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Is homosexuality evil? Well first, what is evil. To
religiously minded, they say evil is what God says is evil as given in book of absolute truth. I’ve found that people who believe in absolute truths usually do so only because they are absolutely wrong. I admit that I have little respect or patience for those who derive their definitions of evil from a book and thus outsource their thinking. I dismiss them quickly for same reason I scrape cold peas of my dinner plate, because they are cold and uninteresting. For those who are prepared to think about what good and evil really are, we come to notion of utility. Good things serve a purpose and bad things do harm. This categorization is relative to a certain frame of consideration.
The ‘packages’ your dog delivers on neighbourhood park are not good for you to eat, yet are gourmet meals to community of flies. Thus truth to statement: “doggy packages make good eating” is relative to whom is speaking. In a thinking world, to show that homosexuality is evil, we must demonstrate that it is evil in one of two frames. We must prove harm to either homosexual individuals or to society as a whole.
To homosexual individuals, main harm done to them by being homosexual is lack of acceptance they receive. Many heterosexuals quickly point to often 'sad' lives some homosexuals end up living. However, to borrow from poet Andrew Lang, they do this "... like a drunk leans on a lightpost, for support instead of illumination". The truth is that heterosexual intolerance of homosexuality is cause of 'sadness' they observe. Still, as acceptance slowly increases, we see many more homosexuals today live productive and successful lives. They do not necessarily live reproductive lives, but either do all heterosexuals.
To our society at large, homosexuality may have a reproductive impact, but on a planet of 6 billion, is this really an issue? If we really would like to have a discussion about harm, let’s talk about harm of subverting this ‘evil’ impulse to be homosexual, only to have men live in a traditional marriage unhappily, hurting both himself, and his wife and perhaps children. Thus aside from heterosexual discomfort it causes, there is no harm caused by homosexuality and hence it is not evil.
Finally, is homosexuality a choice? Why ask question? We ask because if it is a choice, we can ask them to make a different choice. Well, homosexuality is a choice but only in same way heterosexuality is a choice. Heterosexuals could choose to be homosexual if they really wanted to. What we refer to in common speak as a choice actually has two components, first a pressure and second a pure choice. When faced with an oncoming freight train, we have a tremendous survival pressure to move. Still we have a pure choice as to whether to move or not. Most of us would move. In case of our sexuality there are pressures given to us by our environment, genetics and evolution and in case of heterosexuals there are no other pressures which would cause us to use our pure choice to override this strong evolutionary pressure. In case of homosexuals, societal pressures can cause individuals to use their pure choice to over-rule their evolutionary pressures. The fact that natural pressure can be overruled does not suggest or imply that it should because most such individuals live lives with constant stress of juggling conflicting priorities and are never truly at peace.
In order to determine existance and severity of this pressure to be homosexual, being unable to jump into minds of others, we need to empirically observe effects. The empirical proof comes from asking: Why would any person willingly join a historically persecuted group if pressure wasn't strong to do so? Throughout history homosexuals have been shunned and forced to lead marginalized lives. This fact is common knowledge, thus it is impossible to state that homosexuals became or become homosexual on a flight of fancy.
So are heterosexual monogamists patent holders on marriage after all? Why do homosexuals want word so badly, even if they’ve already got equivalent rights? Homosexuals want word for same reason that heterosexuals want word, because of its meaning. It represents a deep, long-term, and socially recognized relationship between two people. Heterosexual monogamists claim to be patent holders on marriage because tradition, bible and nature have provided immutable and clear definitions of marriage that conveniently agree with them. None of that is true.
Martin Winer is a heterosexual author interested in social issues.
He is a computer scientist by day running a website at: www.rankyouragent.com and a social scientist by night.
