Gay Rights: Choice vs. Nature?

[Philosophy Now]

Michael Voytinsky says that the choice versus nature debate is irrelevant to the question of gay and lesbian rights.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/48/Gay_ ... _vs_Nature

[Mark Question]

choice is natural proses. sexual freedom is not natural.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Michael Voytinsky says that the choice versus nature debate is irrelevant to the question of gay and lesbian rights.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/48/Gay_ ... _vs_Nature

As with all cultural phenomena; both nurture and nature have their part to play.
If you lean on the side of "free" will or if you prefer to think in deterministic terms, does not matter a jot.
Fact is there are enough persons in a democracy to insist that whatever your life choices you ought to be free from public pillory, and that applies to heterosexualism, homosexualism and all grades between.

If you swing on the determinism, then ultimately a gay person does not choose his sexuality any more that a heterosexual woman chooses to be attracted to men.

The role of rights and the law that supports them has a duty of care to preserve the health and well being of all. And the only ultimate restrictions on personal activity in private is that it is prosecuted under the rubric of consent, and the age necessary for it.

You can attack that principle if you wish, but will have to accept that it is easy to find yourself in a corner of self refutation.

[Hobbes' Choice]

choice is natural proses. sexual freedom is not natural.

By what criteria do you distinguish between natural and not-natural?
And by what warrant do you imply that natural is preferable to not-natural?

[Mark Question]

choice is natural proses. sexual freedom is not natural.

By what criteria do you distinguish between natural and not-natural?
And by what warrant do you imply that natural is preferable to not-natural?

in this test i used popular scientific world view as a criteria and a warrant. result: everything there is is natural. homosexuality is natural. school shootings are natural. french fries are natural. disneyland is natural. guns, drugs, techno music. casino and warfare economy. choice is natural, from nature and in nature, natural process. democracy too. like newtons cradle. evolving cars, toasters and robots are flora and fauna too.

[Bernard]

I'm one who believes that sex is the function of reproduction. Until two members of the same gender are able to reproduce then - I'm sorry - homosexuality is but a nonsensical notion and not worth of any serious regard.

[RickLewis]

I'm one who believes that sex is the function of reproduction.

Umm, do you mean this the other way round, by any chance? The way you've written it, you mean that we reproduce in order to have sex.

On second thoughts, if you are a hard core Darwinian behaviourist, maybe that is what you mean: That sex is a reward provided by evolution in order to entice us to reproduce.

[Bernard]

HA! Yeh, It was a bad sentence. forgive. I should correct instead of assuming the reader knows what I mean. But its an interesting thought: Sex as reward for merely being alive; I can go with that, and perhaps we get to the heart of the matter of choice in sex via this notion: sex is free for us to use it in any way we desire simply because of the qualification of being alive; qualifications earned gvia the struggles that are mandatory to BEING.

Function is very interesting in itself. we tend to think of function as automatism, mechanism. I think of it as something far more vital, the heart of necessity - not necessity as a pulling down force, like gravity, as Simone Weil often uses it - but as a springing force.

Function relates directly to quality and depth of experience: the greater the amount and variety of function an act contains, the greater the meaning and emotional import for the actor.

Darwinian evolution is fine, but is only a minor percentage of what constitutes evolution.