Comments are welcome at my Keloland site, though just right now I don't seem to be able to leave a comment myself. I did get this one comment on my first Ahmadinejad post.
Homosexuality is wrong
Short and sweet, that one was. The poster left not so much as pen name. Here is my reply.
Dear Anonymous:
I suppose you mean that homosexual acts are wrong. "Homosexuality," if it exists, indicates a strong sexual attraction to persons of one's own sex. Some people think that such an attraction is itself the result of sin and separation from God. I do not, but even if I did think so I would not regard the inclination itself as wrong. Feeling the urge to have another drink is not wrong. Giving in when you know you have to drive is wrong.
I am much inclined to believe that homosexuality has biological causes. I think that homosexuality, especially among males, is problematic for societies in the same way that teenage sexuality is problematic. But I am not at all convinced that homosexual acts between consenting adults are wrong.
Those things said, the real issue here is not whether homosexual acts are wrong, but whether hanging people for such acts is itself an act of murderous barbarism. I hold that it is. I happen to think that adultery is wrong, but stoning a woman to death for it is an atrocity. That would be true even if the Iranians did not let the man run off unscathed.
Whatever you and I might think about the morality of homosexual intercourse, the wrongness of hanging people for it is much worse, and much more clearly worse. If you don't agree with that, I do not see how we will ever come to agreement.
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