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8/02/2015 3:36 am  #1


Sodomy Laws

I actually get very tired of playing standard politics on this issue. If homosexuality is wrong shouldn't the proper fight have been for the return of sodomy laws rather than the utter failure that was what you just wasted 23 years doing? If not why not?

Last edited by iwpoe (8/02/2015 4:39 am)


Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
My Books
It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
 

8/02/2015 3:42 am  #2


Re: Sodomy Laws

It should've been, and still should be.


Noli turbare circulos meos.
 

8/02/2015 5:14 am  #3


Re: Sodomy Laws

I am not aware of any medical research that would justify the view that homosexuality is normal. I have no clue why homosexuality was removed from the list of medical conditions while things like "ADHD" and "depression" get added. Seems like a political trend with no backup from science and fact.

If the argument is "dogs have male-to-male intercourse too", then, well, male lions eat other males' cubs, so...

 

8/02/2015 5:57 am  #4


Re: Sodomy Laws

The question was about sodomy laws themselves.

I think you (Americans) lost the whole thing with Lawrence v.Texas (others insert their own national turing points). Well, actually, I think you lost the fight many decades earlier when everyone forgot why they we even needed sodomy laws other that "that's weird and gross". But insofar as you weren't willing to restore that, then you were only half-heated about everything in the first place: saying nothing more than, 'Well, sure you can commit the act, but please, don't pretend, by way of the law, to have the same thing as married couples do.'

Last edited by iwpoe (8/02/2015 6:58 am)


Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
My Books
It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
     Thread Starter
 

8/02/2015 6:09 am  #5


Re: Sodomy Laws

seigneur wrote:

I am not aware of any medical research that would justify the view that homosexuality is normal. I have no clue why homosexuality was removed from the list of medical conditions while things like "ADHD" and "depression" get added. Seems like a political trend with no backup from science and fact.

If the argument is "dogs have male-to-male intercourse too", then, well, male lions eat other males' cubs, so...

I think a lot of people would claim it's backed up by appeal to experience i.e. it's possible to have the same phenomenological experience of romantic love towards a person of the same sex. The deeper issue here is whether one considers romantic and by extent erotic love (note I didn’t just say sexual attraction) necessarily geared towards reproduction, which, of course most heterosexuals don’t. 

 

8/03/2015 4:04 am  #6


Re: Sodomy Laws

DanielCC wrote:

I think a lot of people would claim it's backed up by appeal to experience i.e. it's possible to have the same phenomenological experience of romantic love towards a person of the same sex.

"Appeal to experience" is irrelevant. What would you get by removing restrictions on drugs based on "appeal to experience" by drug addicts?

Historically, sodomy laws were there, scriptural condemnation is also there, and homosexuality used to be listed as an illness. It would be scientifically relevant to see some medical research that led to the removal of homosexuality from the list. If the changes in medical views and laws were motivated only by "appeal to experience", they were totally unmotivated.
 

DanielCC wrote:

The deeper issue here is whether one considers romantic and by extent erotic love (note I didn’t just say sexual attraction) necessarily geared towards reproduction, which, of course most heterosexuals don’t. 

Let's be clear on terminology. Love is one thing, sex is another thing. The relevant topic is sex. There were times, pretty recently in fact, when sex outside marriage (pre-marital and extra-marital) was punishable, if a report by some relevant party insisted on investigation. And these punishments obviously applied to heterosexual and homosexual relationships alike.

So, it's about sex, not love. Similarly, love is absolutely irrelevant to sodomy laws, which are specifically about homosexuality. As long as homosexuality was on the list of diseases, an argument for sodomy laws probably was to contain the disease.

 

8/03/2015 8:38 am  #7


Re: Sodomy Laws

seigneur wrote:

DanielCC wrote:

I think a lot of people would claim it's backed up by appeal to experience i.e. it's possible to have the same phenomenological experience of romantic love towards a person of the same sex.

"Appeal to experience" is irrelevant. What would you get by removing restrictions on drugs based on "appeal to experience" by drug addicts?

Historically, sodomy laws were there, scriptural condemnation is also there, and homosexuality used to be listed as an illness. It would be scientifically relevant to see some medical research that led to the removal of homosexuality from the list. If the changes in medical views and laws were motivated only by "appeal to experience", they were totally unmotivated.

Well I wouldn't put restrictions on drug usage anyway. In such instances one can only tell people that the usage of such substances (as a matter of fact I wouldn't commit to saying recreational drug usage is intrinsically wrong anyway) is wrong; if they go ahead with it despite this then there is nothing one can do. The same of course would apply with homosexuality and suicide.
 
With regards to experience, if what motivates our understanding of homosexual relationships is based on biology then the same must apply in heterosexual cases. People would, with good cause I think, decry that latter as scientific reductionism. Homosexuality may be immoral but I don't think one can arrive at human morals just by reading them off from external biological functions the same way one can with non-intellective annimals.

Last edited by DanielCC (8/03/2015 9:06 am)

 

8/03/2015 12:43 pm  #8


Re: Sodomy Laws

seigneur wrote:

"Appeal to experience" is irrelevant.

What? Of course it is. Experience is the only possible ground of any other kind of analysis, including natural law, unless by experience you mean something incredibly narrow, but in Daniel's case I doubt that.

seigneur wrote:

Historically, sodomy laws were there,

Which, suddenly, have come to seem incomprehensible.

seigneur wrote:

scriptural condemnation is also there

Which doesn't determine laws, is even more poorly explained than the legal history, and *also* seems incomprehensible today.

seigneur wrote:

and homosexuality used to be listed as an illness. It would be scientifically relevant to see some medical research that led to the removal of homosexuality from the list.

I think the argument would properly be that it was included on unscientific grounds in the first place, not that subsequent research "found" that something "known" about homosexuality wasn't so. I don't know if you want to step through the history of mental illness including Freud, but for my part I think this at least plausible.

seigneur wrote:

If the changes in medical views and laws were motivated only by "appeal to experience", they were totally unmotivated.

As opposed to all that medical research that isn't based on experience?

seigneur wrote:

There were times, pretty recently in fact, when sex outside marriage (pre-marital and extra-marital) was punishable, if a report by some relevant party insisted on investigation.

Well, no, usually just under certain circumstances. But this too seems incomprehensible today.

Last edited by iwpoe (8/03/2015 12:48 pm)


Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
My Books
It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
     Thread Starter
 

11/06/2015 3:30 am  #9


Re: Sodomy Laws

Medical Condemnation is also there..

 

3/10/2016 6:50 pm  #10


Re: Sodomy Laws

iwpoe wrote:

I actually get very tired of playing standard politics on this issue. If homosexuality is wrong shouldn't the proper fight have been for the return of sodomy laws rather than the utter failure that was what you just wasted 23 years doing? If not why not?

Iwope, you distinguish between homosexuality and homosexual acts, I'm sure.  I would love to see anti-sodomy laws back on the books.  But how do you enforce them?  If the police suspect that someone sodomizes his or her sex partner, should they get a legal right to enter a  suspect's bedroom at, say, midnight when an officer hears that they're sodomites?  How do we when draw the line between protecting a right to privacy and the police department's duty to enforce a law against some private behaviors?

I reject the libertarian nonaggression principle partly because I think it ignores harm we can do to future generations.
 

 

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