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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!gtaylor
From: gtaylor@cornell.UUCP (Greg Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: A new line....
Message-ID: <676@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Jun-84 09:45:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: cornell.676
Posted: Fri Jun 29 09:45:13 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Jul-84 04:36:59 EDT
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 42


You're right, Ms. Q: It does looks like net.motss looks like a
forum for defense. But so is about every other interest group on the
net. Besides, in the course of that defense, there *are* a few
other things that get  covered.

I think I like your layout of the difference between pedophilia and
homosexuality. Best guess is that the person who posted the original
is from a religious tradition that puts the two together as either
"morally unacceptable behaviour" or "something the Gentiles do, and
we are enjoined to be different from them.: (this came from a
posting about the Jewish prescriptions about Homosexuality that I
posted to net.religion.jewish)"

In part, my problem concerns the formulation of "persons of equal strength"
argument. Steve Dyer recently posted a tale about a neighbor of his
with whom he enjoyed a close relationship that teetered on the edge
of a romantic involvement. That , I'd suppose, you'd think of as
a situation of "unequal strength." How does that work with someone who
is in a position of uncertainty as to their sexual preference? Say,
someone who's going through something akin to Jeff Sargeant's crisis
of self-worth. SUch a person might well be miserable either gay or 
straight, right? But does their present uncertainty qualify them as
a person of "unequal strength?" I'm thinking of Auden and Benjamin
Britten here (cf Humphrey Carpenter's biog of Auden). On what grounds
does one assume responsibility for the actions of another insofar as
they are in a position of being influenced? Do you

a)lay out the best case for being straight *AND* being gay as best you
can

b)speak only for yourself and live with the possibility of coercion?

c)stay out of it?

You've certainly done your share of flaming back to Ken, but I *do*
think I have the faintest whiff of a *moral* argument in the "unequal
strength" formulation. Whatcha think?

gtaylor