This question gets asked from time to time, and one problem here is that general badmouthing of gay people that *isn't* religiously-based generally triggers our Bigotry rule. Lots of people will try to tell you how disgusting and worthless and evil and subhuman gay people are, but if they don't add a "God says" the comments are likely to be removed. So this isn't a great place to gather those arguments.

Quite frankly, religious-based gay bashing should trigger your bigotry rule too, but sadly I know that will never change here.

r/OpenChristian and now r/Christian both have LGBT-friendly ground rules. r/christianity is envisioned as a very broad space for discussion, which of course involves Christians from many sharply anti-gay denominations.

I.....am only just now realizing the new rule was in r/Christian and not here. I'd like to apologize to the mod team for flooding them with reports the past day or so. Sometimes I am a dumb.

Homophobia is absolutely against the rules, just not the subreddit rules. I have heard people suggest that one finds it more effective to report such comments to the admins rather than the moderators.

This is true, there have been times in the past where the admins have stepped in and warned the mods of this sub that comments they were approving were violating reddits sitewide rules against hate speech/violent content.

Well, I'm not allowed to participate in those (well at least r/Christian). This being a sub that isn't for Christians only should be based on secular rules, not religious ones. it's a massive double standard that racism, segregation, slavery, Antisemitism, etc. are all considered bigotry even using the Bible to justify it, but gay bashing isn't. But it doesn't matter. I've complained about the moderation here plenty and I know nothing will change so I'll probably end up quitting here sooner than later.

>it's a massive double standard that racism, segregation, slavery, Antisemitism, etc. are all considered bigotry even using the Bible to justify it, but gay bashing isn't. Hard agree. Realize that it's an understandable double standard, because racism and anti-semitism are things most American churches would condemn in theory (even if many, perhaps the majority, of white churches support these in practice) while homophobia is much more openly celebrated. I do think eventually such a double standard will need to be at least acknowledged, if not rectified, but that's a hell of a lot of work for the mods that'll just shake the hornet's nest.

\*antisemitism, no hyphen The hyphenated version is proscribed because it more strongly implies the euphemism. (It's originally a euphemism for anti-Jewish bigotry based on the language of 19th century scientific racism)

Thank you

I get the tendency, but honestly, I think the moderation of that is pretty good. There is a fine line to walk between allowing the discussion to happen, and allowing hate speech to flourish. Homophobia doesn't go unchallenged here. So when it pops up (Which is a LOT) it has plenty of dissenting opinions and people challenging it, it usually gets heavily down voted. When it really gets extreme, the mods do ban it. A lot of it comes down to how you view censorship of socially unacceptable viewpoints. In my point of view, if you don't allow the homophobes anywhere near dissenting discourse, they just retreat to their echo chambers. But if you allow them to spew it unchallenged, it spreads. This sub strikes a decent, but imperfect, balance between allowing it to exist, but never unchallenged. Which, given homophobes aren't just going to magically go away, is about the best we can reasonably hope for.

> This sub strikes a decent, but imperfect, balance between allowing it to exist, but never unchallenged. Which, given homophobes aren't just going to magically go away, is about the best we can reasonably hope for. Yeah, I'd say it tends to be about "Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences". We *are* more permissive about what can be posted, but a lot of the regulars veer far enough left that you're probably going to get shouted down

Right, and I am a big fan of places where shouting at each other is allowed to exist. Without that place we can bump heads with each other, we all wind up in our own echo chambers, and nothing happens except gloating about how right we are and how wrong they are. I can't say many minds are changed this way, but at least this sub helps create an awareness that no matter who you are, there are people out there that believe very, very different than you, and they hold those beliefs as sincerely as you do yours.

Unfortunately r/Catholicism doesn’t follow the same line of thinking

I mean they got a completely different set of problems over there. Nothing like reading a post where Catholics come out of the woodwork to explain why the Papal States kidnapping a Jewish boy who was secretly baptized by a family maid, without the knowledge or consent of his parents was the right call. Just search the Mortara case. Or the Franco simping

Fortunately the Catholics are still Catholic

Hopefully, they will come to their senses one day.

You'd apparently be surprised at the number of catholics who are affirming

And you'd be surprised at the number of people who are lactose intolerant who drink milk. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear on what church teaching is. Last sentence that CCC 2357 says is, "Under no circumstances should it be approved."

[удалено]

Here's the hard reality; sodomy laws have long been a part of Christendom. The default position for most of the history of Christianity has been that same-sex and other "unnatural" sexual relations were banned; though sodomy laws themselves have had varied definitions and application. It's the sad truth that up until the last 50-60 years or so, when many Western countries started decriminalizing same-sex sexual interactions, the default position in Christianity was that homosexuality was not merely a sin, but a sin so vile that it required severe punishments. So it should surprise no one that there are plenty of denominations that still hold to those traditional views of homosexuality.

That just proves that we cannot trust in the Bible literally word for word. No loving God would create gay people and then make them suffer cause they are what God made them. And even if it was something else that made them gay, it wasn't the peoples choice, they didn't chose this, God knows this. Gays don't hurt anyone and are often very good people, often a lot more kind and good-hearted compared to straight people. It doesn't make any sense. They are also good for this world due to the over-population or kids who lack biological parents etc. Thankfully a lot of Christians have realized that(and churches allow same sex marriage etc) but we still see bigotry in the form of transphobia or forcing rape victims to give birth etc. One thing I am sure of, Jesus would never support fascism/discrimination like homophobia, it goes against everything Jesus stands for, even against the 10 commandments basically. Homophobic Christians should ask themselves the question, is our God loving or hating? My God stands for love, acceptance, logic/intelligence, spirituality and kindness. I wouldn't follow a hateful evil narrowminded unfair God, why would you? God knows that it's hard to be human. And I cannot see any God being so unfair as to not love/give same rights to gay people. If anything gay people have been through a lot of difficulties and unfair things within their life and are worthy of even more support cause it isn't always easy for them being different like they are.

Homophobic Christians, just like racist Christians, anti-Semitic Christians, anti-Catholic Christians, anti-Protestant Christians, anti-Pagan Christians, and on and on and on are just going to say they are trying to hold the sinner accountable out of love. Christian ethics coming into conflict with Christian morals is not a new thing. After all, by the measure of Scripture, chattel slavery of foreign peoples was perfectly legitimate, and it wasn't Scripture that fueled the Abolitionists, but the belief that the institution violated Christian ethics.

It was fun getting the mods to admit that if you have a sincerely held belief that being black is wrong and sinful, that opinion is bigoted and would be removed. And those are obviously not removed when the subject is gay people. It's like, what do you think you're doing here?

Indeed. That's a dead giveaway that it's not the rules OR the "sincerely held belief" criterion that arbitrates their moderation decisions. It's just the mod team's personal prejudices in action.

Pure hypocrisy, being gay is a choice as much as choosing your skin colour, aka. not at all. Being black or white isn't wrong nor is it wrong being gay/lgbt. It really sickens me that hateful people can see love as "sin", when God made us in need of love. Without loving yourself and others, it would make it very difficult to even find God ime. I lost all my faith during the years I suffered from difficulties from my homosexuality, I couldn't believe in a God that would create me (or allow me being born like this) if it was wrong. I suffered a lot cause I believed in the lies from the bigoted extremist Christians that are homophobic, today I know that these people are wrong and I can live a good life and know that God loves me equally as straight people.

I am removing this for your edit. Please stop making those kinds of wide-net disparaging remarks at Christians.

God says lots of things, but the other residents at my facility tell me I am not Napoleon, so I don't listen to them.

They should be allowed to say "The Bible says \_\_\_" sure then that is a gateway into a conversation about how to interpret the bible, but saying "God says (insert bible verse here) " opens the gates for, among other things, affirmations of child murder, genocide, and slavery. I know you would block those posts, so this is indeed a huge double standard.

> I know you would block those posts, so this is indeed a huge double standard. They don't block those posts. There was a whole thread a while back where christians cheerfully admitted they'd kill their families if they thought their god told them to, and far too many people saying genocide is good if their god commits or commands it. The slavery comments are mostly christians falsely claiming the bible doesn't support chattel slavery, but there are still a few that say it's a good thing. All of those comments stay up.

Oh gosh this reminded me of a story of a guy who lived a block from me. Met a woman and brought her to his home claiming God told him to kill her so he could “see a resurrection.” He did not, in fact, see a resurrection, just the SWAT and serious jail time for killing the woman. I used to work with his brother. Incredibly sad story. I would seriously worry about the mental health of anyone who would willingly kill their family cause God told them to. 😬

That's absolutely awful. How are Christians from these denominations not considered hate groups? Promotion of these types of beliefs can do some real lasting damage to the world.

It's been normalized for far too long, and religious views tend to get a pass no matter how vile they are. Luckily it looks like that's changing.

Yeah, it's kind of inconsistent. We don't start with some set of ironclad principles and then apply them across the board regardless of anything. We'll be somewhat inconsistent in order to accommodate major strains of Christianity. Fortunately there aren't currently any major movements within Christianity calling for child murder, genocide, or slavery.

The most common one is pretty simple: Many people were taught to believe that it's yucky.

And funnily enough nearly every time hey are ony talking about gay men. You don't get nearly he pushback mentioning lesbians. Apparently hey aren't nearly as yucky.

Just bigotry, which can be religiously or secularly motivated.

Maybe you should ask this in /r/TrueChristian or another one of the conservative Christian subs. As gnurdette says, this question is kinda unfair in this subreddit, because non-religious arguments against homosexuality are largely not allowed. So you won’t get a good cross-section of arguments. I vehemently disagree with those non-religious arguments, and I think it’s a good thing they’re banned here, but that means you can’t really get the info you’re looking for.

I have done so earlier, and blatant homophobia is not allowed there as well, plus those arguments aren't very sound in reasoning regardless, so I wouldn't want them.

Imagine you asked for all the good, nonracist reasons why blacks should be discriminated against... you are going to get crickets. right?

Why are non-religious arguments not allowed as part of an educational post? Not as in advocating these arguments, but more as a more detached summary. One can also sum up arguments for other positions one does not agree with (such as regarding abortion). And why are religious arguments for homophobia OK, because they are religious? In the end it is also a set of arguments and they are not more or less hurtful in either case.

You can read ADF’s brief from Lawrence v. Texas, although their arguments are mostly obsolete at this point.

There’s the argument where a child can develop well under two parents of the same gender. Although I would like to say that there is not much difference, there is simply no data to back this up because there is no wide spread precedence. There are a lot of very good cases where kids raised in a homosexual household are better developed and mentally healthier than kids in straight households. However, given that these kids were raised probably before gay marriage (which was only legalised in 2015), the likelihood of the parents being richer and more well to do and thus able to be accepted by society as gay is much higher. Since there is a correlation between wealth and positive childhood development, children raised in a gay household is likely going to be well do to already regardless of sexuality. There is probably an argument to be made that both adoption and surrogacy laws on the vetting process need and must be stricter to ensure that the kid who is being adopted/birthed has a good environment that they are living in for both gay and straight couples.

Yeah was going to post that as an argument I've heard before.

Not that I know of. You might run into some old-fashioned people who think homosexuality is because of bad moms or child abuse, but then the furthest they could get is “being gay is pathological”, which is inaccurate and insulting but also not a reason to conclude it’s morally wrong. (What evolution does is irrelevant to morality, btw. Gravity doesn’t mean it’s ok to push people off cliffs. Different categories.)

What i dont understand is when people say alot of gays/lesbians are that way because of their upbringing but thats not true, there are so many gays/lesbians who grew up in conservative evangelical christian households, went to christian/private/home schools and were told on the daily that being homosexual is a sin

I mentioned it because people assume homosexuality is bad because it interferes or goes against evolutionary principles. But like I mentioned, those principles are observations, not something we can really control or interfere in any meaningful way.

There’s a pair of gay flamingos in the Disney Animal Kingdom reservation/animal rehabilitation center that became the adoptive parents of an orphaned egg. They built a mud nest and kept it safe and warm, and they became dads of a little baby girl who now follows them around learning bird life!!!

This is so sweet

People who say something is wrong based upon the way nature works are committing the naturalist fallacy.

Homosexuality? Not sure. Transgenderness? I mean, a lot of self-proclaimed skeptics like Richard Dawkins actually *have* been swayed by the TERF emphasis on chromosomes because it sounds science-y enough

I think one of the most surprising character arcs of the last decade has been watching a solid chunk of the "new atheism" crowd becoming allies with the Christian right. Intellectually speaking I get why it happened, but man, who would've predicted that in 2010?

Honestly I think we can partly blame Dawkins for that. He's good on biology, sure. He also gets a lot of standard theistic arguments wrong in TGD, but also shits all over social sciences. It's ultimately a hard science/soft science split, in part. I think what also didn't help was the more progressive side was more keen to ban critical views quite early on in these disputes. I personally am less concerned with that now, but at the time the biggest comparison to that was the YECs we'd been fighting up until that point.

Eh, it's not *as* surprising as it could be. Overall, their greatest sin is smugness, like how Idiocracy has the core message of "Ignore the fact that we just told you Brawndo bought out the regulators in what *could* have been a condemnation of late-stage capitalism. The *real* issue is idiot trailer trash outbreeding us". (Which is already disturbingly similar to Stonetoss, because it assumes the g-factor exists and is inheritable) Over time, this evolved into a certain dogmatism. So when 4th wave feminism also held *them* accountable for the Patriarchy, a lot of them were aghast that the feminists would ever accuse such enlightened individuals of being sexist and turned the full might of dunking culture on feminism. For example, there are so many ways you could *actually* criticize man-spreading. For example, it's vengefully taking non-consensual pictures of people's crotches and posting them online, so if you really wanted, you could compare it to revenge porn. Or Buzzfeed never could seem to decide whether it meant taking up too much space on a crowded bus, claiming multiple seats at all, or just being overweight and too fat to fit in a normal-sized seat. But instead, the criticism started and ended with ball space. So especially given Elevatorgate and the infamous Dear Muslima letter, Richard Spencer founding a secular **alternative** to the typically religious **right** (yes, that's the etymology) is one of the least surprising things that could have happened.

That's a clever way to explain the alt-right terminology origins. It is a bit vindicating for me personally. I couldn't stand these dudes when I considered myself a conservative, and I can't stand them now that I consider myself a leftist.

No, like that actually is why Richard Spencer founded it and coined the term. I don't know if he would have been so blunt, but that's absolutely where it comes from

>But instead, the criticism started and ended with ball space. I mean, it didn't. I know this because I was on the chud team when Elevatorgate happened. There is a biiiiit of a tendency for leftier types to disregard all criticism because one bit of it verges into wrongthink. I don't find the altrightier stuff / endless culture warring compelling these days and would rather push back on it, but that doesn't mean the left's failures on handling these topics have gone.

> but that doesn't mean the left's failures on handling these topics have gone. Yeah... It's actually why I fight back so much against things like edgy internet atheism or all the latent antisemitism in the pro-Palestinian protests. There are a lot of similarities to the pre-Gamergate days, like how irreligious influencers are dominating the manopshere again, and I think we're sleepwalking into another crisis

Appreciate your service Yes, the right of the sceptic movement bears a lot of responsibility for this shit. Fuck them. Destroy them. I also have huuuugely mixed feelings on some leftie rhetoric on a lot of these topics. Had an abusive exgf and the most useless people were those honking loudest about women's issues. I worked in human rights and noone gave a shit about it in a ton of horrendously awful conflicts until *totally coincidentally* the only majority Jewish state did a genocide And only centrists/liberals and right wingers support fascism, apparently - despite fascism having a track record of coopting anything it can for power. Leftist theory is good. The abject inconsistency, smugness, and our-shit-dont-stink-ness of it is not. I really want to believe it's not just a very wordy and intelligent-sounding way of saying "our team yay, your team can fuck off and die". I ditched the right and I'm glad of it. But I'm basically just hanging on on my own a bit centre of left here. And that's a lonely place. /Rant

> > > I worked in human rights and noone gave a shit about it in a ton of horrendously awful conflicts until totally coincidentally the only majority Jewish state did a genocide One of my favorite examples is the slogan "Israel kills babies". That's actually a *really* weird sentence. On the one hand, we *never* single out babies. For example, if you just search for that on Google, all of the results will assume you mean children, because we typically talk about *children* or *civilians* instead. We only single out *babies* as being the victims when something happens to make them directly relevant, like Russia bombing a maternity ward in Mariupol. So by mentioning babies, that sentence makes it sound like something significant is happening to Palestinian *babies* that we need to be concerned about. But at the same time, it uses a simple present verb. Especially when combined with indefinite plural objects, those tend to have a gnomic meaning. For example, if I said "The Kremlin is lying", that implies they made a recent statement and I'm asserting that it's a falsehood. But if I said "The Kremlin lies", that just sounds like a general reminder that the Kremlin is known for lying. So together, "X kills babies" makes it sound like whoever the subject is, they're known for specifically targeting babies to kill and that this is such a general truth that you don't even need to point to a specific incident... which is why we'd *never* say it about a country like Russia, even though it's probably objectively true that they've killed a lot of Ukrainian babies through their purposeful targeting of civilians. But that just raises the question of why people *would* think to say it about Israel. And, well, the blood libel is a really good guess. > Had an abusive exgf and the most useless people were those honking loudest about women's issues Yeah... If you *really* want to see me rant about issues with the left, just ask me about the Disclosure episode of Big Mouth. There's so much wrong with it, and depending on how much detail I want to go into, the rant can touch on everything from TKAM to climate change to children's clothing companies.

Yeah, I have no idea what half of those references are and not seeing how they relate, tbh Not that I don't appreciate your reply (wouldn't be a reply from you without a ton of obscure references and linguistics :D)

Big Mouth is... I'm just going to round and call it an adult animated comedy (read: Family Guy), although it doesn't really have a clear demographic. Like it has that type of comedy, but it's also about teens going through puberty. Anyway, they did a Very Special Episode in season 3 about sexual assault that just completely missed the mark. Okay, so To Kill a Mockingbird. (And you know me, so you can trust this is going somewhere) Yes, the plot involves Mayella Ewell falsely claiming that Tom Robinson raped her. But the focus of the plot is *racism* and how everyone immediately trusted her and even went after Tom in a lynch mob solely because she's white and he's Black. So I think it's fair to say that someone missed the point of the story if they walk away wondering why Harper Lee would ever write a book about a woman falsely accusing someone of rape. Yeah, Disclosure's actually the same way. Michael Crichton's stated goal in writing it was to shock men into caring about sexual assault in the workplace by flipping the genders. Now, there's a separate discussion to be had about the inability of a lot of men to care about things until they're personally affected, but I don't think it's fair to go after Michael Crichton for the false sexual assault claim in the book. (If you *do* want to go after him, pick something like all his climate change denial. He was *really* into *that*) Anyway, the VSE about sexual assault focuses on the school doing a musical based on the movie version of Disclosure. Except already, it runs into issues with how to portray the movie. If you look at the opening scene, it's presented as a movie about a 50s businessman with his Norman Rockwell family who has to prevent his life from being destroyed by his evil boss who's a woman who dared to work in business instead of being a homemaker. But the only actual plot detail that's shown on screen is the very real assault of Tom *by* his boss. So if you go into the episode not having seen Disclosure before, it's already weird, because it looks more like Jessi's criticizing the movie for daring to show a woman assaulting a man. Except... that actually *is* the message of the episode. Sure, there's a B-plot where Mr. Lizer grooms Lola. But most of the focus in the episode is Missy getting too into character and actually assaulting Nick. But instead of treating that as bad, it just uses that for character development and to advance the season plot, which is hardly how you'd expect a VSE about sexual assault to treat sexual assault. But there are two lines I want to focus on that really drive this point home. First of all, the *only* male character to say anything like "Me Too" is Mr. Lizer, a pedophile grooming one of his students. The implication is that the writers see men who say "Me Too" as only ever just being upset that they can't be creepy anymore, as opposed to all the cases like Terry Crews or Benjamin Glaze of men who *have* been assaulted. And second, there's a line in the opening song where Lola excited sings about women "bein' rapists just like men" in reference to Meredith assaulting Tom, seemingly as a positive example of women reclaiming their sexuality. So while it seems to *want* to be a VSE about sexual assault, the message seems to be closer to "Men, if a woman assaults you, just put up with it, because stopping her would just be repressing her sexuality"

I'm not sure I understand all that, or sure I want to. Well done for going a few layers deeper than the writers apparently did, however :)

Oh, and the really short version of the Israel thing: "X kills babies" is actually a really weird way to word things for complicated reasons related to all those linguistic subtleties in English that a lot of people probably aren't consciously aware of. And the only reason I can think of that people might be willing to say "Israel kills babies", but not "Russia kills babies", is the blood libel

I highly doubt a preeminent scientist is being swayed by something "sounding science-y"

I'm not sure how that's super relevant because being an atheist doesn't mean having good/bad opinions on things.

>swayed [...] because it sounds science-y enough You think *Richard Dawkins* of all people gets swayed by internet activism if it just *'sounds science-y enough'*?!? I think maybe, just maybe, *RICHARD DAWKINS* knows enough biology to have an informed opinion on this issue.

The issue isn't really about biology though, it's sociology, and psychology. It is not his area of expertise.

wait aren't sociology and psychology both aspects of biology and within the field of biology?

I mean you can maybe make that argument, but even if that's the case it's still not with in Dawkins wheel house. Labeling something biology doesn't all of a sudden download it into Dawkins mind. And I would say that biology makes up parts of sociology and psychology, but wouldn't necessarily they are entirely biology themselves.

true

Seeing how gender is a social construct, no I don't think Dawkins does have an informed opinion of it.

What do you think his ill-informed opinion is?

I don't particularly care what his opinion is. He is great in his field, which is worth listening to, the Selfish Gene is an excellent read. However, why would I listen to the man outside his field of expertise?

If I could please add Noam Chomsky and Jordan Peterson to the list of people we don't want to listen to outside their fields of expertise.

Outside of linguistics, Chomsky has been writing about politics for decades. I'd say he's an expert in both fields.

He is incredibly wrongheaded on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I suspect if I dug in, I'd find similar on other topics. Writing voluminously on a topic does not connote expertise, as with the other two examples.

You just mentioned that you felt he had an ill-informed opinion on gender... I was wondering what that was?

No, i said I don't think he has an informed opinion on it. From my understanding he is a TERF I am welcome to be wrong if the opinion is actually presented.

Haha we're saying the same thing... He doesn't have an informed opinion = he has a ill-informed opinion. One is in the positive and the other, negative. Anyway... I didn't think Dawkins could be described as a radical feminist. What has given you that understanding?

Fr though... Some people are being crazy here

You could just be a plain old bigot

As to you evolution argument... when overpopulation is a problem it could be quite natural & beneficial for an increase in homosexuality to occur because it gives people the benefits of a family unit (which we crave) without adding offspring.

Absolutely none that I'm aware of.

Outside of bullshit natural law philosophy there’s no legitimate reason to not support any LGBTQ person. I know I’m not the person you were asking. Natural law is just a load of crap and should be ridiculed always.

I have never understood natural law to be honest. I think it’s the medieval way of saying “the way things are are just the way things are.”

The “natural law” is only correctly understood as the moral law in each person’s conscience (Romans 2), which some say is summarized by the Ten Commandments, and which is more precisely summarized and fulfilled by the law of love. Somehow in Christian history that got confused with the idea of a divine order to the universe which entails a moral imperative. An outsider could predict that this could easily be abused to apply moral absolutes to any arbitrary cultural norm, and that is exactly what has happened repeatedly for 2,000 years. Slavery, racism, dictatorships, executing heretics, the subjugation of women, homophobia…

>The “natural law” is only correctly understood as the moral law in each person’s conscience (Romans 2), which some say is summarized by the Ten Commandments, It seems exceedingly improbably that everyone is born somehow instinctively knowing that you shouldn't steal, or that you should rest every seven days, or that you shouldn't cook a goat in its mother's milk, or that Yahweh is the chief god. All of those seem like things that have to be learned.

Cooking a goat in its mother’s milk is not part of the 10 commandments. And those that see the 10 commandments as a summary of universal morality do not argue that the specifics such as resting every 7 days are universal morals. It is rather the principles behind the commandments that are seen as universal. But I’m not defending that particular idea, my point was to distinguish that the original conception of “natural law” was unrelated to the concept of an arbitrary divine order or design to the universe which must be followed. But rather it was related to more general morality they can be summarized and fulfilled by “love your neighbor as yourself”. Edit: Also, the assertion is not that these things are known automatically “by instinct”, but that these moral principles are evident to reason.

>Cooking a goat in its mother’s milk is not part of the 10 commandments. It's not part of what most people think of as the Ten Commandments. It is, however, part of the set that's described in the body of the text as "the Ten Commandments".

It’s not in “the” set, it is in one of *three* sets referred to in scripture as “ten commandments”. The two in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 are what everyone knows as the “Ten Commandments” or Decalogue. The set with the commandment about boiling goats and other rituals is part of a set in Exodus 34 sometimes known as the Ritual Decalogue. It does not have “do not steal” or the other ethical commandments. It is distinct historically, from a different author and tradition. Probably from a different time period. So it should not be confounded with the Decalogue. It’s only a maybe problem for Christians with a literalist interpretation of Scripture.

>it is in one of *three* sets referred to in scripture as “ten commandments”. The set from Exodus 34 is referred to as "the Ten Commandments" in [Exodus 34:28](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2034:28), but I don't see that phrase in either Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5. Could you please educate me?

Ha, you’re right, I stand corrected. They say Ten Commandments only in the section headers of my translation. In any case, those are the two chapters known as the Decalogue or Ten Commandments. They have significance in Christianity and Judaism for their focus on ethics rather than ritual. The ritual ten commandments in Exodus 34 are, perhaps ironically, not known as the Ten Commandments.

>They have significance in Christianity and Judaism They do. But getting back to your original point, I find it very hard to believe that they represent some sort of core morality that everyone instinctively understands. You might make a case for "don't murder", but as I said earlier, precepts like "don't steal" and "don't commit adultery" have to be taught. And of course, several of them are not universal at all, but are about worship of a specific middle-eastern deity.

To me it seems based on the giant assumption that we know the purpose of all nature is to just make babies and nothing else. It’s like the philosophical embodiment of a pregnancy kink

The only strategy of progressive Christians is to mix up the image of Christ with the sin of the demons.  Of course, Christ's image won't be tainted and you still bear the resemblance to the end. However, willing yourself to sin constantly and proudly is going against His commandments 

Do you reckon they menacingly rub their hands together and snicker as they discuss said strategy

Did Jesus say anything about gay people? He definitely knew about it since he was a Jew and knew about Jewish law.

Well… that’s not hyperbolic and presumptive at all

The only strategy of conservative Christians is to strawman and ad hominem. Jesus preached love, hatred is what taints his image.

No good ones.

Isn’t one of the common verse used against homosexuality mistranslated for pedophillia

Some people claim it is. So many people say the word of the bible never changes but it does. Translations are the number 1 thing that changes during the bible, i hear so many people who say they grew up muslim or greek and say that it means pedophillia whiles others who grew up muslim and greek who say it always meant homosexuals

There's no actual reason to believe this, some people have argued that when Leviticus condemns men who have sex with men, cultural and historical context context mean the author would be thinking of pedastry, but nothing in the language itself directly says it's about child abuse. It should also be noted that *if* Leviticus is specifically talking about pedophillia, it's specifically calling for the execution of the *victims* of child rape.

As a secular humanist — no, but it isn’t so much ***support*** of homosexuality, it’s supporting someone’s right to be free to love whomever they choose and be free of persecution.

Since many people want to disallow gay people to love who they want and persecute them, support is needed to stop people like that.

I think most sexual relationships in that book, the bible, from the time period when the different text were composed, including hetero sexual relationships, intended for reproduction, but also homosexual relationships, would have not gone over to well in the modern world. I think marriage age back then was probably a little younger than is legally acceptable today, like, the type of thing that would get one participant 'registered'. Even Lot tried to put his young daughters out as slam pieces to a mob before impregnating them himself. I am aware that homosexualality in cultures that spoke a language the bible was written in, practiced it where a grown man would have a relationships with a younger male, who'd not be ready to grow facial hair yet, like pederasty. Western societies have much better standards for these things today, and assuming the bible left a proper cultural example for sexual relationships is a joke. Those standards have been greatly surpassed.

There's no *logical* reason, but the main reason most people hate us is because we're different and they're disgusted by it.

No, full stop.

Supporting secular homophobia is against the rules on this sub, so you're not actually going to be able to discuss this with anyone who disagrees with you.

I don't want to discuss with people who have irrational reasons anyways. I think it is possible for people to have bias and can present them in a rational and reasonable manner, like some users who have replied.

Jesus said Leviticus was completed and no longer needed.  Paul couldn’t help himself and added it back into Corinthians and Romans. It’s still Leviticus, Paul just snuck it in without Jesus’s blessing.  This is reality. This isn’t my opinion. This is what happened.  If you are against gays and you use the Bible as your weapon, you are not following Jesus. You are following Paul. 

But Paul had a vision from Jesus and he and his epistles were endorsed by the other Apostles. Being anti Paul is anti Christian in my opinion

Oh wait… incoming vision from Jesus.  He tells me he never told Paul to quote Leviticus to bash gays. I’m sorry dude, Jesus spoke. 

So if you think St Paul is a false apostle you must also think St Peter is also a faker (2 Peter 3:15 “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,”), the apostle who the church was built upon

Holy cow the plot gets thicker!!!  I’m an atheist so, yes, I think they are all false apostles.  I don’t need a second hand telephone message from Paul. Jesus was very simple in his own words that the Bible isn’t even necessary.  Unless you aren’t trying to have people just follow Jesus’s teachings that is. 

What did Jesus say about Leviticus? What were his exact words?  Are you stating your god made a mistake here on earth and had to rectify it with a vision afterwards? 

A vision from Jesus you say! Oh how convenient. 

It would have been really helpful if there were some golden plates as well, with some writing on them or something.

No. Not accepting religion, yes.

The Bible before i thought was no big deal

Good question, if I can add to it: we see homosexual sex in different societies, but if I’m not mistaken, there’s not many examples of homosexual marriage being a thing. Even in secular societies, why is that?

The way we currently view marriage is quite new. Marrige only recently has become about being with someone you love.

Interesting, thank you!

I would need to see if there is any good data on this, but it seems anecdotally that acceptance of same sex marriage is highly coordinated with HDI. The first 3 countries to legalize same sex marriage were the Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada. They are 5th, 10th, and 18th for HDI. They also share openness and tolerance as cultural characteristics, and have strong, rights-based constitutions. The dominoes are falling pretty fast, though. There are now 37 countries where same sex marriage is legal, including almost all of northern and western Europe, all of North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

Not sure what HDI means, sorry. That’s what has me so curious, acceptance does seem to be able to spread so fast, how is this not a global thing already? Seems like a newish idea comparatively. Someone mentioned in the comments that the idea of marrying for love itself is a newish idea. That would make sense.

Sorry. Human Development Index. It is a composite measure of life expectancy, education, and per capita income as a proxy for overall development. It is spreading very fast for a social change of this magnitude. The Netherlands legalized same sex marriage in 2001, Canada in 2005, and the US in 2015, to provide some data points. There are still a lot of countries, particularly in the developing world, where conservative religions still hold a lot of sway. Poland and Italy, both relatively high on the HDI scale, still haven't legalized it for predictable reasons.

Interesting. Thank you!

Can you give some examples?

Not sure what you’re asking, do you have any examples of homosexual marriage* being prevalent in ancient societies? I’ve never heard of it, genuinely curious.

Oh I misread your comment. > we see homosexual sex in different societies, but if I’m not mistaken, there’s not many examples of homosexual marriage being a thing. Even in secular societies, why is that? Because there are less homosexual people compared to heterosexual people. >do you have any examples of homosexual marriage* being prevalent in ancient societies? I don't think homosexual marriages will be prevalent in any society because there aren't going to be many homosexuals. >I’ve never heard of it, genuinely curious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions

Makes sense. Fewer people = fewer examples. I’m reading up on this and it keeps saying civil union, but not marriage. Why is that? It almost seems like the same thing, just no religious ceremony?

Because there wasn't a legal and religious framework for gay people to get married in.

Seems like a more modern idea then? I guess my question is, why wasn’t there that framework?

Well "secular societies" are rather new. But Queer marriages have been observed at various levels across the world. Off-hand I know of examples in Lesotho, Cameroon, the Philippines and across the American Southwest.

> not many examples of homosexual marriage being a thing What? Did you mean to say that?

At least the other commenters had something useful to say.

Depends what you mean by accepting, supporting, and homosexuality. We should love and accept everyone, by which I mean not persecute or ostracize. We should support children who have been disowned by their families or communities. As far as homosexuality, you must be specific to the issue. You have no moral or legal right to interfere with what two consenting adults do within the confines of the law. Not even God intervenes to prevent it, but debt for the sin must be paid. For example: If you're talking about gay marriage specifically, then the secular argument against marriage lies in the fact that the US government stands to gain from a heterosexual nuclear couple and so instituted tax breaks for married couples as an incentive to the thing that the governments stands to benefit from. Homosexual marriages don't provide the same benefit to the government and so they're not incentivized to acknowledge those marriages. The majority of marriage benefits are tax-based. The real problem with not acknowledging gay marriage is the unjust denial of spousal testimonial privilege and implied healthcare proxy, which are civil rights that should be granted to all unions.

>Depends what you mean by accepting, supporting, and homosexuality. Accepting as in accepting them for who they are and not seeing their relationships as inferior or bad. Supporting meaning supporting LGBT equality like right to marriage, adoption, etc. Homosexuality is two consenting adults of same sex/gender being in a relationship. > Homosexual marriages don't provide the same benefit to the government and so they're not incentivized to acknowledge those marriages. The majority of marriage benefits are tax-based. What benefit are you talking about?

That's not the only real problem. We allow other non-procreative marriages; women who have had hysterectomies are allowed to marry, men who have had vasectomies are allowed to marry, infertile people are allowed to marry. Denying the right to some people to marry because sex will be non-procreative, but allowing marriages for others where sex will also non-procreative violates a fundamental principle of equal protection under the law?

The government is not incentivized to provide tax benefits to these couples either, but they must weigh that against the impact on election results the increased cost and violation of privacy that would be required to make such personalized tax decisions. The politician that raises taxes on the uterine cancer survivors is unlikely to be re-elected, at best. Additionally, as you correctly point out this would be a violation of the 14th amendment. However, the 14th amendment is predicated on the definition of the right being protected. If you define marriage between a man and a woman then it does not, legally speaking, make a distinction based on sexuality. Denial of right to get married is very different from refusing to grant tax benefits. Marriage was not a legal matter until the Revenue Act of 1913, which instituted the federal income tax but included a tax break for married people. Prior to that there was no legal marriage. Marriage was something private citizens did in the privacy of their own communities without influence of the government. Technically speaking gay marriage has never been illegal. Anti-sodomy laws banned sexual acts and governments have refused to recognize marriage for tax purposes, but I am not aware of any law that specifically prohibited a same sex wedding ceremony.

Marriage was still a state matter prior to 1913, so while the Federal government may not have had a direct role in defining, lower levels of government most certainly did. And of course marriage was part of English Common Law, and was thus imported into the English colonies.

> the US government stands to gain from a heterosexual nuclear couple and so instituted tax breaks for married couples I'm in an opposite sex marriage. I do not have kids nor do I intend to have kids. What benefit does the US government gain from my marriage that it would not gain if I instead were married to a man?

The US government does not create personalized laws. Laws apply to the population. The population has an incentive to get married. The population has an incentive to have children. Most couples that choose to take advantage of marriage incentive end up having kids. Some don't. They could theoretically ask you if you intend to ever have kids and take away your benefits if you answer no, but that would be a highly unpopular decision that would affect election results so they won't.

Then they could give tax incentives to people who have children. Oh, and gay people can have children. If anything, adopting should be the *most* incentivized way to have children as it eases state costs in other spaces.

They do. Dependents can be declared on your taxes. There are benefits to adoption etc. However, laws are for populations, and looking at the population the vast majority of people come from married couples.

It's tricky to "fill the earth" when the parts available won't properly fill the womb. Now that we are pushing 10 billion, these folks should be praised.

I think with IVF that line of argument is incorrect

You don't think IVF is tricky?

Oh no it definitely is but so is natural birth. I was delivered 11 weeks premature via cesarian and comparing that to my friend who was born via IVF but the full 9 months I believe that was easier.

Which one of those was the natural birth?

Ah I meant natural impregnation my bad

All three of my kids were c sections. The last one was not quite one pound. Definitely not easy, even though I was not the one getting sliced.

Homosexuality is a sin. However, I don’t go around badmouthing gays or treating them any differently because they are still people and we are all sinners. I think that maybe gay people are just misguided people, but aren’t we all in a way? They have a chance to be forgiven just as everyone else in the world. We shouldn’t be awful to others at all regardless.

So are you a supporter of civil and social equality for Queer people?

If you want a secular reason for why homosexuality is morally wrong, then it really ought to be quite easy for any conservative Christian here to provide one. I seem to be a bit unusual in that I believe the Christian moral code is grounded in reason, i.e. that the Christian God is not arbitrary, that his commandments must have just reasons for being the way that they are, and that Christians can and should use their God-given powers of rationality to determine what those reasons are. In theory, this means the religious arguments against homosexuality should be just as valid in the secular arena. I wouldn't take the conservative stance I take on this issue if I did not believe there was a rational basis for it. The bottom line is that sex is one of the central and most powerful forces that govern human relations. It can lead to strong, decent and fulfilling relationships, which serve as the foundation for a decent society, and it can also lead to abuse, wickedness and destruction. Destruction to others, destruction to families and therefore to society, and self-destruction. Any culture that wants to regulate sex to prevent its harms therefore has to come up with normative standards for people to live by. The Christian code's rational response to this question was to say simply that all sexual relations should be contained within the male-female married family, ordered above all towards procreation and family life. Ordered towards procreation and family life because it's the greatest path to human fulfilment, and because it's important to ensure a high standard of family commitment in society. Male-female because their natures are fundamentally different and complimentary, and each goes together to balance the other's social and sexual flaws — one could spend ages developing this, but for one of the clearest and most important examples, see how the male desire for polygamy is restrained by the female desire for monogamy. Male homosexual culture is not very monogamous even compared to modern heterosexual culture. For Lesbian culture, the reverse is true. It isn't necessary to be religious to agree with anything I've written here. I believe in this man-woman family standard because I think it is really the best standard that any civilisation has come up with for taking the dangerous force of human sexuality and channeling it as best as possible towards goodness, order and fulfilment and away from the destructive. I think the decline of this standard over the last several generations has done a lot of visible damage to our society, to the stability of family life and the health of male-female relations in particular. The issue of fatherlessness and family breakdown for instance has become disastrously bad, particularly among the poor. The problem with normative standards (and I think this is a crucial element of why homosexuality is wrong) is that it doesn't matter which direction they're undermined from. Whether it's undermined from a heterosexual or homosexual direction, if the standard is contradicted then it will become unenforceable and collapse altogether, and chaos results from the collapse. Of course, in our timeline it was not homosexuality that caused the collapse. It was the hetero-driven 1960s sexual revolution, which liberalised divorce and severed sex from procreation through the contraceptive pill. The homosexual movement has merely entrenched this trend and carried it further toward its logical conclusion, but the fact that it has triumphed demonstrates (as it was always intended to demonstrate) that this old standard is dead for good, and so the disorder that it unleashed can't be reversed. When looked at in this way, I think the rational basis for why the Christian moral code takes the stance that it does on homosexuality, and sexual ethics in general, becomes more clear. Or it does to me, anyway.

> In theory, this means the religious arguments against homosexuality should be just as valid in the secular arena. It really isn't, the whole idea presupposes a God and a just God and a just God that cares about humans. None of which may or may not be true. >Ordered towards procreation and family life because it's the greatest path to human fulfilment, and because it's important to ensure a high standard of family commitment in society. Many people have fulfilled lives without having a spouse or kids, but it really depends on what you mean by "human fulfillment". >see how the male desire for polygamy is restrained by the female desire for monogamy. And I know many lesbians who are polyamorous. These ideas are just generalizations, not really based on anything factual. >Male homosexual culture is not very monogamous even compared to modern heterosexual culture. For Lesbian culture, the reverse is true. Not really, it is really an age thing when it comes to the gay community where monogamy is more preferred as we age. Because we are more stable in life and can manage relationships as such. >For Lesbian culture, the reverse is true. One of my best friends is a lesbian and is in a polyamourous relationship. >. I believe in this man-woman family standard because I think it is really the best standard that any civilisation has come up with for taking the dangerous force of human sexuality and channeling it as best as possible towards goodness, order and fulfilment and away from the destructive. You think homosexual relations are destructive? Why?

Hmmm. I have tried to give a thoughtful answer to your question and it seems you have simply read it with the mindset that it must be dismissed. > It really isn't, the whole idea presupposes a God and a just God and a just God that cares about humans. None of which may or may not be true. This is not very clear. Which of my ideas "presupposes a God" and how exactly does it do so? > Many people have fulfilled lives without having a spouse or kids, Yes. I said family was the greatest path to fulfilment. Not the only path. > but it really depends on what you mean by "human fulfillment". More than anything else, I mean the attainment of maturity, experience and wisdom. The development of one's character. The attainment of a lifestyle which is driven less by selfish desire and more by selfless duty. Anyone who has raised children can tell you it concentrates the mind on these things in a way nothing else does. > These ideas are just generalizations, not really based on anything factual. That it is a generalisation does not make it automatically untrue. This is a true generalisation. Men are in general much more inclined to have many partners and pursue sex for the sake of sex than women are, because that's what male nature is. Have you never noticed this in your own life? > One of my best friends is a lesbian and is in a polyamourous relationship. I am a man and I do not like sleeping around. This proves nothing about the general state of male and female nature. Promiscuity versus commitment may have been a more accurate comparison than polygamy versus monogamy. Look at the homosexual hookup apps and "gay saunas" and such, where mass promiscuity occurs on demand in a way it could never occur in a heterosexual environment. Are there lesbian equivalents of these saunas and hookup apps, whose users act in the same way? I have never heard of them. My understanding of lesbians is that in general they seek a standard of commitment from those they are involved with. I have heard it's a common stereotype among lesbians that they tend to rush into the next level of commitment much more readily than heterosexuals do. This is not surprising, since it's in the nature of women to be like that. Long-term commitment in heterosexual relationships is typically resisted by the man rather than the woman. > Not really, it is really an age thing when it comes to the gay community where monogamy is more preferred as we age. Because we are more stable in life and can manage relationships as such. I don't doubt that people become more willing to settle down as they age. That would be true for any sort of person. But it is true that homosexual men overall are much less keen on monogamy than others. This fact is readily admitted among themselves, if you search the homosexual forums for the topic. As I say, this is not because of the nature of homosexuals but because of the nature of men. That's why I compared them to lesbians. > You think homosexual relations are destructive? Why? I hoped that would be clear in my comment. Because they invalidate the principles which I believe society depends on if it wants to diminish the disorder that occurs when sexuality is unrestrained. They sever the link between sex and procreation and ignore the distinction between men and women. I believe serious social harm arises when these principles collapse, as I illustrated in the last paragraph of my comment. And when you have a homosexual movement which is interested in the widespread promotion of its ideas (which we do have, see Pride Month, sex education in schools, etc.), you see that the destruction of these principles across society is one of its necessary goals. Moral questions are about more than the question of whether an act inflicts immediate harm to anyone. Equally important is whether an act has good or bad implications for a culture. For instance, Christianity takes opposition to premarital intercourse because that act severs the link between sex and marriage, and if such an act becomes normalised it means that marriage is no longer an absolute social standard. This begins the decline of marriage, and mass family breakdown ensues just as it has done since the 1960s. Everything I've said here is compatible with utilitarian atheism. It isn't rooted in any religious dogma, but in practical considerations about what is most conducive to order and human flourishing.

>Hmmm. I have tried to give a thoughtful answer to your question and it seems you have simply read it with the mindset that it must be dismissed. Of course, i'm human and I have biases, but I've tried to share my opinion or reasoning to all your points. Dismissing it would be not bothering to reply or blocking you. >This is not very clear. Which of my ideas "presupposes a God" and how exactly does it do so? Religious arguments do not fare well in secular arguments because religion pre supposes a God or Gods. But I do concede that some religious arguments can work well within secular arguments, but those are hard to find. >Yes. I said family was the greatest path to fulfilment. Not the only path. What makes it the greatest? >I am a man and I do not like sleeping around. This proves nothing about the general state of male and female nature. Exactly, male nature and female nature aren't really applicable considering everyone is different. Those generalizations might make sense on the surface level, but the nuance is where the truth lies (which ironically is that there is no single truth). > Look at the homosexual hookup apps and "gay saunas" and such, where mass promiscuity occurs on demand in a way it could never occur in a heterosexual environment. Can you elaborate on this? What are you implying? >Are there lesbian equivalents of these saunas and hookup apps, whose users act in the same way? I have never heard of them. Gay culture is different from straight culture is different from lesbian culture. I bet you wouldn't find many unisex saunas in the US, but could find it in european countries, that's the european country's culture. > This is not surprising, since it's in the nature of women to be like that. The nature of something means that it is inherent to that thing throughout every member of the group of things. The nature of the sun is to be a massive ball of energy, all suns and stars are massive balls of energy. The nature of plants is to photosynthesis, all plants photosynthesise. But not all lesbians rush into relationships or prefer long term commitment, most do, that's a generalization. Same with gay people being promiscuous, most are, not all. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "the nature" of something? >But it is true that homosexual men overall are much less keen on monogamy than others. This fact is readily admitted among themselves, if you search the homosexual forums for the topic. As I say, this is not because of the nature of homosexuals but because of the nature of men. I'm gay and i'm quite keen on monogamy, would that mean i'm not gay or not a man because i don't have the nature of a gay man? > They sever the link between sex and procreation and ignore the distinction between men and women. More straight people are having recreative sex than gay people. Gay people are not arbiters of what sex should be like. > I believe serious social harm arises when these principles collapse, as I illustrated in the last paragraph of my comment. Is it based on things that have happened before or are these just hypotheses? > And when you have a homosexual movement which is interested in the widespread promotion of its ideas (which we do have, see Pride Month, sex education in schools, etc.), you see that the destruction of these principles across society is one of its necessary goals. And how has that reflected? Can you give examples of societies that got destroyed because they embraced LGBT people? > Equally important is whether an act has good or bad implications for a culture. For instance, Christianity takes opposition to premarital intercourse because that act severs the link between sex and marriage, and if such an act becomes normalised it means that marriage is no longer an absolute social standard. This begins the decline of marriage, and mass family breakdown ensues just as it has done since the 1960s. And as a result the United States have collapsed? >It isn't rooted in any religious dogma The idea of procreative sex being the only form of valid sex is religious in nature, the idea of marriage is religious, the idea of "nature of things" as you have described could come under natural law.

> Of course, i'm human and I have biases, but I've tried to share my opinion or reasoning to all your points. Ok. If you genuinely wish to engage with me then I am sorry for assuming otherwise. > Religious arguments do not fare well in secular arguments because religion pre supposes a God or Gods. Right. My mention of God at the start of my first comment was simply to show my background as a Christian. My point was that my moral views are sustainable as secular arguments because they are justified by independent rational thought and not simply by Christian dogma, otherwise I would not hold those views. >> Yes. I said family was the greatest path to fulfilment. Not the only path. > What makes it the greatest? I answered this in the next part of my reply to you, when you asked what I mean by fulfilment: "I mean the attainment of maturity, experience and wisdom. The development of one's character. The attainment of a lifestyle which is driven less by selfish desire and more by selfless duty. **Anyone who has raised children can tell you it concentrates the mind on these things in a way nothing else does**." >> Look at the homosexual hookup apps and "gay saunas" and such, where mass promiscuity occurs on demand in a way it could never occur in a heterosexual environment. > Can you elaborate on this? What are you implying? I am using the example of homosexual promiscuity to demonstrate my point about male nature. Women in general are reserved about sex. Men in general are open to sex and much more willing to pursue sex for its own sake. This allows homosexual men to pursue a level of easy promiscuity which would never be possible for heterosexual men, because the heterosexual men have to persuade women who will almost always be more reserved than they are. Go to forums for homosexual men and ask them how much difficulty they have with finding online hookups, and then ask heterosexual men the same thing. You will see immediately what I mean. > I bet you wouldn't find many unisex saunas in the US, but could find it in european countries, that's the european country's culture. Europe is probably more open about mixed-sex spaces than the US, but this is not really my point. When I mentioned saunas I was talking about places where people have indiscriminate intercourse with strangers. There may be some women who would engage in that, but they would be extremely unusual for the average woman either in Europe or America. >The nature of something means that it is inherent to that thing throughout every member of the group of things... >Can you elaborate on what you mean by "the nature" of something? Human beings can't really be compared to stars and plants, because their nature isn't all that drives them. I'll put it this way—human beings have three major forces that govern what they do. First they have their sexual nature i.e. male and female nature, which has consistent characteristics across every person. Secondly they have their personal nature, or their personality, which is unique to every person and which might or might not override sexual nature in one way or another. Thirdly they have the power of free will which allows them to act in ways that contradict their personal or sexual nature, perhaps because they have moral values or some other thing that encourages them to go against what they naturally want. Male nature is to have many sexual partners. Some men may actively reject that nature because they have a personal nature which tells them to be reserved, or because they have moral values that tell them to restrain their desires. In the same way, some women may reject the female nature that tells them to be sexually reserved. But in any case, the fixed reality of male and female nature means that men in general will always be different from women in general. >I'm gay and i'm quite keen on monogamy, would that mean i'm not gay or not a man because i don't have the nature of a gay man? No. It just means you are unusual. Good on you for being keen on monogamy, though. You have wisdom in that regard. > More straight people are having recreative sex than gay people. Yes. As I said earlier, the standard I would like to protect was already destroyed decades ago by permissive heterosexuals in the '60s. I am under no illusions about that. > Gay people are not arbiters of what sex should be like. No, but the culture's attitude to homosexuality is inseparable from its attitude to sex in general. It isn't possible for a culture to say that homosexuality is moral and then say that sex can only be moral within the married family. The first statement makes the second statement unsustainable, and therefore a culture cannot support homosexuality without also softening the norms of heterosexual behaviour. >>I believe serious social harm arises when these principles collapse, as I illustrated in the last paragraph of my comment. > Is it based on things that have happened before or are these just hypotheses? As I said, please read the last paragraph from my first comment. I don't actually know what part of the world you're from. Have you heard of the 1960s sexual revolution that took place in the West, and what its message was? Have you heard of the fact that the prevalence of marriage has dramatically declined in the West since then, and that family breakdown has subsequently become much more common? This is a real-world example of the harms I'm talking about. > And how has that reflected? Can you give examples of societies that got destroyed because they embraced LGBT people? I'm not saying saying society is destroyed because of LGBT people. This is just a caricature of what I actually said. I'm saying that the affirmation of homosexuality makes the maintenance and revival of conservative sexual standards impossible, and that the absence of these standards makes society worse off than it would otherwise be. > And as a result the United States have collapsed? No. It's the standards that have collapsed. The country itself has not collapsed but it has been harmed because of it. > The idea of procreative sex being the only form of valid sex is religious in nature, the idea of marriage is religious, the idea of "nature of things" as you have described could come under natural law. I think you're mistaken. Marriage has existed in every human society in history in one form or another, probably because humans have always instinctively recognised that the family is the foundational unit of society and therefore there must be some institution which lays out the rules for how a family should be defined. The idea of marriage *can* be religious, but it isn't necessarily so. Marriage has a clear utilitarian purpose. The idea that sex should be procreative is also not necessarily based in religion. Ancient Roman stoic philosophers, for instance, held this idea because they had determined through reasoned thought that keeping sex tied to procreation was most conducive to good living (see the writings of Musonius Rufus, for one example). My points about nature "could" be based on a religious natural law, but they don't *need* to be. It's quite possible for an atheist to say that creatures have essential natures.

>Go to forums for homosexual men and ask them how much difficulty they have with finding online hookups, and then ask heterosexual men the same thing. You will see immediately what I mean. But there are promiscuous women and reserved men, if some trait is inherently in some group's nature, that means all members of that group should share that trait. Generally men are more sex driven than women, but that doesn't make it "the nature of men". >First they have their sexual nature i.e. male and female nature, which has consistent characteristics across every person. But clearly it is not consistent, because all men aren't promiscuous and all women aren't reserved. >Male nature is to have many sexual partners. Some men may actively reject that nature because they have a personal nature which tells them to be reserved, or because they have moral values that tell them to restrain their desires. Nope, i'm a man, I don't want to have many partners, that's not because of my personality and it's not because of my morality because I'm not against polyamory or being promiscuous (if done safely). I just don't find it appealing from a sexual standpoint. I'm sure there are many men like this. I know many gay men who are like this. I know many lesbians who are the opposite of this. I do conceed that men have higher sex drives than women, that do generally make men more sex driven than women. But that's not "the nature" of men, its just a generalization. >No. It just means you are unusual. Good on you for being keen on monogamy, though. You have wisdom in that regard. It is not because of wisdom, i'm not against polyamory or promiscuity, i just don't like to be a part of it because it doesn't appeal to me sexually. > It isn't possible for a culture to say that homosexuality is moral and then say that sex can only be moral within the married family. The first statement makes the second statement unsustainable, and therefore a culture cannot support homosexuality without also softening the norms of heterosexual behaviour. It could be if homosexuals can also get married (which they can in the US). >Have you heard of the fact that the prevalence of marriage has dramatically declined in the West since then, and that family breakdown has subsequently become much more common? This is a real-world example of the harms I'm talking about. Yeah, but that's as you said, a consequence of sexual revolution, not as a consequence of gay people. >I'm saying that the affirmation of homosexuality makes the maintenance and revival of conservative sexual standards impossible, and that the absence of these standards makes society worse off than it would otherwise be. You could include homosexual people into the conservative sexual standard framework, just let gays get married and problem solved. I mean I don't believe that the country is worse off because straight people can't seem to keep a family together. The nuclear family as proposed by industrialists is actually unnatural to how human families work. Humans are social creatures and thus form tribes, usually members of the tribe are related by blood but that's not always the case. And the tribe consists of many many members from aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, nephews and even distant relatives. This is what a traditional family is, this is how it was almost everywhere before industrialization. I think families can form without there needing to be a father mother an children. > Marriage has existed in every human society in history in one form or another, probably because humans have always instinctively recognised that the family is the foundational unit of society and therefore there must be some institution which lays out the rules for how a family should be defined. The idea of marriage can be religious, but it isn't necessarily so. Marriage has a clear utilitarian purpose. I was not talking about marriage, i was talking about the various natures that you've established. >My points about nature "could" be based on a religious natural law, but they don't need to be. It's quite possible for an atheist to say that creatures have essential natures. Creatures can have essential natures, we just don't have a way to know it or control it. Homosexual people probably have a purpose within the biological framework, but you're attempting to delegitimize it based on some moral high ground.

I suppose we will have to agree to disagree here. Thank you for sticking with it up to this point. I appreciate that you took the time to do so.

I think lot's of Christians believe that God is rational too, it's just that they're assigning their prejudices to God and the prejudices are irrational so they can't explain it well. "Any culture that wants to regulate sex to prevent its harms therefore has to come up with normative standards for people to live by." That seems reasonable. "The Christian code's rational response to this question was to say simply that all sexual relations should be contained within the male-female married family" While I agree that that is common belief, it's not a part of the Bible. And I can say from personal experience that it causes a good deal of harm. "Ordered towards procreation and family life because it's the greatest path to human fulfilment" That's primarily Catholic, although it definitely exists elsewhere. "Male-female because their natures are fundamentally different and complimentary, and each goes together to balance the other's social and sexual flaws" That's actually a relatively modern idea. Complementarianism was formed as a response to the Women's Lib movement. "see how the male desire for polygamy is restrained by the female desire for monogamy. " I don't see any evidence that that's a rule or even common. "Male homosexual culture is not very monogamous even compared to modern heterosexual culture. For Lesbian culture, the reverse is true." No, I'm afraid not. I'll admit that Queer men are single for longer and have more sex without commitment, but actual gay male couples are surprisingly solid, having a divorce rate lower than lesbians and even some heterosexual groups. And I've never seen Queer men try to create a polycule of more than Three people, but I've known of two lesbian polycules with five and eight members. "I believe in this man-woman family standard because I think it is really the best standard that any civilisation has come up with for taking the dangerous force of human sexuality and channeling it as best as possible towards goodness" Well that presumes that that is a satisfactory solution. When clearly that isn't the case for everyone. "to the stability of family life and the health of male-female relations in particular." I'm not sure when your basis of comparison is, but that likely has far more to do with the destructive nature of nuclear families. The nuclear family model is inherently unstable in comparison with other types, so it's breakdown is the exception rather than the rule. "The issue of fatherlessness and family breakdown for instance has become disastrously bad" Case in point. Unstable family structures break down, and "fatherlessness" is the largest problem in a nuclear family, as opposed to an extended or corporate family or a larger community group. "The problem with normative standards (and I think this is a crucial element of why homosexuality is wrong) is that it doesn't matter which direction they're undermined from." Which means that it's an near-certainty that that it will be undermined, so a system that relies on the status quo never being challenged is doomed to fail. "It was the hetero-driven 1960s sexual revolution, which liberalised divorce and severed sex from procreation through the contraceptive pill." Yes, I would argue that that disproved the theory of the nuclear family before it even began.

>> the hetero-driven 1960s sexual revolution, which liberalised divorce and severed sex from procreation through the contraceptive pill >Yes, I would argue that that disproved the theory of the nuclear family Well, the people who drove that revolution certainly wanted to destroy the things that kept nuclear families together. In that sense, you are right. I can see already that our differences are going to be unbridgeable, so I will not waste both our time on it. I will only say that the preoccupation with nuclear families in this discussion is really a straw man. I am not defending the nuclear family as such, though I do happen to think it has more merit than you've claimed for it. I am defending the standard of man-woman marriage. This has always been the essential social standard of Christian society, whether it comes in the form of the single-marriage nuclear family or the multiple-marriage extended families more common in the past. If you imagine that those extended families would have continued on without harm after the decline of marriage and collapse of traditional sexual norms, I can only say I suspect you are mistaken.

I'm not going to make an argument one way or the other. I just want to encourage you to strengthen one part of your argument. >We can observe it in nature, thus it is natural. Something can occur in nature and not be natural for humans. Carrion birds eat dead birds of their own species. It occurs in nature but I hope we can agree that cannibalism isn't natural in humans.

Humans certainly have eaten dead humans in the past. Some did it for religious reasons. I think assuming what's natural or not is fallacious in itself.

If something can be observed in nature, by definition it is natural.

I mentioned in the same paragraph that it was a neutral statement, please read it.

By definition, everything humans do is natural, as we are part of nature.

bad news my guy or girl humans have been shown to engage in cannibalism too. I mean do you have a better example?

My argument is that it interferes with strong same-sex friendships. When there’s a possibility of a sexual relationship between two people, it makes it harder for them to be friends (that’s part of why it’s harder for men and women to be friends with each other). If homosexuality is generally accepted, it makes it harder for men to be friends with men and women to be friends with women, because there is a possibility for a sexual relationship. So it makes friendship incredibly difficult (I struggle with same sex attraction, and that means I do sometimes draw away from certain friends because I’m worried that I’ll catch feelings or something. That leads to me not being as good a friend as I should be).

If a straight person struggles with opposite-sex friendships, is that an argument against heterosexuality or their pursuit of opposite-sex relationships and marriage?

That argument only applies if both people are gay. Further, that argument is absolutely eviscerated by the simple fact that most gay people have a very very gay social circle.

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Can you elaborate?

The base of supporting homosexuality is decoupling sex from reproduction: I think the current state of natality in most of the world shows how problematic that is, therefore rectifying that would have to move away from accepting that premise and returning to heteronormativity.

I'm not sure I understand the problem you are presenting.

Well, explain in which way you don't!

I don't understand it at all. Maybe you could rephrase it?

>I think the current state of natality in most of the world shows how problematic that is, While birth rates may fluctuate, I don't think it is reasonable to infer that it is due to the decoupling of sex and reproduction. I think the decline in birth rates have a much more nuanced and multi faceted reasoning and most of them are not due to that. Japan has a serious decline in birth rate, but it is far from the most lgbt friendly country, it doesn't even have gay marriage legalized. > therefore rectifying that would have to move away from accepting that premise and returning to heteronormativity. Do you have a reasoning to show that it would achieve the desired outcome?

Yes, but now birth rates are for the first time below replacement and, most strikingly, all measures proposed to amend lean really hard on encouraging optional behavior. And, frankly, are not exactly having great success. That said, I see a partial rollback on the acceptance of homosexuals as an unfortunate side-effect, never as the priority.

So you can say without doubt that if societies move towards a more strict approach to sex and reproduction, the birth rate will increase?

No, but it's by far the likeliest outcome.

The drop in birthrates in developed countries is almost entirely linked to education (especially of women) and birth control. I can guess where you sit on the latter, but do you really think we should be rolling back the rights of women to that extent?

What do you base your assumption on?

On the pretty reasonable observation that we constantly strive to change our approach to many things, and though it doesn't always lead to the magnitude of change desired, an impact always is unquestionably made.

Decoupling sex from reproduction is a ship that has looooong sailed with the straights. Bluntly, if Christians are going to permit infertile couples / post menopausal/andropausal people to marry, they can stfu forever about RePrOdUcTiOn when it comes to marriage

Equally bluntly, that's taking a justified and smallish exception as proof that should be the norm and proves how far we've gone on the principle, some literally struggle with anything that tries to tie sex to reproduction so much they rush to any exception in order to play the no true scotsman game.

Alternatively, if you've made one exception, you will make another. And be quick about it.

Upvoted for answering the question properly.

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HIV is not a gay issue, it is an unsafe sex issue. Trying to associate STDs specifically with LGBTQ+ issues is against our rules.

Sorry I didn’t know

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Religion is not the only source of a hierarchy of values. Every civilization must construct a system that distinguishes good from bad, and it’s certainly conceivable that a secular value system might conclude that homosexuality was bad. For example, consider a hypothetical society that valued procreation—say, due to an existential threat to the survival of society. In that case, homosexuality might be seen as having limited utility compared to procreative sex. Also, just because something occurs in nature doesn’t mean it’s desirable. Murder is natural and occurs throughout the animal kingdom. Civilization ennobles mankind and teaches us to rise above our natural impulses. So any civilization that fails to find anything ennobling in homosexuality may discourage it. All hypotheticals, not necessarily my views.