Authored by: Thrasymachus.

Most think there’s nothing bad about being gay. Those that do not are a primarily religious minority, and think so due to primarily religious concerns. They are wrong: there’s nothing bad about being gay in the same way there’s nothing bad about being female or being black. Believing otherwise isn’t just mistaken, but irrational and immoral as well. Decent people should scorn and ridicule the belief there’s something bad about homosexuality, and censure those who believe it.

I focus on Christianity and homosexuality due to prominence and familiarity. What I say applies just as well to other anti-gay religious beliefs and other sexual identities (e.g. bisexuality, transexuality). I do not deal with them separately to avoid repeating myself.

Why there’s nothing bad about homosexuality

Equality should be presumed. It wasn’t the case that blacks or women needed to ‘prove themselves’ before society condescended to treat them fairly – it should have been like that in the first place. So those who think homosexuality is bad should explain what is bad about it.

There are three main strategies. First is that homosexuality leads to bad things. Second is that homosexuality is bad in itself. Finally homosexuality might be known to be bad through religious conviction.

Does homosexuality lead to bad things? There’s a huge volume of research done on what correlates with homosexuality; some bad, some good, and most indifferent. There are also problems of whether results in one cultural setting apply to another, and much of it is confounded by stress induced by societal homophobia and conflict between sexual preference and religious identity. Happily, experts have already waded through this quagmire on our behalf. Take gay parenting – as if homosexuals can raise children, there’s probably nothing too badly wrong with them.

Here’s an excerpt from an amicus curiae brief by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Council of Social Workers:

Indeed, the scientific research that has directly compared outcomes for children with gay and lesbian parents with outcomes for children with heterosexual parents has been remarkably consistent in showing that lesbian and gay parents are every bit as fit and capable as heterosexual parents, and their children are as psychologically healthy and well-adjusted as children reared by heterosexual parents. Amici emphasize that the abilities of gay and lesbian persons as parents and the positive outcomes for their children are not areas where credible scientific researchers disagree. Statements by the leading associations of experts in this area reflect professional consensus that children raised by lesbian or gay parents do not differ in any important respects from those raised by heterosexual parents. No credible empirical research suggests otherwise.

Similar statements have been made by professional bodies representing child psychiatrists, family physicians, counsellors, psychotherapists, teachers, lawyers, and adoption agencies. This is not confined to the US – UK and Canadian psychiatric bodies say the same. In short, the people who actually know what they are talking about unanimously agree that homosexuals, far from being uniformly bad parents – or even sub-optimal parents – are just as good as heterosexual parents. Exactly the same story emerges if we look at other bad things homosexuality is meant to lead to: it doesn’t.

The argument wouldn’t work anyway. Pretend that all the experts are wrong, that there is some ‘endogenous malaise’ to homosexuality. So what? We should only object to those homosexuals who actually do these bad things (whatever they are), not the entire group ‘at risk’ of doing so. Even if homosexuals would be ‘better off straight’, their sexual preference isn’t a matter of choice. The question would be how these people could make the best of the sexuality they were given – lifelong celibacy or forcing themselves into heterosexual relationships would seldom be it. Even if the ‘facts’ are granted, they still aren’t good reasons.

So maybe something’s intrinsically wrong with it. What would that be?

Maybe it’s unnatural. But what ‘natural’ means or what’s bad about being unnatural are hard to fathom. In many ways, homosexuality is natural: it arises without outside interference, and it occurs in other species too. In this sense medical interventions are unnatural, but these aren’t bad things – unnaturalness has nothing to do with badness. A moralized conception of ‘natural’ is needed for the argument to get anywhere, but this begs the question: why takes moralized conception A, which rules out homosexuality, instead of moralized conception B, which doesn’t – save for a reason why homosexuality is bad in the first place?

Maybe homosexuals aren’t using sex the way it is supposed to. But there isn’t any ‘supposed to’ about it. Humans arose by evolution, which isn’t goal oriented: what happens to improve survival flourishes, what doesn’t dies out. Pace natural law theory, there isn’t a ‘supposed to’ stamped on biology itself, but rather a ‘just happens’. Sex is a good way of transmitting our genes forward in time, and that’s why our minds and bodies are wired towards it.

Homosexuality might be considered faulty wiring – having sex with your own gender isn’t a good way to reproduce. In evolutionary terms, it probably is counter-selective. But evolutionary advantage, like unnaturalness, has nothing to do with good or bad. Celibacy, monogamy and unconditional altruism might also be counter-selective, but they aren’t bad things.

The secular case against homosexuality is wrong. In many cases, it is doubly wrong: invalid arguments based on bad data. Although only touched upon, the case for homosexuality is overwhelming: it is vindicated both by the abject failure of these arguments and the (pretty normal, pretty positive) lives of homosexuals themselves. The reason why the vast majority of the irreligious think homosexuality isn’t bad is because – barring religious conviction – everything speaks obviously and powerfully in its favour. For all the insinuations, all the canards, and all the slurs you can dredge up against homosexuality, reality begs to differ.

As it happens, the ‘secular case’ is made by people who are actually religious. Seldom are anti-gay arguments penned by inquisitive Atheists forming their beliefs by free inquiry, but Christians trying to justify beliefs they are already committed to. The real issues are religious. Are religious convictions against homosexuality right, or at least rational?

How not to be a religious nutter

Assume God exists. Assume Christianity is true. Imagine yourself as a Christian. Say you know that there’s a mountain of evidence suggesting that homosexuality isn’t bad, yet your religious beliefs say it is bad. Which should you trust?

God cannot be gainsaid, but given how many slavers, terrorists and ethnic cleansers thought God was on their side, he is evidently misheard often. All sorts of silly (creationism, heliocentrism) and evil (slavery, segregationalism) ideas have been read into the Bible or endorsed by the church. Given Holy Scripture or Sacred Tradition track truth unreliably, you shouldn’t stick to them in the face of immense countervailing evidence.

To take the Bible (rather, your interpretation of the Bible) or Tradition (rather, your tradition) in the teeth of all the evidence suggesting they are mistaken requires exceptional confidence in their reliability: it is belief in them no matter what. But belief no matter what is crazy – if you are mistaken, nothing can rescue you from your error. And we know that mistakes have happened in the past – in the case of creationism and anti-miscegenation, they are still happening now.

The sane thing to do is adjust your religious convictions. If your reading of the Bible suggests God made the universe several thousand years ago and man was designed specifically whilst all of modern science suggests the universe kicked off fifteen billion years ago and man evolved, it is your reading of the Bible you should reject, not modern science. Likewise, if everything shows homosexuality is fine and only your reading of the Bible says otherwise, you should look for another interpretation congruent with ethical fact.

Christians willing to do this are often called a variety of nasty names by those who aren’t: that they are selling out to popular culture, that they’re willing to take social norms over Biblical wisdom, that they’re not really Christian. But they aren’t ‘not Christian’; they’re just ‘not crazy’. The ethical concerns that speak in favour of homosexuality are both overwhelming and consonant with a programme of liberation which has an excellent track record: it was right about slaves, and those who said God wanted some for servitude were wrong; it was right about sex, and those who said God wanted submissive women were wrong; it was right about race, and those who said God wanted black and white segregated were wrong. It is right about homosexuality, and those who say God wants gays to apologise for their relationships are wrong.

Where’s the problem? What’s the problem?

The arguments against homosexuality are rubbish. They are usually invalid, often are based on false data, and are in any case woefully insufficient to justify the ‘Christian position’ on homosexuality. Christians might try to sweep these beliefs under God’s carpet to relieve them of having to consider the issue on merit, but we have seen this can only be done by adopting the belief forming practises of a nutcase. So Christians opposed to homosexuality, for whatever reason, are being irrational – and are irrational whether or not Christianity is true or reasonable. But why is this bad?

Opposition to homosexuality fosters discrimination. Those who oppose homosexuality generally also oppose their unions being given equal recognition before the law, oppose homosexuals adopting children, and at least want to preserve their ability to discriminate. All of these are harmful, not only to the minority treated unjustly, but for wider society as well

Not all Christians who oppose homosexuality are like this. Some might endorse a robust divide between church and state, and so not want any differential recognition enshrined in law. Also, although they think homosexuality is bad, they don’t think homosexuals are worse than anyone else: homosexuals are sinners just like they, and would still be sinners regardless of gay sex being sinful. So where’s the problem here? Hate the sin; love the sinner, after all.

The problem is these beliefs are evil. Homosexuals are accused of suffering some mental or moral malaise; of being better off straight; that any romantic or sexual relationships they form are wrong; that the love they feel for their partner is a twisted, second rate, facsimile of the heterosexual ‘genuine article’; that they are unfit to bring up children. Alone, these are despicable. Together, they are a programme to attack, demean and castrate someone’s sexual identity. They are appalling even if they remain legally silent – and are toxic to a just and humane society.

An attack on an enemy of freedom

Not all Christians oppose homosexuality. These people should be praised – it isn’t easy being right when your religious community is wrong. But they remain a noble minority; worse, Christianity itself seems to drive the sexual prejudice expressed by most Christians. Those who aren’t Christians probably won’t care what damage this does to the Church, but everyone should care about the damage the Church’s attitudes have on society in general, and homosexuals in particular. What should we do about it?

Opposition to homosexuality should be attacked – it is the casus belli for a culture war. These beliefs should be silenced not just in the statute books, but in popular culture as well. The two main sources of homophobic sentiment in the public sphere are the far right and the clergy. Neither should be gagged by censorship, but drowned in contempt and ridicule. The laughter that greeted Nick Griffin’s ‘almost totally non-violent’ KKK should greet those who suggest the equally ridiculous ‘disorder’ of homosexuality. When religions are co-opted to shelter it, they should be attacked as well – the rainbow flag should be stuffed down the Church’s throat. Anti-gay sentiment should be recognised as irrational, immoral, and illicit for civilized society. We should all come out of the closet as gay rights activists.

Acknowledgements:

I thank Nathan Paylor and Nicholas Inglis for their criticism of earlier drafts and ideas.