THE NEAR impossibility if not outright impossibility of getting a reasoned, dispassionate and philosophically rigorous public discourse on homosexuality in Jamaica was again demonstrated by the reactions to my column on the issue last week.
One senior journalist told me he had no patience with my drawing on philosophy in a discussion which to him is quite clear-cut.
"Dem man deh fi dead, Mr. Boyne. The Bible say dem ting deh is abomination, nastiness and evil, and you haffi just condemn it straight out; no use no pretty words and talk 'bout philosophy!"
He said he realised that I pointed out my own opposition to homosexuality, but that was not good enough. The condemnation must be acerbic and violent.
When I pointed out to him that the Old Testament also prescribed the death penalty for sex before marriage (fornication) and adultery, a smile glided across and he said, "Well, that's different" knowing his own record in that area.
Another senior journalist said he wanted to call me that same Sunday when my column appeared to say I should have been stronger and harsher in my denunciation.
It was not enough that I had said that the Bible and church tradition "resolutely and unequivocally condemn homosexuality". Or that my entire article was a strong philosophical challenge to homosexuals to provide a justification for their practice a justification which they would find hard to provide.
As I had said, even among the intelligentsia it is hard to find people with the temperament to entertain a serious discussion on the issues. People want a Capleton-type treatment of the issue, no intellectualising of this dire threat to humanity.
Expectedly, too, a member of the gay community wrote me a long e-mail to complain that "you have arrogated to yourself the right to speak for this nation". He chastises me for not accepting "the lived experience" of homosexuals and for denying their human rights.
Again, as I had pointed out in my column last week, homosexuals usually don't go beyond their own feelings and sexual identity to justify their homosexual practice and they usually engage in blindsiding in trying to defend the ethics of their lifestyle.
So among those who vehemently and passionately oppose homosexuality and those who practice the lifestyle, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack to find someone who can discuss the issue in a non-glandular way.
GAY POWER
Heterosexuals and homosexuals are so trenchantly shouting at one another that they can't hear what is being said.
In the meantime, the homosexuals are gaining ground and are securing legitimacy in the institution thought least likely to entertain them the church. The election of the first openly gay Bishop in the American Episcopal church is merely the latest indication of gay power and gay influence.
I suggest that those of us who are opposed to homosexuality had better start using our heads rather than our emotions to deal with this issue, for while we are busily denouncing and bringing down judgment on Sodom, gays are using slick arguments and are hijacking the human rights, civil rights agenda to push their cause.
A significant development which occurred at the recent Episcopal convention in Minneapolis in the United States which has not received any commentary in the Jamaican media was the resolution which was passed giving the church's blessing to same-sex unions.
Formerly priests in the Episcopal church blessed those unions but without the explicit permission of the church. The recently-concluded convention said the blessings of same-sex unions was within the authority of the church. So it was not just the confirmation of Gene Robinson as Bishop which showed the Episcopal Church's rejection of biblical morality.
MORALITY VS HOMOSEXUALITY
My gay correspondent makes a fundamental mistake in confusing human rights with ethical rights.
As the Vatican put it in a statement condemning same-sex unions on June 3, "The scope of civil law is certainly more limited than that of moral law". Extremely important point.
In other words, moral offenders are entitled to civil and human rights in a democratic society but that says nothing about the
morality of their actions.
My gay correspondent reminds me that "It behooves a reminder that we live in a plural society", and that "your reasoning ignores human rights arguments".
Accepting the civil and human rights of gay people and a democratic society's allowing them to practise their lifestyle is not to accept the moral legitimacy of that lifestyle.
I still ask the homosexual: If, as is frequently quoted in studies by even gay social scientists, as much as 90 per cent of the population in various cultures is heterosexual, making the homosexual population a small minority albeit an influential one on what basis do you say the practice is morally justifiable?
In other words, how do people establish ethics right and wrong? Is ethics determined purely on the basis of human desires?
Quite frankly, a number of the arguments frequently used against homosexuality are weak and philosophically trite. Perhaps this is why some homosexuals are so contemptuous of the popular anti-gay polemics.
Because homosexuals hold a disproportionate power in society and have much influence over media, culture, politics, business and academia generally, they are in the position to ridicule anti-gay arguments and to make them look increasingly suspect. In a place like Jamaica with a surfeit of emotions, the anti-gay polemics will survive longer than other places, but increasing American influence, addiction to a materialistic way of life and growing skepticism over Christianity and the Bible will weaken the hold of anti-gay polemics.
If the church does not refine its argumentation and pay attention to philosophy as the Bible and theology generally come under fire then some time in the future, whether we like it or not, homosexual ideology will become increasingly attractive as cultural imperialism strengthens through American media penetration.
We have to train our youth especially to think rigorously, not emotionally; to read prolifically and to expose themselves to the thinking of those with whom they are opposed. An intellectual ghetto mentality is the surest way to lose the cultural war which is what the homosexuality debate is really a part of.
ETHICAL UNDERPINNINGS
If God does not exist, then there are only two plausible approaches to ethics. Either ethics is derived from the social and cultural context a social construct and, therefore, if the people or a community decide that homosexuality is immoral, then that should be accepted.
If ethics is derived from individual whims and fancy; if ethics can be grounded individualistically; if feelings justify expression, then homosexuality could be right.
The homosexual could say he is not bound by majority opinion but has an inalienable right to self-expression and the pursuit of his own ethical path. If he has the homosexual desires and the homosexual orientation, then he has a moral right to express that, he could reason.
But if he is not bounded by the views of the community and the culture, then why should the pedophile? One day the children might arise to assert their human and civil rights to have sex with an adult of any age they choose!
Unthinkable? The same way it was unthinkable for blacks and women to have their rights! Yesterday's taboo is today's enlightened rights.
My gay correspondent says, "Your reasoning ignores human rights arguments human rights thinking mediates in this issue".
But if we are here by blind chance or random, purposeless occurrence; if there is no essence, just existence, as is purported by many philosophical naturalists, then what is the basis for asserting human rights?
If there is no objective moral order, how can we assert the dogma of the sanctity and inviolability of each individual life? Is that not a modern myth like the "ancient myth" of a created cosmos?
The irony is that the homosexual who does not want to abide by the moral precepts of the majority who condemns homosexuality will, when pressed in a corner (no pun intended!), assert the sanctity of human rights because human rights rhetoric has become the accepted wisdom of the 21st century. (Even President Bush exploited it to carry out his immoral war against Iraq).
GENETIC DETERMINISM
Then there is the matter of reason. But how, as the philosopher Thomas Reid says, can we trust reason to give us morality when it also came by blind chance? How can we be really sure that reason accords with the moral order?
My correspondent says, "The international human rights project recognises the legitimacy of human identity that cannot change or one that ought not reasonably to be called on to change."
The writer implicitly accepts genetic determinism.
There is no unanimity in the scientific community on whether homosexuality is genetically determined. It is clear and the scientific evidence shows that genetics plays an important role in homosexual orientation.
But so do psychological and environmental factors. The nature-nurture argument has been going on for a long time in the physical and social sciences, and it is inaccurate to state as unquestioned fact that homosexuality is genetically determined. The issue is more complex than that.
One of the most comprehensive articles to have been published on the issue of the scientific investigation into homosexuality is Chandler Burr's extensive piece in the March 1993 issue of The Atlantic titled 'Homosexuality and Biology'.
Burr is on the side of those who stress the strong genetic influence on homosexuality, but even he admits in his comprehensive survey of the scientific evidence going back many decades that "as we have seen, scientists must sift through ambiguous results from a disparate group of studies that are excruciatingly difficult to interpret." Important acknowledgment from someone in favour of the genetic explanation favoured by the gay community.
He goes on to admit, "It would be wise to acknowledge that science can be a rickety platform on which to erect an edifice of rights ... We cannot rely on science to supply full answers to fundamental questions involving human rights, human freedom and human
tolerance".
Science deals with what is; not what ought to be. Even if we were to prove that the homosexual orientation was purely genetic and unchangeable, one could not automatically assume that carrying out homosexual action is necessarily right.
REASONING TOGETHER
But wouldn't it be utterly unreasonable for someone to have a set of desires which it would be immoral for him to express? Really? Prisons are filled with people who have desires which we all say should be suppressed! And some homosexuals themselves believe that pedophiles should
suppress their desires.
This is why we come back to the overarching issue of how we determine ethics. It is in this area that the homosexuals are most
vulnerable.
But the Christians, too, will have to prove that their source of authority is really authoritative. And, perhaps more importantly, that their interpretative grid is the accurate one, for there are other interpretations which favour homosexuality and would have to be challenged by traditionalists.
For those who want to go beyond an emotional response to the homosexual to debate this issue, I suggest two books from opposite sides of this question of the Bible and homosexuality: Conservative evangelical professor James De Young's absolutely first-rate book Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law, a thorough examination and refutation of pro-homosexual views; and Catholic priest's Dr. Daniel Helminiak's What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality, which attempts a biblical justification of homosexuality. Let us reason together on this critical issue.
* Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can e-mail your comments to ianboyne@yahoo.com.
