Saturday, November 12, 2016

Homosexuality and the fear of underpopulation

Some would also argue that while it might have made sense to restrict same-sex marriage at a time when reproductive failure was likely to cause harm, we have gotten past that point. The dangers come from overpopulation, not from underpopulation. In the Bible, children were a blessing and barrenness was a curse. That is because a loss of population left the nation vulnerable to hostile attack and the family unable to work the fields when the father became too old to work. 
But this is no longer the case, right? Or not?

14 comments:

SteveK said...

Some would argue that this is consequentialism

Crude said...

That is because a loss of population left the nation vulnerable to hostile attack and the family unable to work the fields when the father became too old to work.

Tell it to the Japanese. They're dealing with a massive demographic problem.

Come to think of it, they all became porn-watching virgins at the same moment atheism took root in their society. Is anyone here surprised?

jdhuey said...

From the Economist:

"The chief reason for the dearth of births is the decline of marriage. Fewer people are opting to wed, and those who do are getting married later in life. At least a third of young women aim to become full-time housewives, yet they struggle to find men who can support a traditional family. In better economic times potential suitors had permanent jobs as part of Japan’s “lifetime employment” system. Now many of them have to rely on temporary or part-time work. Other women shun marriage and children because Japan’s old-fashioned corporate culture, together with a dire shortage of child care, forces them to give up their careers if they have children. Finally, young people are bound by strict social codes. Only around 2% of babies are born outside marriage (compared with 30–50% in most of the rich world), which means that as weddings plummet, so do births. And even for those who do start families, the rising cost of child-rearing often imposes a de facto one-child policy."

Crude said...

That's an attempt to explain the lack of kids, man. Now explain the lack of fuckin'.

Tell me they're prudes. I dare ya.

Unknown said...

Victor, you don't believe homosexuality is a sin?

Victor Reppert said...

Homosexual orientation does not seem to be the result of choices where it was possible to have done otherwise, and if that is necessary for something to be a sin, then it isn't a sin.

It could be the result of living in a fallen world that people have homosexual orientations, but unless they could have chosen not to be homosexual, or they can now choose not to be homosexual, I cannot see that it is a sin.

But are you asking about orientation, or acts?

Victor Reppert said...

Doesn't God command what he commands because the consequences are the best? Or not? Is God a consequentialist?

Shane Chubbs said...

I think that God commands what He commands because He knows that it would be better for us to do as He commands than to do the opposite, regardless of the consequences.

jdhuey said...

I'm not informed to any great degree about Japanese culture so I really can't address the level of prudity there. However, a quick check in Wikipedia on Sexuality in Japan shows that the situation is complex and can't be explained by a single simplistic cause.

Crude said...

'This topic has to be more complicated than what you said, because I looked at wikipedia for several seconds and it seemed that way.'

Secularization kills.

jdhuey said...

'This topic has to as simplistic as my knee-jerk comments said, because it hurts my brain to think about any facts or viewpoints that don't agree with my preconceived notions.'

Stupidity kills.

Crude said...

This topic has to as simplistic as my knee-jerk comments said

'Secularization leads to a dangerous lack of births' ain't exactly obscure here, chief. You should cite some wikipedia pages you glanced at briefly to refute me again!

Gyan said...

VR,
"But are you asking about orientation, or acts? "

You are talking in a confused and jumbled way. What precisely is orientation?

The critical distinction is between resisting temptation or entertaining it, even in mind. If by orientation, you mean glorying in and identifying oneself with illicit desires, then orientation itself is culpable.
And if you mean just a person that struggles with illicit desires, then this kind o f"orientation" is not culpable.

Victor Reppert said...

Sexual orientation is a matter of who you are naturally attracted to sexually. Some people seem to be sexually attracted to the same sex, others to both sexes, and some only to the opposite sex. Now, traditional sexual morality says that these desires can only be acted on where there is a marriage, and marriage, in the sacred sense is only possible for opposite-sex partners. I seriously doubt that this is simply genetic, as some have argued, but for some people at least it doesn't seem to be alterable. Trying to "pray the gay away" doesn't seem to work for some people, and the failure of Exodus International seems to support this contention. But if traditional Christian sexual morality holds, then people who are in this condition through no fault of their own are morally obligated to be celibate. It doesn't seem to me that those who are in that condition can alter their condition, nor does it seem to me that they had to have committed some sin in order to get into that condition.

What does the Church have to say to such people? There are four possibilities.

1) You are this way because God hates you. When Westboro Baptist says that God hates fags, they don't mean that since you chose to be a fag, you is angry with you. They believe in a particularly strong version of Reformed theology according to which God chooses some for heaven, whom he loves, and he hates everyone else. And one expression of God's hatred for you would be if you were to be an homosexual. That is a pretty good sign that God has created you for the fiery pits. God doesn't have you because you're gay, you are gay because God hates you.

2) You can change your orientation and become straight, through prayer, Bible study, and therapy. I think this was the position of Focus on the Family, and is the basis of Exodus International, and it looks to me like it doesn't work. And I when I read histories of the gay rights movement, and try to explain why so many Americans now accept gay marriage, this chapter in the story tends to be left out.

3) The celibacy option. This is the view that, yes, there are people who are unalterably gay, and these people are obligated to be celibate. Technically, there is nothing wrong with being gay any more than there is anything wrong with having black skin or blue eyes, but the moral path to acceptable to intimate relationships is closed to them.

4) The Lord is my shepherd and he knows I'm gay (the title of a book by Troy Perry, the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church). This is to hold that the traditional prescriptions against homosexual conduct are not absolute, and that gays should seek a homosexual equivalent of traditional heterosexual marriage.

These are the four options. 1 seems unacceptable, 2 doesn't work, so 3 and 4 are what is left.