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homosexuality

Orientation & Ethics

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English: Gender symbols, sexual orientation: h...
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When discussing the ethics of sexual orientation, it is not uncommon for people to draw comparisons between being gay and being a rapist, pedophile, practitioner of bestiality or a necrophiliac.  My stock response to such comparisons is that there is at least one glaringly obvious difference between being gay and engaging in the sexual behavior mentions. To specific, rapists, pedophiles and so forth engage in sexual behavior that does not involve the consent of their victims. This, in part, makes their behavior immoral. There is also the fact that cases involving sexual coercion inflict harm on the victim. As such, consensual sex between homosexuals would seem to be nothing like those other things. Obviously enough, homosexual rape and homosexual pedophilia would be wrong—but because of the rape and pedophilia.

While it seems impossible to deny that consensual homosexual sex differs from rape and such in regards to consent, there are those who do claim that homosexuality is itself wrong. The question is, obviously enough, this: in what does its wrongness consist?

I’ll run through some scenarios and questions that I hope will lead to some consideration and discussion.

Imagine two married couples: Sam & Ashley and Mel & Fran.  Suppose that Sam and Ashley have the following relationship: they love each other, treat each other well, only have consensual sex, and are faithful to each other. Suppose that Mel and Fran have the following relationship: Mel does not love Fran, Mel treats Fran badly, Mel rapes Fran when Fran is unwilling to consent, and Mel has affairs regularly.

Given just this information, which relationship is morally superior? Why? Now, suppose that Sam and Ashley are the same sex while Mel and Fran have different sexes. Given this information, which relationship is morally superior? Why? Now, suppose that Sam and Ashely are different sexes while Mel and Fran are the same sex. Is this worse than the scenario in which Sam and Ashley are a straight couple? Why? Or why not?

Based on arguments I have seen before, some might argue that the scenario in which Sam and Ashley are a same sex couple is impossible. That is, people of the same sex cannot love each other, or have only consensual sex, or treat each other well, or be faithful. This could, of course, be argued—but arguments would be what is needed. However, even if it is argued that the scenario could not occur, there would still be the interesting question of whether such a (hypothetical) scenario would be morally superior to the scenario in which the straight couple’s situation involves rape, infidelity and abuse.

Overall, this matter can be distilled down the following question: what is intrinsically wrong, if anything, with being homosexual—even in the context of what would be considered an ideal relationship if it held between heterosexuals.

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Homosexuality, Choice & Engineering

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English: Venn diagram depicting the relationsh...
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In my previous essay I rambled a bit about homosexuality and choice. The main point of this was to set up this essay, which focuses on the ethics of engineering people to be straight.

In general terms, sexual orientation is either a choice or it is not (though choice can be a matter of degree). Currently, many of the people who are against homosexuality take the view that it is a matter of choice. This allows them to condemn homosexuality and to push for methods aimed at motivating people to choose to be straight. Many of those who are at least tolerant of homosexuality contend that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice. They are, of course, careful to take the view that being homosexual is more like being left-handed than having an inherited disease. This view is taken as justification for at least tolerating homosexuality and as a reason to not allow attempts to push homosexuals in an impossible effort to get them to choose to be straight.

For the sake of this essay, let it be assumed that homosexuality is not a matter of choice—a person is either born with her orientation or it develops in a way that is beyond her choice. To blame or condemn the person would be on par with blaming a person for being born with blue eyes or to condemn a person for being left-handed. As such, if homosexuality is not a choice, then it would be unjust to condemn or blame a person for her sexual orientation. This seems reasonable.

Ironically, this line of reasoning might make it morally permissible to change a person’s orientation from gay to straight. The argument for this is as follows.

As has been supposed, a person’s sexual orientation is not a matter of choice: she is either born that way or becomes that way without being able to effect the result. The person is thus a “victim” of whatever forces made her that way. If these forces had been different in certain ways, then she would have had a different sexual orientation—either by chance or by the inexorable machinery of determinism. Given that the person is not making a choice either way, it would seem to be morally acceptable for these factors to be altered to ensure a specific orientation. To use an analogy, I did not choose my eye color and it would not matter, it would seem, whether this was due to a natural process or due to an intentional intervention on the part of others (by modifying me genetically). After all, the choice is not mine either way.

It could be replied that other people would not have the right to make the choice—that it should be left to blind chance (or blind determinism). This does have some merit—whatever they do to change a person, they would be morally accountable for. However, from the standpoint of the person, there would seem to be no difference: they do not get a choice either way. I ended up with blue eyes by chance, but if I was engineered to have green eyes, then the result would be the same: my eye color would not be my choice. I ended a heterosexual, but if I had been engineered to be a homosexual, I would have had no more or less choice.

Thus, robbing a person of choice would not be a moral concern here: if a person does not get a choice, she cannot be robbed of that choice. What is, however, of moral concern is the ethics of the choice being made to change (or not change) the person. If the change is beneficial, such as changing a person so that her heart develops properly rather than failing before she is born, then it would seem to be the right thing to do. If the change is harmful, such as altering the person’s brain so that he suffers from paranoia and psychosis, then it would seem to be the wrong thing to do.

In the matter at hand, the key concern would be whether making a person a heterosexual or a homosexual would be good or bad. As noted above, since it is assumed that sexual orientation is not a choice, engineering a person to be straight or gay would not be robbing them of a choice. Also, the change of orientation can be assumed to be thorough so that a person would be equally happy either way. In this case, the right choice would seem to be a matter of consequences: would a person be more or less likely to be happy straight or not? Given the hostility that still exists towards homosexuals, it would seem that engineering people to be straight would be the right choice.

This might strike some as horrifying and a form of orientation genocide (oriocide?) in which homosexuals are eliminated. Or, more accurately, homosexuality is eliminated. After all, the people who would have been homosexual (by change or by the mechanisms of determinism) would instead be straight, but they would still presumably be the same people they would be if they were gay (unless sexual orientation is an essential quality in Aristotle’s sense of the term). If orientation is not a choice, it would seem that this would not matter: no one is robbed of a choice because one cannot be robbed of what one never possessed.

A rather interesting question remains: if sexual orientation is not a choice, what harm would be done if everyone where engineered to be straight? Or gay?

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Homosexuality & Choice

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English: Gender symbols, sexual orientation: h...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since the matter of choice is rather interesting to me, it is hardly a shock that I would be interested in the question of whether or not sexual orientation is a choice. One obvious problem with trying to settle this matter is that it seems impossible to prove (or disprove) the existence of the capacity for choice. As Kant argued, free will seems to lie beyond the reach of our knowledge. As such, it would seem that it could not be said with confidence that a person’s sexual orientation is a matter of choice. But, this is nothing special: the same can be said about the person’s political party, religion, hobbies and so on.

Laying aside the metaphysical speculation, it can be assumed (or perhaps pretended) that people do have a choice in some matters. Given this assumption, the question would seem to be whether sexual orientation legitimately belongs in the category of things that can be reasonably assumed to be matters of choice.

On the face of it, sexual orientation seems to fall within the realm of sexual preference. That is, in the domain of what a person finds sexually appealing and attractive. This seems to fall within a larger set of what a person finds appealing and attractive.

At this time, it seems reasonable to believe that what people find appealing and attractive has some foundation in neural hardwiring rather than in what could be regarded as choice. For example, humans apparently find symmetrical faces more attractive than non-symmetrical faces and this is not a matter of choosing to prefer one over another. Folks who like evolution tend to claim that this preference exists because those with symmetrical faces are often healthier and hence better for breeding purposes.

Food preferences probably also involve hard wiring: humans really like salty and sweet foods and the usual explanation also ties into evolution. For example, sweet foods are high calorie foods but are rare in nature, hence our ancestors who really liked sweets did better at surviving than those who did not really like sweets. Or some such story of survival of the sweetest.

Given the assumption that there are such hardwired preferences, it is conceivable that sexual preferences also involve some hardwiring. So, for example, a person might be hardwired to have a preference for sexual partners with light hair over those with dark hair.  Then again, the preference might be based on experience—the person might have had positive experiences with those with light hair and thus was conditioned to have that preference. The challenge is, of course, to sort out the causal role of hard wiring from the causal role of experience (including socialization). What is left over might be what could be regarded as choice.

In the case of sexual orientation, it seems reasonable to have some doubts about experience being the primary factor. After all, homosexual behavior has long been condemned, discouraged and punished. As such, it seems less likely that people would be socialized into being homosexual—especially in places where being homosexual is punishable by death. However, this is not impossible—perhaps people could be somehow socialized into being gay by all the social efforts to make them be straight.

In regards to hardwiring for sexual orientation, that seems to have some plausibility. This is mainly because there seems to be a lack of evidence that homosexuality is chosen. Assuming that the options are choice, nature or nurture, then eliminating choice and nurture would leave nature. But, of course, this could be a false trilemma: there might be other options.

It can be objected that people do chose homosexual behavior and thus being homosexual is a choice. While this does have some appeal, it is important to distinguish between a person’s orientation and what the person choses to do. A person might be heterosexual and chose to engage in homosexual activity in order to gain the protection of a stronger male in prison. A homosexual might elect to act like a heterosexual to avoid being killed. However, this choices would not seem to change their actual orientation. As such, I tend to hold that orientation is not a choice but that behavior is a matter of choice.

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Will Same-Sex Marriage Lead to Fathers Marrying Their Sons?

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Jeremy Irons
Cover of Jeremy Irons

Actor Jeremy Irons was recently asked about the legalization of same-sex marriage. In response, he raised the question of whether or not a father could marry a son.

When I first heard that Irons spoke about a father marrying a son, I had inferred that he was just presenting the tired stock anti-same sex slippery slope fallacy in which it is claimed that if we allow same-sex marriage, then this will inevitably lead to allowing incest (and bestiality). The stock replies to this line of “reasoning” are to 1) point out that it is the slippery slope fallacy and 2) explain that allowing same-sex marriage no more allows incest (or bestiality) than does allowing different-sex marriage. After all, if different-sex couples can marry without a slide into different-sex incest and bestiality, then it would certainly seem to be the case that same-sex couples could marry without a slide into incest and bestiality.

However, Irons raised a more interesting point: if we allow same-sex marriage and this leads to allowing a father to marry his son, this could be used to work around the inheritance laws. After all, while a son would have to pay the inheritance tax on property he inherited from his father, he would not have to do so on property inherited from a deceased spouse. So, a father and son could get married not for the purpose of incest but for avoiding the inheritance tax. This idea might cause some confusion for certain Republicans—after all, this provides a way to avoid taxes but at the cost of allowing same-sex incestuous marriage.

While Irons did not explore all the ramifications, if anyone could marry anyone, then people could marry each other to get various spousal benefits (such as insurance coverage or green cards). While Irons’ point is interesting, it is easy enough to address these worries.

First, the claim that allowing same-sex marriage automatically entails that incestuous marriage be allowed is still the slippery slope fallacy. If accepting different-sex marriage does not warrant different sex-incest, then neither does same-sex marriage. And, of course, neither would warrant accepting bestiality. As such, there seems to be no reason to worry that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to fathers marrying their sons to avoid taxes.

Second, while the idea of a father marrying a son to avoid taxes seems shocking, the general problem would be the exploitation of marriage. This is not a problem unique to same-sex marriage. After all, people already exploit different-sex marriage. As a specific example, a man could marry a woman (who is not too closely related) so she can avoid paying the inheritance task.  Nothing about the current marriage laws forbids this.  To make the more general point, any advantageous exploitation of marriage that would become available to a same-sex couple with the legalization of same-sex marriage is already available to different-sex couples.

If such advantageous exploitations are the problem, then the solution would be fixing these problems rather than focusing unfairly on the idea that same-sex couples would avail themselves of existing marital exploits. For example, if there is a terrible worry that people would engage in same-sex marriage to avoid the inheritance tax, then the solution would be to require spouses to pay this tax (or eliminate it altogether). As another example, if there is grave concern that two guys will get married just so one guy can get health insurance, then the solution is to change the insurance laws. After all, if the concern is that marriage will be exploited, then the clear solution is to take away the exploitable advantages—that way we can be sure people are not marrying just to avoid a tax, get insurance or for some other similar reason.

Some people do imply that same-sex couples would be more likely to engage in such advantageous exploits than different-sex couples or even that people would pretend to be gay to gain such advantages.

One obvious response is that there seems to be no reason to think that same-sex couples would be any more (or less) likely to marry for advantages. As far as people pretending to be gay, that seems to be rather odd—after all, a person who is not gay and wants to marry for an advantageous exploit could simply find a person of the opposite sex. The idea of pretending to be gay might make for a plot device for a comedy, but is hardly something that would be commonly (or even uncommonly) done.

If the problem is that same-sex couples would have the same advantages as different-sex couples, then this would seem to be a mere expression of prejudice.

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DADT Repealed

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United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Badge
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The infamous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was recently repealed.

As has often been argued, the policy was rather  questionable. After all, it seemed to say that it was okay for homosexuals to serve provided that they did so secretly. This seems to imply that what mattered was not someone’s sexual orientation but what other people happened to know about that orientation.  Of course, the “don’t ask” policy seems to have often been ignored and when confronted, military personal were supposed to tell. As such, it seemed like a rather weird sort of policy that needed to be fixed.

While some folks worked hard trying to repeal it, others worked hard to try to stall and prevent the repeal. Most famously, John McCain fought an impressively dogged defense against it (in many cases, fighting against his previous self): each time one of his conditions (such as endorsement by the Joint Chiefs) was met, he would insist on another (such as a survey). Even when all his conditions were met, he still opposed the change. However, his opposition failed and it was repealed.

As I see it, this is a good thing. The top officers and most personal seem to be fine with the situation. Also, nations that have allowed homosexuals to serve do not seem to have run into any problems specific to this factor. In fact, lifting such restrictions seems to be beneficial. See, for example, the Palm Center report on this matter. Naturally, the report can be challenged. However, doing so would seem to require presenting cases in which allowing homosexuals to serve openly was a significant causal factor in creating problems to military effectiveness. Naturally, these cases would have to be properly compared to comparable cases involving heterosexuals to determine if the cause was specific to homosexuality or due to another factor. However, the most reasonable argument against the repeal (that it would impair military effectiveness) seems to have been soundly defeated. As such, the repeal seems reasonable.

Also,  if someone wishes to serve his/her country and can make such a contribution, then it would seem both wrong and wasteful to deny him/her that chance on the basis of sexual orientation. We do not, it would seem, have the luxury of prejudice, what with Iraq, Afghanistan, the endless war on terror, and with possible future conflicts with Iran and North Korea.

Naturally, if the future shows that repealing DaDT has damaged our military due to some factors that did not affect any other military, then a change should be strongly  considered. After all, the military cannot (as many would argue) afford the luxury of equality at the expense of its core mission.

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The Procreation Argument

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NYC Proposition 8 protest 26
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At this point, I must admit a certain weariness in regards to the battle over same-sex marriage. It is not that I have lost my concern about fairness or equality. It is simply that at this point it feels like this matter should be settled and same sex marriage (or, more aptly, marriage of same sex couples) should be legal.

I think the reason that I have grown weary of the debate is that the arguments being presented against same sex marriage are seriously flawed and yet keep getting presented over and over. In short, I suspect I am exhausted because these arguments and claims are exhausted.

For example, during the recent hearing regarding Proposition 8, the tired old claim that  “responsible procreation is really at the heart of society’s interest in regulating marriage” was brought out to defend that proposition.

Same sex marriage is typically criticized on two grounds in regards to responsible procreation. The first is that same sex couples cannot procreate naturally. The second is that it is often claimed that same sex couples will be bad parents (for example, it was claimed without evidence that homosexuals are twelve times more likely to molest children) and hence be irresponsible in regards to procreation.

Suppose that these two principles are correct: 1) marriage is to be denied to those who do not procreate and 2) people who are not responsible in procreation are to be denied marriage.

The first principle would entail that straight couples who do not want children or cannot have them must be denied marriage. It would also imply that couples who use artificial means to reproduce (such as in vitro or a surrogate) must be denied marriage. Implementing this would involve requiring that a couple already has a (natural) child before they would be worthy of marriage.  Or perhaps there could be sort of a learner’s permit for marriage and the actual license would be granted when the first child is born. This is, obviously enough, absurd.

The second principle would entail that straight couples who are not responsible parents must be denied marriage.  This would require that the state monitor all marriages to determine that the parents are responsible and be empowered to revoke marriage licenses (much like the state can revoke a driver’s license for driving violations).

While I do think that irresponsible people should not have children, it seems absurd to deny such people the right to marry. After all, not allowing them to marry (or dissolving the marriage when they proved irresponsible) would hardly make such people more responsible or benefit the children.

In light of these arguments, the procreation argument against same sex marriage is clearly absurd.

If anyone has good arguments against same sex marriage, please post them as replies. As a philosopher, I am open to the possibility that there are such arguments. In fact, there might be compelling arguments against same sex marriage. I would, of course, like to see those.

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