Letters to the Editor
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re: flawed thinking
Just because something is "naturally occuring" doesn't make it morally right.
That's very true -- rape is also a naturally occurring phenomenon, and nobody argues that rape is morally right.
So how do we decide if something is immoral or not? We can study the effects of the action to see if it causes harm, or we can look to tradition to see what tradition says about it.
In this case, the two methods conflict: several parts of the Bible condemn homosexuality, but all (disinterested) scientific studies of homosexuality say that it is a normal sexual characteristic of a significant portion of the population and isn't harmful (other than the persecution or discrimination that the homosexual might face -- but that's a symptom of the persecution, not the homosexuality itself).
The problem with the "Bible condemns it, so it must be wrong" approach is that the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) also condemns a lot of other things (eating of seafood, working on the Sabbath, and divorce, to name a few) that we as a society accept routinely with little or no censure. So it's clear that even devout Christians regard the Bible as something where they can pick and choose which "rules" to follow and which to ignore as outmoded.
So then the question becomes, is the prohibition of homosexuality like the prohibition of eating seafood, merely an anachronism whose time has passed? Or does it still serve some useful purpose in our society that makes it worth the suffering and discrimination it causes to homosexuals?
My opinion is that science has clearly demonstrated that homosexuality is a legitimate part of the human condition, and that trying to outlaw it or proscribe it makes no more sense than trying to outlaw or proscribe left-handedness or red hair. Given what we now know, there is no moral justification for condemning homosexuality per se.
-Jeremy