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From: brunson@usfbobo.UUCP (David Brunson)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.motss
Subject: "Gay Rights":  A conflict of values
Message-ID: <209@usfbobo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Oct-84 03:50:41 EST
Article-I.D.: usfbobo.209
Posted: Sun Oct 28 03:50:41 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Oct-84 01:25:21 EST
Organization: Univ. of South Florida, Tampa
Lines: 110

[]

There hasn't been anything worth answering in the past week.  This
might be a good time to draw some partial conclusions.  What we are
seeing here is a conflict of values.  My values say that sexual sins
are a great evil.  The values of most respondents say that intolerance
of those who commit sexual sins is a great evil.  Once again, it is
a question of values.  My values say that intolerance is, of itself,
neither good nor evil.  That is, it is easy to imagine situations where
intolerance can be good, and to imagine other situations where intolerance
can be evil.  For example intolerance of racial minorities, on the basis
of race, is a great evil.  It is inhuman.  Intolerance of profligates,
on the other hand, can be a great good -- by discouraging profligacy
and thus raising the quality of life for those who would otherwise
have been ruined.  Many detractors, however, have argued that intolerance
itself is inherently evil -- always.  First, a partial treatment of 
the "Types of Wrongness" question.

Let's consider the case of the alcoholic.  I choose alcoholism because it
is an excellent example of Type 0 wrongness (or was it Type 1?): wrong
which affects only the wrongdoer.  First of all I am not a teetotaler.  I know
of no foundation for a theology which flatly proscribes alcoholic beverages
and I find that a glass of Cabernet with dinner is a distinct pleasure not
to be denied lightly.  Some folks, unfortunately, seem to be all mixed up
on the subject.  They seem to actually worship alcohol, falsely crediting
it as a source of prosperity or some such confusion.  (I often find it
difficult to peer into the muddled conciousness of the Unlearned.  I don't
really understand why people choose to be drunkards -- only that they
do, and they must be awfully confused to choose death over life.)  Let's
further consider the case of the Skid-Row type: the person who has taken
perversion of God's bounty to such an extreme that he has forfeited his home,
job, friends, for liquor.  Now suppose that you meet this person and he asks
you for money.  Well if you are compassionate you will find that tolerance
morality is not sufficient to deal with the situation.  You know that if
you give this guy a fin he is going to turn it into a fifth of Vodka and
drink himself into oblivion.  You know that not giving him money won't
solve his problems, but buying him a fifth will certainly add to them.
That is, all other things being equal, it is probably better for the poor
guy to remain sober than to send him off on a binge.  So what do you do?
Well, you could feed him, give him a warm place to stay, or help out someone
else who is already doing this -- a mission, for example.

The case of the homosexual is very similar.  By denying the poor guy/lady
a job you know that you aren't solving his/her problems, but at least you are
offering some resistance to the prevailing notion that homosexuality is
an acceptable "lifestyle", and therefore making it more unattractive to
those only marginally committed to this particular brand of self-destruction.
What does the Man of Compassion do in this case?  Well there is no difference.
If the sinner, the enemy (it is, as one contributor recently noted, good
to know who you're enemies are) of righteousness, the liar against the truth,
the defiler of those things that are holy and good, needs food, then feed
him.  If his/her car is broken down, then provide a ride to the nearest
gas station.  "You shall not see your enemy's donkey or his ox fallen
down by the way, and turn away your eyes from them; but you shall surely
help him to lift them up again" ... and so on.  But you *don't* aid and
abet the enemy in unrighteousness.

Now back to the value clash.  If most detractors were to draw up a code
of morality, a sort of Secularist Ten Commandments, it would include
something like "Thou shalt not be intolerant".  In fact some have even
said that discrimination is inherently evil.  I do not agree.  For the
purpose of our little public policy discussion here, it does not
matter why I do not agree, just that I don't.  I do not subscribe to the
same code of morality that most participants seem to be advocating.  To
me, intolerance is neither good nor evil of itself, just as book-burning
is not inherently evil (Alan Driscoll has correctly noted my position on
this matter).  It is easy to envision a case where book-burning can be
a good thing, as when I burned my Linguistics 20 text book because it
treated the Myth of Evolution as though it were somehow scientific.  Many
other books stand out as excellent candidates for book-burning: the "works"
of Allen Ginsburg, all of the French existentialist literature, pornographic
periodicals, etc.  It is also easy to envision a case where book-burning
can be a great evil, as when the medieval church burned the Talmud, thus
further alienating and persecuting the Jews.  Likewise censorship can be
either good or evil.  The same goes for discrimination, government
intervention, taxes, Civil Rights initiatives, war, nuclear power plants,
and so on.  On the other hand sexual sins: fornication, homosexuality,
incest, adultery, bestiality, are always, under all circumstances, inherently
evil.  Similarly, murder, idol worship, pagan worship, theft, and so on,
are always evil.

Now I realize that we are in a mixed society.  I realize that there are
those who do not hold the same values that I do and it is unreasonable,
and possibly not a good thing, for me to attempt to enforce my
values (the correct values) through legislation.  (An aside to believers:
it is important to realize that the American system is NOT the ideal form
of government but only a useful expedient until the weeds are removed.)
I am only asking that God-haters have the same courtesy toward me.  We
are talking about *my* business affairs.  It is really none of your business
if I have a policy against hiring homosexuals, adulterers, co-habitators, 
and other sinners.  And yet time and again, folks have stated that it *is*
their business if I violate the supposedly universally subscribed proscription
against Discrimination.  I will agree that it is society's business if I
murder, or steal, or otherwise engage in Type 1 wrongness (wrongness that
hurts other people).  I will even agree that Civil Rights legislation is
a good thing (only as an expedient.  Any time you get the government involved
in social engineering you are really settling for second best).  But I
vehemently DISagree that I am a criminal for refusing jobs to sinners.
The argument that allowing discrimination on the basis of "sexual
preference" (the wording of HR-427) will lead to Nazi concentration
camps is ridiculous.  Such discrimination *is*, in fact, not prohibited.
Where are the concentration camps?

Once again, can anyone give me any kind of reason (even a "logical" one)
why I should be treated as a criminal for refusing to associate with 
homosexuals?

--
David Brunson, friend of the fatherless