Friday, May 15, 2009

Why Christians feel that they MUST demonize homosexuality

Back to that baseball/politics forum I mentioned a couple posts ago. The arguments over the appropriate treatment of LGBT's have continued, and taken a stroll through parenting, in which our honorary wingnut has been arguing that parents of the same sex are necessarily "sub-optimal" to parents of both sexes. I offer my last post tonight below.

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Venice Glenn:
Sure. It's worthy to boil [disagreements] down [to the level of faith/core belief] though. Your arguments against gay parenting really have been about function and effectiveness though, not religion.

duckboy:
There's a lot more about my religion that you'd have to accept before the rest of that argument could hold much meaning for you.


Actually, on my way home after asking this question, I figured out the answer myself.

If you're a serious Christian, you want to follow the mandates of God, which essentially means the dictates of the New Testament, as interpreted by the leaders of your church for the most part. You've probably got contempt for the "Cafeteria Christians" who pick and choose the parts they want to believe, and don't really have a cohesive story about how it all hangs together. As far as you're concerned, your virtue hinges on being on following the party line seriously and consistently, and this extends to philosophical consistency in your world view.

The church believes that homosexuality is a sin, and afflicts people just as gambling, abuse, and addiction afflict others. As such, gay people are expected to battle against their sin, if they care about following the Lord's word, and straight Christians are supposed to help them fight. If this is what you believe, then you can't see it as a good thing that gays accept who they are and make choices that make them happy accepting it. If they can do that, then where's the penalty for sin? Where do these sinners get off, flaunting the Lord and having repercussion-free lives?

The serious Christian is stuck. If he supports gay rights, he's going against the church. If he fights against gay rights even though he doesn't think they're harming anyone, then even the most hardheaded person has to realize he's being a dickwad. The only way to feel better about it is to convince himself "Gay people harm society." If he does that he can take such weird positions as "Gays provide sub-optimal parenting" and "Redefining marriage is bad" without examining the lack of logic too closely. It's easier to believe it on faith than to watch it collapse under the weight of reason. That's why duckboy's response is honest... even if he didn't consciously mean it that way. His seemingly contradictory assertions that the arguments against gay parenting are practical, yet the true basis of the stance is religious are dead on.

Regardless of how well this has him pegged, the duck cannot respond to this post in any other way than to deny its accuracy. He cannot afford to be seen as someone whose faith trumps logic, fairness, and compassion. But I'm pretty sure I'm onto something worth discussing in forums beyond here.

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And that's what I'm doing. I think this is big. Won't change anybody's mind, but understanding the other side is better than just not getting what their problem is.

Glenn

1 comment:

achiappanza said...

Follow up: I gave duckboy a chance to explain the driving, underlying rationale of why LDS classifies homosexuality as a sin, and for a long time he kept answering with texts that had nothing to do with root rationale, but rather repetitions of the rules. Eventually, he admitted that there is no root, it is simply a documented aspect of his god's will and since he's bought in based on other topics, he continues to represent on this one.

My reply follows:

For myself, through repeated positive experience in following the counsels of the leaders of the church, and receiving multiple assurances from the Spirit of God as Brigham Young indicated in the above quote, I am quite satisfied that my faith is well placed.

What's ambiguous about this statement is whether or not you have received counsels from LDS leaders or whispers from the Spirit of God specifically on the topic of homosexuality. I'm inferring that this ambiguity is intentional, and in fact you have not, and that your trust in those sources has been built up with other topics. Which brings me back to the same point: You've got nothing. No explainable rationale about what's so bad about gays other than other people or beings you respect say so.

Seriously, man. What kind of person fights the hardest on the issues that are the hardest to prove? You're telling us you want to classify an entire sector of people, most of them non-Morman, as sinful and offensive to your god, exclude them from equal treatment by the government we all share on practical matters of exclusive adult partnership as practiced in our society, and this is all because you either heard the whispers of God directly to you (clearly unverifiable), or because your counsel elders seem to know what they're talking about with regard to violent crimes, child abuse, and alcoholism?

duck, you ought to be embarrassed. I realize you're not, and more's the pity.