sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) (08/21/84)
YAFM = yet another forwarded message
This one from our pseudonym-free friend who raised the question of being
gay and Jewish. I thought it suitable for public consumption, so with his
permission, here 'tis:
_______________
Hello Steve,
I just received the forwarded message (the article itself hasn't
appeared here yet!)--thank you, again.
That's not the sole reason for this letter. I've just found a book
which seems relevant to the article you posted for ``Dionysus'', your own
comments on the subject and the recurring controversy with Ken Arndt.
The book is:
Thomas C. Grey: "The Legal Enforcement of Morality",
Borzoi Books in Law and American Society,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1983. ISBN: 0-394-33192-3
(paperbound)
To quote from the introduction (with some changes): ``This book is a collection
of legal material, edited for readers without formal training in law, about a
traditional problem or set of problems in philosophy and practical politics--
"the enforcement of morals" or "victimless crimes"--and organised around John
Stuart Mill's thesis that collective coercive power can be legitimately
exercised only "to prevent harm to others."
Chapter I presents the background and the historico-philosophical
controversy of whether morality can be legislated and enforced.
Chapter II addresses the topic of sexual morality and the
legal prohibition of sexual deviance as the central question in the modern
debate over law and morals. It maily deals with the legitimacy of prohibiting
homosexual acts between consenting adults, but also with other related issues,
such as the Connecticut statute forbidding the *use* of contraceptives,
non-procreational sex, the notion of "unnaturalness", homosexual marriage
and many more. Some quotations from this chapter:
For the same reasons that notions of the unnatural are
constitutionally impermissible in decisions involving
contraception, abortion, and the use of pornography in
the home, these ideas are also impermissible in the
constitutional assessment of laws prohibiting private forms
of sexual deviance between consenting adults. No empirical
evidence compels a finding that homosexuality is unnatural.
Indeed, there have been cultures that possessed normative
assumptions of what is natural that nevertheless did not
regard homosexuality as unnatural.
The view that male homosexuality necessarily involves the
loss of desirable character traits probably rests on the idea
that sexual relations between males involves the degradation
of one or both parties to the status of a woman. This view,
however, rests on intellectual confusion and unacceptable moral
premises, since it confuses sexual preference with gender
identity, whereas, in fact, no such correlation exists. [...] If
such crude and unjust sexual stereotypes lie at the bottom of
the antihomosexuality laws, they should be uprooted, as is being
done elsewhere in modern life.
[T]he homosexual community is becoming an increasing public
sector of our society. For that community to be governed
effectively, it must be recognised as a legitimate as well as
a visible subculture. Perhaps something like marriage will have
to be recognised for homosexual couples, not because *they* need
it for their happiness (though they may), but because *society*
needs it to avoid the sense of insecurity and instability
generated by the existence, in its midst, of a permanent and
influential subculture outside the law. Effective regulation of
the family and community life of gay people will require that
the laws which symbolically proclaim their sexual identity
illegitimate in the eyes of the larger society must be
eliminated.
[A short excerpt from an opinion in "Griswold v. Connecticut" in re (hetero-
sexual) marriage, which I find so universal as to be applicable to any "type"
of couple, and which, interestingly enough, is stated without mention of
the gender of the partners (i.e., if *that's* the legal view of marriage,
then surely the law shoud recognise gay marriages!):
Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully
enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an
association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony
in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not
commercial or social projects.]
The remaining chapters deal with the treatment of human remains (e.g.,
transplant, donation, brain death), and the duties of potential rescuers.
They are followed by a short "bibliographical essay".
The author is prof. of law at Stanford Law School where he teaches
torts, and teaches and writes about constitutional law and jurisprudence.''
One of the reasons that I find this book (which I am in the process of
reading) so important is in that it raises the issues to higher levels than
those encountered in the day-to-day argumentation--viz., philosophy, morals,
law and constitution; presents many contrary opinions of which I never thought
(consciously or not); is refreshingly different from (what little of) literature
that I have seen *about* gay related issues, in that it is not "pro" or "con",
yet is not indifferent to the human problems involved; came at the right
moment for me--the previous day I was arguing about some of the very same
problems with a (very conservative) friend of mine, and, as it turns out,
I was defending the Millian view of freedom (I was in good company!), in
almost the same words... It was very important to me to learn about the
intelligent arguments both *opposed* to and supporting mine--it made
me think more about my own views, sharpen them, so to speak.
In other words, I believe it can raise one's awareness and hence
widden the scope of the argumentations in which one can get involved from
mere exchange of insults (as happens too commonly) to an intelligent and
passionate discussion about essentials.
--
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA