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Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (1201)	9/8/1999 3:26:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6418

>For example, why do you reject the premise that homosexuality is bad while others embrace that premise?< Because the single sole source for the idea that gays do NOT have moral parity with everybody else has uniformly been the priests. Jewish, Christian or Muslim. (Do the Far Eastern religions contain text proscribing homosexuality?) Once I edited that bias out of my premises, I see nothing to suggest that dedicated homosexuals are in any way an underclass. If I were gay or had a gay family member, I would insist that society grant him moral parity. (and as a consequence ... job, tax and vote parity.) You suggest that homosexuality is not a state but an act. We disagree on that. If homosexuality were a set of behaviors and not a deeply ingrained state of being, it would be more amenable to suppression by self and by peer pressure. In this country, there is INTENSE pressure to be "straight". It is astounding in that context that there even are homosexuals outside of small "trendy" enclaves. >It is to me morally repugnant to discriminate against people for things they have no ability to affect or control.< And there we agree. I truly believe that a gay man cannot affect or control his sexual nature. He CAN choose to be celibate, but he can never be reformed into an honest heterosexual. I think that the doctrine that homosexuality is a disorder is a pseudoscientific way to justify religious precept. And suggesting that homosexuality is a behavioral disorder - like drug abuse - is imo bigoted. It is to me the same logic that suggested to slaveholders that Blacks weren't really people, and thus different rules applied. Their ministers backed them up in this moral contortion. The take-home lesson is that we can both be honorable people and have incompatible ethics. I am appalled at folks who dismiss gays as apostate or subhuman (and that is the bottom line, isn't it?) just as you are appalled at those who consider embryos to be not fully human either. Nonetheless if we are each to claim the title of civilized individuals we need to sit still next to each other and put up with each other's glaring wrongnesses. Hate the idea, fine; never hate the person. Jm$.02