Participated in a debate today. It was a tightly-structured panel discussion at Southwestern College here in the San Diego area. The topic was homosexual "marriages," and the participants were me, a law instructor, a psychology instructor, and a lawyer from the ACLU who was also a lesbian. The debate largely turned into a discussion between me and the lawyer lady, with a little input from the others.
It went quite well. The main arguments of both sides got put forward, we had a chance to rejoin each other’s arguments, threw in some humor, and got the audience engaged (as illustrated by their applause after telling points were made). I’m going to try to contact the lawyer lady and thank her for a good debate. (She got out of there very quickly after the event.)
In preparing for debates and major interviews, I try to "game out" the discussion ahead of time in my mind. (This can cause problems, because it can leave me awake in bed at 2 a.m. twisting arguments around in my head, but that’s an occupational hazard; it’s what you have to do to get the job done right.) Today’s debate was the first one I’ve done on homosexual "marriage," and the first occasion I’ve had to debate homosexuality in a number of years, so for a day or two ahead of time I gave myself a mental workout on the subject.
One of the arguments I was particularly concerned to have a solid, snappy answer for is the claim–which was sure to come up–that homosexuality exists in the animal world and that this makes it "natural" for humans as well. This is an argument that must be convincingly rebutted, because otherwise it undermines the natural law argument against homosexuality, leaving only a religious argument, which in the present, secular public sphere is doomed to fail.
Since it is true that animals do sometimes display homosexual behavior, the obvious rejoinder to the "animals do it too" argument is that just because animals do something, that doesn’t mean it’s good for humans to do. This answer has the benefit of being true, but stated in that form it has the detriment of being boring. It’s not a "grabber," and it smacks too much of your parents saying, "If all the other kids wanted to jump off a bridge, would you jump off too?" That kind of argument probably caused you to stop paying attention when you were a kid, and the same danger presents itself here. It doesn’t matter how true the rejoinder is; if it isn’t presented in an arresting manner then the audience will stop paying attention and won’t take it seriously.
So I ruminated on the charge, and in the wee morning hours, the answer revealed itself to me. I had a good, snappy way of presenting the argument that would grab the audience’s attention and force them to take it seriously. Here’s what I came up with, and ended up using in the debate:
It’s true that some animals do display homosexual behavior, but that doesn’t mean that it is morally justified for humans to engage in it.
Black widow spiders try to kill and eat their mates after copulating, but I assume that you’re not in favor of that among humans.
Further, in many species copulation amounts to rape. A male will capture and force himself on a female. Or sometimes a group of males will do it. I also assume that you’re not in favor of that among human beings.
The fact is that humans, of all the creatures on earth, are rational beings aware of the moral dimension of their actions. For this reason alone (and there are other reasons), you cannot point to the existence of something in the animal kingdom and say that it is therefore justified among humans as well.
The audience really responded to this. The black widow line alone got a huge laugh. I think even people on the other side of the issue were laughing. After the point was made, there was a big round of applause in acknowledgement of its force.
There was no judging of the debate and no announcement of the winning side, but after the event a gentleman from the audience came up to me and said that he overheard some in the audience who were in favor of "gay marriage" saying of me "Man, he’s killing them (the folks on the other side) with these arguments." Perhaps that was one of the ones they were thinking of. . . . (Shrug.)
Hello,
I was hoping that I could place some questions on the table that are of a bit of interest to me on this subject.
It seems that from old manuscripts and other documents that the line on homosexuality was not as cut and dry, as it is now considered in the church catholic. In fact it seems to be the case that the church actually had ceremonies for same sex unions. The most famous example of this is with the Saints Sergius and Bacchus. Old manuscripts state fairly clearly that they were erastai or lovers.
In addition, many of the verses quoted in the bible as anti-homosexuality are not as cut and dry as we are led to believe. I will not bother with Old Testament since on any given Sunday you can witness good Christians wearing wool and cotton suits, while eating bacon, and talking about the many different plants that they have growing in one garden.
Romans 1:26 – 27
Paul is here speaking to a specific group of people. They were Christians in an area where it was en vogue to dabble in the fertility cult of Aphrodite, worship of Apollo, and the Delphi Oracle. All of these involved prostitutes, orgies, gender-neutrality, and drug-induced ecstasy (thus the use of the word “passion” and not “eros.”) This passage does not speak of committed, monogamous, loving, homosexual relationships. Read Romans 1:18-2:4 for the context of this verse. This refers to idolatrous religious practices that were common in the time of Paul. Also a person using Paul’s writing to condemn should also read Peter 3:16 – 18.
I Corinthians 6:9
The word here translated (wrongly) as “homosexual” does not even mean homosexual. Some verses say “…neither… effeminate nor homosexuals….shall inherit…” This is really a stretch. The original text uses “malakoi” and “arsenokoites.” The word malakoi means “morally weak” (soft, vulnerable). Check out your concordance/lexicon. This word is also used in Matthew 11:8, Luke 7:25, and in Matthew 4:23 and 9:35. See any reference to the effeminate or homosexual in those verses? Guess what: it didn’t appear in 1 Corinthians until fairly recently either. The other word “arsenokoites” simply means “male” and “bed” and makes no implication of homosexuality. It most literally refers to male prostitutes (and with no support that the “customers” were not women.) Don’t get me wrong, some of the Greek church fathers did condemn homosexuality; but guess what… They NEVER used either of these words! Know why? Because these words don’t mean effeminate or homosexual.
Dear Brother Jimmy,
Greetings from the Philippines!
I read from one of the books of a former Roman Catholic priest named Anthony Pezzota that there were popes who gave contradictory ex cathedra teachings before and denounced or excommunicated each other. How true is it? Besides, one of my protestant neighbors asked that all our faith to be correct should be based on the bible and nothing more as written in 1 Corintian 4:6 that one should not believe except that which is written.
I also read from a publication of the baptists that Martin Luther upon his visit in Rome was served by a number of nude women. This was one of the reasons for his separation from the Church.
I hope to receive your answer soon.
Chris Arcay