Same Sex Sexual Relations

1. Same Sex Sexual Relations Philosophy of Love and Sex

2. The Old and New Testaments • “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.” (Lev. 20:13) • “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the soft, nor those males who lie with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Cor. 6:9-10)

3. Corvino’s argument in defense of homosexual activity The goods available to same-sex couples are the same as those available to infertile heterosexual couples, plus one. • Pleasure • Objection: But is pleasure always good, or only when one takes pleasure in an independent good? • Interpersonal communication • Emotional growth • Stability • Undercutting of stereotypes • Objection: Chastity does that even more effectively.

4. Patrick Lee • Procreation is a purpose of a marital community. But just as a firefighter might never actually fight a fire or a soldier might never be in a war, so too a couple might never reproduce. (p. 428) • The only thing a couple can do is to act in ways that “dispose them to conceiving”. (p. 429) • “When a couple make a commitment to each other to share their lives, in the type of community that would be fulfilled by bearing and raising children together, then the biological unity realized in sexual intercourse actualizes or concretizes that community. In sexual intercourse they unite (become one) precisely in that respect in which their community is defined and naturally fulfilled. … [T]heir procreative-type acts embody their community.” (p. 423) • If a couple conceives through IVF or adopts, there is no intrinsic connection between their sexual acts and the raising of the child. (p. 430) • The state should recognize this natural community for two reasons: • The community is good for children. • It channels sexual energies to a good.

5. Adèle Mercier • Mercier worries that because Lee and Somerville reject the permissibility of same-sex sexual activity and of non-marital sexual activity, there is not enough common ground for a discussion. • According to Mercier, for Lee, “[a]nother condition is also necessary [besides openness to children], that the couple engage in sexual acts in which sperm meet oocyte at least sometimes” (p. 439). [Where does Lee say that?] • It is “disingenuous” to think that octogenerians who marry enter into a procreative-type union. (p. 439) • It is ideal for children to be raised by their own biological parents, when these are “loving and responsible”. But “[i]deals should not replace a robust sense of reality” (p. 441)

6. Rajczi’s argument for same-sex marriage • The opponents of same sex marriage (SSM) think SSM can be prohibited because: • 1. homosexual activity is immoral • 2. allowing SSM spreads false ideas • 3. SSM results in further harms • But: • 1. Even if homosexual activity is immoral, we do not think it is OK for the state to deny opportunities to people because the people engage in immoral activity. [But: Surely we wouldn’t want to have a kindergarten teacher who continually lied to the students or broke promises. And you might lose your driver’s license for buying cigarettes under-age.] • 2. The state cannot deny anybody an opportunity simply because allowing that opportunity results in the spread of false ideas. [But we would fire a math teacher in a public school who thinks 2x2=5, precisely because it would spread ideas. I’m denied the opportunity to receive letters from the government addressed “Barack Obama”, precisely because that’s not in fact my name. We don’t want a kindergarten teacher who teaches that promises may be freely broken. We have all sorts of slander, fraud and misrepresentation laws: including laws against faking money, falsely representing oneself as blind, representing oneself as a police officer, etc. We would fire a holocaust denying head of Department of Transportation.] • 3. The harms are unclear. [Rajczi doesn’t consider the intrinsic harm of SSM to the persons getting married—that by publicly committing themselves to a relationship that is understood to be sexual in nature, they commit themselves to something that is intrinsically harmful to one. If one agrees with Socrates that the worst thing that can happen to one is that one becomes immoral, this outbalances the benefits of SSM to the couple.]

7. A hypothesis Rajczi doesn’t consider • Rajczi dismisses the argument that marriage by definition is between a man and a woman. He also argues that it is wrong to deny the use of the word “marriage” to persons of the same sex. But consider this hypothesis which Rajczi has not argued against: There is a natural kind of relationship which is only between a man and a woman, which relationship is different in kind from any relationships between persons of the same sex. In that case, it makes sense for the government to mark the distinction between this relationship and other relationships by having a term reserved for it. We should not think the equality of men and women is violated by the fact that masculine pronouns are used for men and feminine pronouns for women. I have no right to have government functionaries talk about me as “she” if I am in fact a man (leaving aside the question of a sex-change operation), or to say that I am a “wife”. Likewise, a Vietnam war veteran has no right to be called by a Korean war veteran, nor is there any obligation for the government to adopt a neutral term for both, even if both deserve equal treatment. Where there is a genuine difference, we allow the use of different terms.