Endless conversation (cont’d)

Steve Chapman’s take on criminalization of gay sex is similar to mine. Like me, Chapman finds it amazing that the barbaric practices in certain countries actually have conservative defenders:

It may be hard to believe, but some 76 countries outlaw gay sexual relations. At least five — Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen — make it punishable by death. In September, an Iranian human rights group reported that three men had been hanged for homosexual sodomy.

In many places, abuse is the norm. Gays across Africa “have been denied access to health care, detained, tortured and even killed,” reports The Washington Post. The Gambian president promised to “cut off the head” of any homosexual. These nations, we are told, are just trying to uphold traditional morality.

It’s one thing to say, as most Republicans do, that gays and lesbians should not be entitled to marry or enjoy protection against private discrimination. It’s another to say they deserve to be harassed, imprisoned or executed for being gay.

But some conservatives say it’s wrong for the U.S. government to protest such policies. They seem to think governments have a moral obligation to make homosexuality as miserable as possible.

This is a minority view. There was no groundswell of public anger in 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down ruled laws against gay sodomy. Nor has the GOP pushed a constitutional amendment to overturn that decision.

Americans may disagree on gay marriage. But they really don’t favor locking gays up — or harshly mistreating them — over private, consensual sex.

So what’s the problem if the State Department encourages foreign governments to stop punishing gays?

What’s the problem indeed? That was the simple point of my earlier post. But for reasons which are not quite clear to me, what Chapman calls the minority view (that governments have a moral obligation to make homosexuality as miserable as possible) seems to always be present in the comments at this blog. You’d almost think they were ever-vigilant, or that they really care about what I think. They may even care more than I care (a frightening thought I ought to care more about). Whether that obligates me to have an endless debate over a matter I think goes to basic human decency and common sense, I do not know. But the comments always persist long after these posts disappear from view, so regular readers don’t get to see them, and don’t get the full picture of what is going on in the blog. That isn’t quite fair to me, as I don’t like having these arguments, and I especially do not like having my time on the blog wasted on essentially invisible arguments. If, as Glenn Reynolds recently opined in his recent interview with Andrew Malcolm, a blog constitutes a “conversation,” then it would probably behoove me to do something to ensure that any conversation that occurs is in fact a public conversation and not a private one.

For these reasons, I was inclined to ignore the accumulating comments in the earlier post, and I never replied to the last invitation for me to continue debating (yet again) the minority view. The problem is, in this case it was more than just another unending debate involving me and a pro-criminalization commenter. M. Simon had also gotten involved, and he thought regular readers needed to know. He emailed me yesterday, saying,

it is 11 days old now. I think you should give it front page treatment with a link and an update note. Very important points.

Yes, they are important, but so are a lot of things, including the hectic Christmas rush. So forgive my lack of motivation. I hate things that destroy the spontaneous nature of blogging, and as I have said countless times, nothing I say obligates me to say more. I envy Glenn Reynolds and the bloggers who don’t have comments, because the problem with comments is that they can seem to create an obligation where there is actually none. M. Simon takes a very different approach, though. He willingly, even eagerly, debates any and all commenters on any and all topics until the cows come home. Were it not for his presence as a co-blogger, I might have turned off comments long ago.

And while Simon might enjoy these debates, for me the last comment from an unyielding defender of criminal laws against homosexuality reads like a damned homework assignment:

Neither Eric nor Simon deny the dysfunctions I’ve described in the gay “community” – so I guess they admit they exist – and maybe even endorse them…. But for the sake of argument:

Eric:
I objected here to the criminalization of homosexual conduct, and I did not mention “hatefulness” which I consider irrelevant.
– – – – – – – – –
And I framed a justification for the longstanding criminalization of that conduct.

So what’s off topic?

And we both know that the hand-wringing about “hatefulness” is used in the PC bully-pulpit to shift public opinion.

Simon writes:
I guess if they decide to kill Jews because of their shared moral code you would be down with that.
– – – – – – – – – –
(OK – I win, since the first person to fall back on Nazi-name-calling obviously doesn’t have a real argument…)

We’re currently seeing fundamentalists and lefties exploiting Western freedoms to weaken the West – does that mean we should abandon Western ideas because they are corruptible? Or that laws should not reflect shared moral values?

You point to a valid weakness of all human systems of governance. The US Constitution provides some protection against that – but is still dependent on “reasonable man” standards at the end of the day….

… and Practically, the only people moving to delegitimize their opponents are the left-liberal PC crowd – as I listed above. So your attempt to play the “Nazi!” card is particularly ironic given the heavy hand of my-way-or-the-highway political correctness.

Instead of taking cheap shots – how about framing exactly how a non-judgemental legal alternative would work.

How about if I don’t? I really don’t like being advised what I should write about, but fortunately that last portion was directed at Simon so I’m partially off the hook.

But the part about the dysfunctional homos was directed at both of us, so I’ll start with that.  Whether I or Simon either “deny the dysfunctions” (that gays tends towards promiscuous sexual and other excesses) or not, the failure to address something is not an admission or an endorsement of it. Anyway, I didn’t address it then and I will not address it now — because it is wholly irrelevant to my point, which was not to debate the merits of the gay lifestyle, but to condemn criminal laws against homosexuality.

I am against the criminalization of drugs, as well as the prohibition of alcohol. Whether alcohol and drug users are dysfunctional and the extent to which they are has absolutely no relevance to whether their behavior should be a crime. At least, not in my mind. To those who insist dysfunctionality is relevant, and supplies a rational basis for criminal penalties, I would argue that if we assume a given behavior is dysfunctional, locking people up for it only compounds the problem, and punishing people for the state of being dysfunctional when they have not harmed others is tyranny. Makes as much sense as locking up the handicapped. So, I while think dysfunctionality is irrelevant to my argument, I would suggest that those who think it supplies a basis for criminal punishment have such a totally different view of the purpose of the criminal sanction than I do that we are not on the same wave length.

In my view, prison is inherently violent and brutal and should be reserved for those who hurt other people by using force or fraud against them or their property.  Period. That’s what I think, and in the nearly nine years I have been writing this blog, nothing has yet been said which would dissuade me from my opinion. And if imprisoning people is wrong, then this sort of savage brutality is even more wrong:

As to the “justification” for the longstanding criminalization of homosexuality, which I didn’t address, here it is:

The “lifestyle” that is the norm in the gay “community” does not agree with widely held, COMPLETELY SECULAR (and not particularly Judeo-Christian) values:

– that healthy adult sexuality is linked to, and enriched by, shared intimacy and fidelity.

– that sexuality released from bonds of fidelity becomes exploitative, debasing, and hence corrosive to self and society.

I agree that shared intimacy and fidelity enhance healthy adult sexuality. I would be willing to bet that there are gay couples who feel the same way. I also think eating healthy foods, getting plenty of exercise and adequate amounts of sleep greatly enhance being a healthy adult.

So how is enhancing fidelity and preventing exploitative sexuality an argument for locking up the homos? Again, I don’t think such a goal even comes close to the proper function of the penal system. And if it is, isn’t it also an argument for locking up heterosexual adulterers? Take it as a given that sexual infidelity is a bad thing. A personal evil, even. Locking people up for it only adds more evil to the equation, and makes zero sense. I will never understand what I see as a grotesque misuse of the criminal law.

But I guess I am repeating myself. This argument will never go away.