unnatural. Over the next three columns I'll address each of these in turn.

But before I turn to the arguments against homosexuality, I want to state a preliminary argument in favor of it: namely, that homosexual relationships make some people happy.

To say this is not to settle the matter. Some things that seem to make us happy at first glance are better avoided in the long run. Whether homosexuality is one of those things depends on the success of the arguments in the next several columns.

Rather, to say that homosexual relationships make some people happy is to create a burden of proof for the other side. Most everyone recognizes that falling in love and expressing that love sexually are sublime human experiences. Romantic relationships can be an avenue of communication, of emotional growth, and of lasting interpersonal fulfillment. Anyone who would deny this opportunity to homosexual people had better have a good reason. Do they? Join me for the next several weeks as we explore this issue.

And as we do so, please remember: morality is not the exclusive domain of our opponents. Exhausted by the moralizing of Aunt Sally — not to mention Jerry Falwell, Dr. Laura, and their ilk — we might sometimes be tempted to reject the practice altogether. And then we start to believe the fallacy that “Morality is strictly a private matter.”

Nonsense. Morality is about how we treat one another — and that's very much a matter for public concern. It's about fairness and justice. It's about what matters to us — not just as a personal preference, but as a standard for public behavior. We have as much right to espouse such standards as anyone else — indeed, even more right, insofar as reason is on our side. And that's precisely what I'm going to argue over the next several weeks.