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Originally posted by 4thTimeLucky
[B]My goodness.
Someone who actually sounds like they know what they're talking about. And can spell. And use paragraphs. And structure.
Are you sure you're on the right board manalone?
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Your Cheque is in the post.
Somehow I feel this is an underhanded way to introduce homophobia into the debate
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Can I just jot down a few premises of your argument and the conclusion:
P1) There should be a de jure separation of church and state.
P2) The will of the people should be represented by those they elect. That is democracy.
P3) That includes their moral beliefs.
P4) There are a significant number of Christians in America.
P5) There can therefore be a de facto integration of church and state.
P6) The Bible would indicate that homosexual acts are sinful and marriage is between a man and a woman.
P7) There are fundamental human rights, formed on a humanist and natural justice basis.
P8) One of these human rights is equality (of some form or another).
P9) Marriage gives important economic and social benefits.
P10) Sexuality is not a moral constraint (unlike sex, consent and age).
C1 (from P1,7,8,9,10): Homosexuals should be allowed to marry.
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Succinctly and Accurately Put.
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Okay, a few thoughts:
P7 - Can you just assume that human rights arise from natural justice and not God?
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I think that is a question of semantics to some extent. Natural Justice is the secular humanist method of defining a moral underpinning to all human interaction.
It can be equally interpreted by the religious as the concept of God's Law, based on whatever god you intend to follow.
The concept of natural law as an independent entity is useful to me as I do not believe in the existance of God in any form. On that basis, I rely on a principle that assumes that human interaction should be founded on an ethical basis because I hold certain truths to be self-evident and certain rights to be inalienable.
It also permits the hazy concept of an unenumerated right. A principle of Natural Law that means that certain rights exist
a priori of their discovery.
It doesn't make things easier, just fairer
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P3 - Should the state reflect the moral beliefs of its citizens? Issues on which this does not occur in the UK: capital punishment and War on Iraq. One reason for this is that British MPs believe that they are elected to represent the welfare of their constituents and not their individual beliefs. In other words, we elect the wise among us to make decisions for all of us.
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Well, without any statistical evidence that I trust, I would prefer to set aside capital punishment as an example. I think we can make useful progress just on the Iraq issue.
It's a good example of an important question. Did the Blair Government perform its duties properly as a democratically elected government in that situation? I would contend that it may not have. The basis for any government decision must be the will of the people. That does not mean a referendum on every decision, but that the prime concern of government is not to force its will on the people, but accomodate the wishes of the majority, within the boundaries of Natural Law.
However, I feel that this is slightly to the side of the issue, which is centered on the question of the influence of socio-ethical lobby groups (ie the Church) on the supposedly economically focussed State.
My point was, simply, that the State is more than a simple economic entity. It therefore must exhibit the ethical perspective of its constituents.
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P8 - Equality will need to be defined further. For example: If equality means the government should show equal regard to the beliefs, liberty and happiness of all, then how does it weigh John's deep disgust at the thought of the state condoning homosexual acts with Dave's deep disgust at the thought of the state not condoning homosexual acts.
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The principle of equality in natural justice attempts to construct a basis whereby no individual rights override another's. In both cases, the State should merely provide the guarantee of free speech and free association.
In other words, the state must ensure that whatever opinion is held, it must be free from persecution. The right to "not be disgusted" is not, in my opinion a right compatible with the acknowledged right to freedom of speech. This leads to some unpleasant and extreme examples, but such is the nature of free speech.
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P10 - Aren't you just begging the question? The Bible says that three main types of sexual act are wrong: sodomy, bestiality and rape - and this moral trinity has been preserved in the Western Christian tradition for the last 2,000 years. As paedophilia is a specific case of rape (because informed consent can never be given) then its addition seems unproblematic. But what lets you remove sexuality/sodomy from the trinity of "obvious moral constraints"?
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Indeed. I suppose it comes down to consent. If I may draw your argument about paedophilia out, animals are similarly incapable of granting consent. It therefore becomes the following triad:
1) sodomy (consent required)
2) bestiality (no consent possible)
3) paedophilia (no consent possible)
On that basis I draw from the bible, based on other sexual practices which have become more acceptable since the writing of the document (ie oral sex and masturbation and most importantly adultery), that sexual morality has been reduced primarily to an issue of consent in modern times.
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Is not equally possible from your premises to draw the following conclusion:
C2 (from P 2, 3, 4, 5, 6): Homosexuals should not be allowed to marry.
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Not exactly. I would phrase C2 as "The states where it is found to be morally unacceptable should not permit or recognise such marriages".
The point to distinguish is that my opinion and what should happen remain separate. What is right and what should be done are also separate. Democracy must rule, with free debate on any side of an issue.
Right is a malleable entity, unfortunately. As a secular humanist, I can only derive principles of right and wrong through reason and opinion. Reason in the case of "natural justice" and opinion in the sense of the majority rules principle.
That does not mean I have to believe what the majority do (My reason outweighs the majority
) but it does mean that I think the only sane basis for government is that derived from democratic principles.
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Don't get me wrong, I don't support antidisestablishmentarianism.
I just want to make sure that the right argument wins the day.
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The right argument is the one that is amenable to your intellect and to your conscience.