Oops -- another hot button issue: Homosexuality
You are right, Dan, that the term "homosexuality" is relatively new, although the practice is as old as Moses...or, rather, as the first caveman.
And the Greeks actually regarded sex with males as superior to sex with females, because females were seen as inferior to males, and useful only for procreative purposes. How does that old saw go? "A woman for duty, a boy for pleasure, and a goat for sheer delight..."
However, the Christian Church did condemn "sodomy" as a sin. Didn't someone try to get Leonardo da Vinci on that? Or was it Michelangelo?
SERIOUSLY, now...Speaking as a "liberal", I would deny that what we are talking about here is putting homosexuality "on an equal level with" heterosexuality.
For me, the issue is a civil libertarian one -- I believe homosexuals, as citizens, are entitled to equality before the law; that is, to the same rights to employment, housing, free speech, etc., as everyone else.
Meanwhile, I remain a totally unreconstructed heterosexual. I still see homosexuality as a personal misfortune (but not as a "sin" to be punished for).
I suspect that my view is pretty widespread among people who would define themselves as "liberal".
jbe |
