The scene is a university canteen. Adam is affixing a poster bearing the slogan ‘Meat is Murder’ to the student noticeboard. Bob, a coursemate of his, approaches Adam.
Bob: What are you doing?
Adam: Organising a vegetarianism meeting. Are you interested?
B: Furrows his brow No. And I didn’t have you down as a carniphobe, either.
A: What?
B: You’re campaigning against people eating meat?
A: Yes.
B: You’re a carniphobe. You’re bigoted and prejudiced against people like me who eat meat.
A: Puzzled No I’m not. I just think eating meat is immoral. I mean, don’t you think that…
B: If you don’t like eating meat, then don’t do it. What business of yours is it what grown adults put in their own bodies?
A: Well, I suppose there’s a sense in which it’s not ‘my business’. If someone stole from someone else on the other side of the world today, there’s a sense in which that’s not my business; but that doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to a moral opinion about it, or to campaign against it. Same here.
B: Eating meat is part of who I am!
A: Well, I’m not entirely sure that people are born carnivorous…
B: I WAS!
A: …but even if they are, that doesn’t mean that going along with that is OK. The fact that you, I or anyone has a tendency, inclination or urge or do something doesn’t make it OK to do that thing, even if the urge or whatever is innate. Wouldn’t you agree that animals…
B: Eating meat is almost completely accepted in society these days, except by wackos like you.
A: Uh, have you considered the possibility that ‘society’ is wrong about this?
Clive, a representative of the Student Union, approaches Adam and Bob.
Clive: What’s going on?
B: This bigot…
Adam shows one of his posters to Clive
C: No, no, no, you can’t use a university room for a meeting like this!
A: Why not?
C: You’re in contravention of Student Union Equality and Diversity policy. We can’t condone discriminatory events like this.
B: Thank you.
A: Discriminatory?
C: Yes. This event discriminates against carnivores, so you can’t hold it on campus.
A: Has the world gone mad?
(This dialogue was inspired by an old blog post from William Vallicella).
Posts
26 comments:
I remember back in 2006, SUs had got all righteous about preventing discrimination against people who accept the New Perspective on Paul. But I thought SUs and CUs had reached an accommodation (don't tell Jerry Coyne) these days? Has it all kicked off again without me noticing?
Of course, if you're putting up a poster not merely advertising your CU meeting but saying that being gay is wrong, you richly deserve what happens next (though great is your reward in heaven, I'm sure). Gays have enough to deal with as it is.
Has it all kicked off again without me noticing?
Not to my knowledge. I mean, I rather doubt that something like that could escape your attention. I meant the university setting to be as a microcosm of society at large. The SU guy stands for the powers that be.
Of course, if you're putting up a poster not merely advertising your CU meeting but saying that being gay is wrong...
"Being gay"? Or having gay sex? C'mon Paul, you're an intelligent man, you can make these distinctions. Anyway, following your link, what if your poster is advertising the Pure course? Enough ppl know *what goes on* there...
you richly deserve what happens next
Whatever. What do you "deserve" if you put up a poster saying that eating meat is wrong? Or, for that matter, driving a car? Or owning property?? People might think you mistaken, or even mad, but wouldn't call you a bigot. The charge of "homophobia" is so very often (maybe mostly) used as a means of killing, or legally banning, what should be a genuine debate. That was the point of Vallicella's post - and mine too, sort of.
Gays have enough to deal with as it is.
Like what? I'm not trying to be funny, I'm genuinely curious as to what you think it is they're going through that therefore makes it verboten to question the morality of certain actions.
On the being gay/having gay sex thing: you're right, I should have been more specific. But, while one does not necessarily imply the other, I imagine gay people might want to form loving sexual relationships, just as the rest of us do. Of course, you don't object to gays per se, you only object to them doing something most people regard as one of the most important things in life. Are you expecting people to be more sympathetic to your cause because you make that distinction?
Anyway, following your link, what if your poster is advertising the Pure course? Enough ppl know *what goes on* there...
There's a line to be drawn somewhere, for sure. Personally, if I were running the SU, I'd say advertising the Pure course is in the bounds, and a poster saying "Gay sex is wrong" is outside it. Why? Because if you go along to a Pure course, you know what you're getting, as we both agree. Posters in a public space (or a space like a university common room) are something else.
People might think you mistaken, or even mad, but wouldn't call you a bigot.
You're conflating a couple of things here, namely whether you're allowed to advertise in certain places and what people's responses to you are.
Advertising: the SU don't want the posters up because anti-gay sentiments a long history of being used to hurt people who were otherwise blameless. As a private organisation, the SU has a perfect right to say that it doesn't want them expressed in spaces it owns: as far as it's concerned, the debate is over, and you lost.
Responses: calling you bigots seems fair enough to me. You want free speech, you get free speech back. As Blackford says, "Liberalism isn't an agreement that we all shut up and say nothing nasty about each other; it is not an agreement that we cease to regard our own respective worldviews as superior to others on offer; it is merely an agreement that we stop trying to get our hands on the levers of state power for the purpose of imposing our worldviews by coercion."
If the Powers That Be are the State, that's a special case, because then there's nowhere you can go to express those ideas without the police breaking down the door. I don't support that. As Hari says "in a free society, they have the right to insult us, and we have the right to insult them in turn".
Like what?
Gay bashing, at worst. Street harassment for public displays of affection like holding hands with your partner. Discrimination in employment. Until recently, not being able to marry. And so on.
I imagine gay people might want to form loving sexual relationships, just as the rest of us do.
Like this brother and sister, for example. Doesn't make it OK. Do you think it's morally irrelevant who you want to form a "loving sexual relationship" with? In that context, your citing what "most people regard" isn't quite fair.
Are you expecting people to be more sympathetic to your cause because you make that distinction?
I'm not sure what you think my (our?) "cause" is. What I expect is for people to be reasonable. The point of this post, to repeat, is:
The charge of "homophobia" is so very often (maybe mostly) used as a means of killing, or legally banning, what should be a genuine debate.
I'm not bothered about name-calling because of emotional sensitivity or whatever. I object to the tendentious use of language - the "question-burying epithets" that Vallicella talks about. When it's not just stupid it's intellectually dishonest. People would realise this if it were in the context of eating habits, hence the allegory.
Do you think it's morally irrelevant who you want to form a "loving sexual relationship" with?
No. For instance, it would be wrong to form such a relationship with someone who could not give informed consent. But, like Saletan at Salon, I'd struggle to find a reason to call incestuous relationships between adults wrong (perhaps problems with recessive genes are a good enough reason for governments not to bless marriage between such people, I don't know). Although I find them squicky, I'm not sure personal disgust is a good guide to morality.
The charge of "homophobia" is so very often (maybe mostly) used as a means of killing, or legally banning, what should be a genuine debate.
If your objection is that "Homophobe!" is a semantic stop sign, fair enough, but what if the SU members have thought about it and decided they know what you're about and don't like it? As more and more straight people know openly gay people, the more they're going to see your ideas as an attempt to hurt their friends. I can't really blame them for not wanting to join in a "debate" on whether their gay friend ought to be allowed to live the way a straight person can. They're going to ask just who you think you are, and rightly.
How do you think a genuine debate is going to go?
A: Gay sex is wrong.
B: Why?
A: God says so, in his book.
B: Well, if he tells me its wrong and why it's wrong, I'll listen, but I'm not listening to words in books obviously written by men (see also).
A: No, my book really came from God.
etc. etc.
FYI *I* know openly gay people. Sheesh, anyone would think that you and I had actually met.
Here's how I think a debate might go. Actually, there's not much "might" about it - these are discussions I've had several times.
A: Sex outside (M/F) marriage is wrong.
B: Why?
A: Well, what do you think makes sex right?
B: Anything consenting adults do to each other in private is OK.
A: What about incest?
B: That's fine.
A: Polyamory?
B: I've got no problem with that.
A: How about cannibalism?
B: Er...
"I'm not sure personal disgust is a good guide to morality"
Or:
B: What's the problem with gay sex?
A: That's not what your body is for.
B: My body's not for anything except what I want.
A:Really? Your heart's not for pumping blood? You lungs aren't for breathing?
B: Well, so what?
A: The two sexes are made for each other. Moving away from that is a bad idea.
B: I don't believe that.
A: Would you at least concede that it looks like they are?
B: Maybe.
A: So it's not entirely unreasonable for me to believe that they are?
etc., etc.
Or:
B: What's wrong with gay sex?
A: What's wrong with anything
Unless L is a moral realist, his/her answer will be arbitrary sooner or later. And if L is a moral realist, then those explanations come to a stop eventually, too.
These are precisely the kinds of discussions it's becoming increasingly difficult to have in the public square - and not just in a university setting, either - because of question-burying epithets and advancing legislation (although I'm pleased to hear that you at least disagree with the latter; shame it's too late or I'd ask you to sign a petition).
It's worth remembering that the moral and legal debates, although they overlap, aren't identical. So for example I morally disapprove of divorce and adultery, but am not suggesting that these should be criminalised. As regards who can marry whom: if we think that the traditional definition of marriage is nonsense then it would be more consistent to allow people who are closely related to marry, and in fact to allow more than two people to marry each other, than to limit it to two adults who aren't related, no matter what their sex is.
FYI *I* know openly gay people.
I didn't say you didn't, I was trying to point out why some people might object to making gay people's sex lives the subject of a debate.
The first dialogue is neat because A turns around the burden of proof. B's response should be "what do you think makes it wrong?", not the dubious statement that "anything consenting adults do in private is OK". Cannibalism may be consensual, but it's neither sane nor safe...
The second one tries the naturalistic fallacy and a bit of creationism. It is reasonable for A to believe that body parts were designed if A doesn't know about evolution, I suppose. If B knows about evolution, they're probably not going to be convinced. Even if B doesn't know about evolution, they might ask why putting the parts to new uses is a moral evil.
Suppose B says they're a moral realist who doesn't think gay sex is wrong, because their God/Platonic ideal of morality doesn't say it's wrong? I think that third argument commits you to demonstrating the existence of the evangelical Christian God and showing that God does think gay sex is wrong.
I don't think I'd've signed a petition against euthanasia, so it's a shame the petition linked two disparate causes (I guess it did so because they only expected Christians to sign it).
Deleted my last comment because it contained a really egregious mistake. Back soon with an improvement.
Well, you see, now we're into the nuts and bolts of a debate you seemed to be suggesting it wasn't possible to have. Given the point of the original post I'd say we're off-topic, but OK.
In any debate like this I think both sides should have to give some justification for their position, especially given that when it comes to sexual ethics almost everyone draws the line somewhere (more than one person at a time? family members? animals?). I'd be surprised if you haven't heard the "between consenting adults in private" mantra in this context. I've not only heard it, I've repeated it.
I don't think the "safe and sane" qualifications are going to help here, anyway. As Merlijn points out,
The notion "Meiwes' victim can't consent to being eaten because his is clearly insane" is circular - why is he insane? Because he wants to be eaten.
and I'm not sure what notion of safety is operative when the person involved wants to die, particularly if you're in favour of euthanasia. The Meiwes affair is not the only case of its kind in this respect.
I actually thought the second argument sounded Catholic-y rather than creationist, although of course you're free to call it as you see it. The contention is that gay sex is an abuse of the body, and this is bad (because abuse of anything is bad, not because bad is defined as "abuse of something", hence no naturalistic fallacy). Maybe at some level evolution disbars talk of any part of the body having a "use" in the first place, although that's not how any of us think in practice (hence the heart and lungs examples).
Maybe another analogy will help bring my point out. Consider the case of self-harm. What would you say about a man who gets a great kick out of cutting his arms with razor blades? Suppose he always sterilises them first and never goes near a vein or artery, so there's little (although some) risk of serious long-term damage. I would still say this man commits a moral evil against his own body.
Suppose B says they're a moral realist who doesn't think gay sex is wrong, because their God/Platonic ideal of morality doesn't say it's wrong?
I've had my share of discussion with "liberal Christians" but no moral Platonists as of yet. I think I have decent arguments for that situation too, although by now we're so far off-track that I'll have to leave it. Probably the moral of the story is that debates about ethics tend to lead to metaphysics eventually.
Fair point about the petition. I've had reason to bemoan this tendency to lump causes together in the past.
I won't presume to intrude on that interesting tango above. Just to say, I liked the piece. I'm on an all meat (protein) diet and so am doubly amused by the local vegetarian supermarket advertising vegan products. fat chance.
Thanks, Abecedarius Rex. I notice from you profile that you like Walker Percy, so I guess you understand this blog being "Lost in the Cosmos".
It was definitely a message in the bottle.
It is hilarious that people would liken homosexual lovin' to incest and cannibalism. In 100 years it will be funny to look back at these types of arguments, the kooky old days. I've had a gander at the arguments surrounding the old Biblical arguments for antimiscegenation laws in the United States, and they are almost identical. Ahh the interwebs, the nexus of instant and unintentional reductio arguments.
I brought up incest and cannibalism as counterexamples to a certain liberal "between consenting adults" sexual ethic. If you have a better formulation that would rule gay sex in but these two out, then let us hear it. Paul didn't challenge the moral acceptability of incest, and even said "I'd struggle to find a reason to call incestuous relationships between adults wrong". Perhaps we're just that much more "liberated" here in Europe...
I think Blue Devil Knight is right. We need to begin crafting a really good argument in support of incestuous cannibalism. Those paleolithic cranks that want to limit me in my free expression of incestuous cannibalism use all these stuffy, boring, contrived arguments drawn from washed up texts such as the Bible and discredited sources such as Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Enough of this backward-thinking nonsense. If a man wants to sink his choppers into a good piece of consanguinic pot roast, who are these stuffy moralists who seek to bar their way. Why, look at Armin Miewes after all.
I should also note that, at the time of the Meiwes affair, it was not hard to find people who struggled to call what Meiwes did to Brandes wrong, precisely because they were still holding to the "anything goes between consenting adults" principle. I had held to that principle until faced with the cannibalism counterexample, at which point I dropped it.
I enjoyed this post and the ensuing comments.
Sex is sometimes messy, but discussion about it and the moral and ethical ramifications is even messier!
I do think those who object to inclusion of such things as cannibalism, polygamy, bestiality and other such sexual inclinations in the debate "between consenting adults" need to explain why it is not relevant.
Because it's not socially acceptable is not really a good counterpoint.
What I can say is that I'm personally starting to question if there is such a thing as ~sexuality. I'm still trying to work out how I can frame my thoughts for a blog post.
Suffice to say that I think labelling ~sexuality on acts that involve sex organs could be a red herring.
Let's just say that sexual gratification can come in many forms, and sexual gratification != relationship or sexual orientation.
The number of vacuum cleaner related injuries submitted to the emergency wards each year would seem to validate that a man can form a sexual 'relationship' with just about anything.
I look forward to reading that blog post, AF.
Ok... Here are two dialogs:
C = Christian
N = Non-christian
H= homosexual person
1.
C: So you're dating Jenny?
N: Yeah. We live together now.
C: You're not married and you live with her?
N: Yeah?
C: So I assume you're sleeping with her?
N: Yeah?
C: You know that's a sin, right? You know that the Bible says that sex with anybody who is not your spouse is adultery?
N: *looks at C like he's deranged* So? I don't believe in the Bible. Who cares what the Bible says.
2.
C: So you're dating Jimmy?
H: Yeah. We live together now.
C: You're not married and you live with another guy?
H: Yeah?
C: So, like, I assume you're sleeping with him too?
H: Yeah?
C: You know that's a sin, right? On multiple levels. You know that the Bible says that sex with anybody who is not your spouse is adultery? And on top of that, (according to my interpretation of it) Romans says clearly that homosexuality is wrong.
H: *looks at C like he's deranged* And? If God created me to go to hell, then why would I want to be with that God at all?
Obviously, I've exaggerated (slightly) to strengthen my point- neither brings a person to Jesus. Neither shows a person the Gospel. Both ask the person to submit to the Word BEFORE being saved by the grace of God. Both require the person to repent legalistically rather than to find Jesus, love Jesus and repent as a response to the eternal, almighty God's grace and mercy.
Who cares if homosexuality is a sin when the people involved don't even know Jesus yet?
And the fact that you believe you do know Jesus does not make you sin-free either.
John 13:34. Do it. Because nowadays, the only way people know anybody is a Christian is to pick the least loving bigot out of the crowd. That's not Jesus. That's not the Gospel.
And while your veggie/carny dialog might have been clever, it leads to animosity on both sides. That's not Jesusy either.
Just sayin'.
(sorry, had to fix my H's. :D)
prin,
I take your point, and I want to emphasise that I didn't mean to ask anyone to "submit to the Word BEFORE being saved by the grace of God" (although plainly you have to repent to be saved by the GoG), not would I think for a second that I'm "sin-free" (I thought my "about me" would make that clear).
But...
You ask:
Who cares if homosexuality is a sin when the people involved don't even know Jesus yet?
Well, who cares if anything is a sin if the people involved don't know Jesus yet? Which sins is it OK to talk about, and which not, and why? I mean, I take it that it's the Church's job to explain to the world God's plan for all areas of life, including sexuality. Not that it's right to lead with condemnation (as the people in your dialogues do), but to the extent that the world's views (and complaints about Christian ethics) are incoherent, it's fair to point that out, as I tried to in this post.
I'm going to quote John 13:34 for any casual readers who won't have bothered to look it up:
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I [Jesus] have loved you, so you must love one another.
If you're dying of poisoning, and I don't hate that poison, then I don't really love you. Sin is poisonous. Loving people not only permits but actually requires that we hate the sin that poisons them.
But there's a very fine line between hating the sin and hating the sinner. You have to always keep in mind what your goal is in rebuking somebody. Is it to humiliate them? Anger them? Push them away from God? Or is it to get them to understand that they need Jesus?
A pastor I heard once said, "The goal is not to try not to sin, but to be satisfied in God."
Like I said earlier, if you point out a non-believer's sin, it's meaningless. A person will not repent if they aren't brought to repentance by the saving grace of God. Repentance happens after God chooses you, after the spark is ignited in your soul for the love, grace and mercy of God through Jesus. That's where the idea of "progressive sanctification" comes from. We're a work in progress.
How many Christians today have actively repented? How many have changed their lives so dramatically to remove all sin (as much as is humanly possible, which Jesus still says is impossible), and have focused solely on living a life for Christ and for the kingdom?
Isaiah 64:6 says our works are like filthy rags in the eyes of God. He doesn't need them. He doesn't need any of us to "help" Him. You are saved by the grace of God alone, not by what you do or don't do. No matter how much you do, it will always be filthy rags to God.
So my question again is who cares if homosexuality is a sin if the person does not know Jesus? Salvation is not "Jesus and repenting of sins" or "Jesus and relinquishing homosexual behavior" or even "Jesus and baptism". Salvation is just Jesus. Jesus and Jesus alone.
Yes, we can hate sin. And yes we can support our brothers and sisters as they try to overcome it with us, with the help of God. But you can't change a person's heart. Only God can do that. You can pray that God might change their heart, pray that God might give you the words if He should desire to use you as the vessel through which it might occur, but God has to move in that person's life and heart to make such significant change happen.
So bringing glory to God in these situations is what matters most. Living the gospel such that those around us who don't know it might see it and want it also.
Whatever the church's job, it's our job as Christians to proclaim the Gospel. Right?
I'm not sure to what extent we actually disagree here. The aim of this blog post is not to point out a non-believer's sin, but to defend the Biblical view according to which some things are sins, like they do at bethinking.
And, again my question is: who cares if anything is a sin if the person involved doesn't know Jesus? My own progression to faith went something like this:
- Had an intellectual understanding of what the Christian faith was, but rejected it. This included knowing what are sins according to the Bible, some of which I agreed were bad, some not.
- The Christian faith began to look more likely. I realised the desperateness of my situation before God.
- I decided to follow Jesus and prayed a prayer of repentence.
Maybe yours is substantially different - and of course I'm wildly summarising and leaving tonnes of stuff out. But the point is that knowing what the Biblical view of various topics is was not irrelevant to me. People out there are presented with conflicting views and ideals of what a fully human life amounts to. To the extent that the unChristian one presented by the world is incoherent and damaging, I'm going to point this out because such a realisation was important in my own coming to Christ.
On this point, I find some of what you say confusing. You say:
Salvation is not "Jesus and repenting of sins" or "Jesus and relinquishing homosexual behavior" or even "Jesus and baptism". Salvation is just Jesus. Jesus and Jesus alone.
But the heart of Jesus's own evangelistic preaching was the call to "Repent and believe the Good News" (Mark 1:15). Do you mean to criticise Christians today for making the same appeal?
Mine is substantially different. God found me first. Studying Bibley things wasn't part of my plan at all. I didn't start because I thought it was plausible. I started studying it because I wanted to find a way to respect others' religion. I never had any intention of believing it.
I'm not saying sin isn't important, just that it's not most important and by focusing on it rather than on Jesus, we're turning people off and away from the Gospel. *shrug*
As for the rest, Ephesians 2:8-9 kind of sums it up for me.
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