Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Natural Law and Homosexuality

**Posted by Etzelnik** 11/28/2015 4:12 pm

Theoretically, were we to have a sterile man, why wouldn't he be permitted to join in a unitive marriage with another male?

**Posted by iwpoe** 11/28/2015 5:36 pm

His sterility is an accident not a change of his nature.

**Posted by Etzelnik** 11/28/2015 5:38 pm

iwpoe wrote:
His sterility is an accident not a change of his nature.

But why should nature be morally binding exclusive of it's accidental manifestation?

**Posted by iwpoe** 11/28/2015 6:26 pm

The argument wouldn't be so much that the nature is binding- the telos of man isn't statutory law. The point would more be that the unitive marriage is not, in fact, possible between two men, sterile or not.

**Posted by Etzelnik** 11/28/2015 6:28 pm

iwpoe wrote:
The argument wouldn't be so much that the nature is binding- the telos of man isn't statutory law. The point would more be that the unitive marriage is not, in fact, possible between two men, sterile or not.

Ahh, my bad. By unitive I meant simply the emotional gains which rise out of marriages.

**Posted by iwpoe** 11/28/2015 6:30 pm

That's friendship. There would need be additional remarks about the sexual behavior.

**Posted by Etzelnik** 11/28/2015 6:33 pm

iwpoe wrote:
That's friendship. There would need be additional remarks about the sexual behavior.

In the case of the sterile I would say that the sexual behaviour is no more than a manifestation of a far deeper love. Morever, the intimacy serves to increase those feelings of friendship.

**Posted by iwpoe** 11/28/2015 6:50 pm

Etzelnik wrote:
iwpoe wrote:
That's friendship. There would need be additional remarks about the sexual behavior.

In the case of the sterile I would say that the sexual behaviour is no more than a manifestation of a far deeper love. Morever, the intimacy serves to increase those feelings of friendship.

I remain largely silent on the merits of homosexual intercourse, though I am as skeptical of its *purported* merits as I am of much of what is popularly called love. Not that there isn't anything to sex, but that it necessarily follow from and is the proper means to intimacy seems a modern dogma rather than a lesson of experience.

**Posted by Etzelnik** 11/28/2015 6:54 pm

Even if we'd absolutely grant your points, wouldn't we remain with the fact that for this man there can be no truly unitive sex? And as such his sexual aberrations are excusable, inasmuch as there is no better alternative?

**Posted by iwpoe** 11/28/2015 7:03 pm

What kind of sterility? Simple sterility permits of unitive sex.