(Part I)
The second point is that if one is going to defend a conservative
sexual ethic, there needs to be a clearly thought out theory and set of
principles as to what is to be accomplished. Without that, we are left with the
fear that some "Puritan" in the sky will burn people in Hell simply
for enjoying themselves. So, when I talk about a conservative sexual ethic I primarily mean rejecting the notion of being true to oneself and that love has any ultimate importance as the means by which one finds this self.
I see people as individuals with rights and outside of any a
priori claims from social groups. This is the source of rights in the sense
that the needs of the individual trumps that of the "public good."
That being said, while humans may have some kind of metaphysical soul, I do not
accept that humans have some kind of essential characteristic unique to themselves that they must
discover and be true to. Such talk is an attempt to distract from the view of man as a rational being. Reason is the
one true inheritance of all people as it is the only part of your mind truly accessible to others. It is to the extent that I believe that you
are a rational being that I can offer you a social contract and recognize that
you have rights. Anything less and we are stuck in Hobbesian Warfare and I have no choice but to kill you as I
would a rabid dog.
Even if you had some true nature, it is hardly obvious that there is anything virtuous or merit worthy about it. On the contrary, it should be rejected as the inner savage that, if not chained by civilization, will lead us to destruction. This is quite the opposite of what we are taught by modern entertainment. We are so regularly told to be true to ourselves that unless we have access to some alternative value system (through exposure to some combination of an intellectually serious traditional religion and lots of classic literature) we are unable to question it.
This Romantic notion of the self becomes particularly toxic when that self is assumed to be sexual. Humans may desire sex, but sex is not what defines us as rational beings and plays no
inherent role in granting dignity and legitimacy to our lives. This does not
mean that sexuality is evil and I am personally quite fond of love as a literary concept. That being said, sexuality can be granted no
special sanction for the individual. Clearly, food is more important for daily
human thriving and happiness than sex. If Judaism is justified in placing
taboos on food, such as pig, then Judaism can place a taboo on gay sex. The fact that far
more people have committed suicide over sex than over food says nothing about
the importance of sex beyond that it tends to bring out the pathological in
people.
While there can be people who desire gay sex, there cannot be a
meaningful category of homosexuals in the sense that restrictions on gay sex
can be seen as a denial of their personhood. A gay person born into an Orthodox
community would have no better grounds to complain than an Orthodox pig lover.
Both should be treated with charity and it should be recognized that they both
may not be a good fit for an Orthodox lifestyle and may be better off leaving.
They have done nothing wrong; it is Orthodoxy that lacks the resources to
handle them. Those who choose to stay should be acknowledged as heroes. That
being said, neither group can claim that their being has been denied to them
since neither of them are sexual or food beings but rational beings.
It should be acknowledged that the gay rights movement is a
product of Romanticism's reinterpretation of human nature that culminated in
the Sexual Revolution. More than society becoming more tolerant about
pre-marital sex in the face of growing numbers of women entering college possessing
the pill and intent on delaying marriage, the Sexual Revolution marked a
principled shift in social values in which pre-marital sex was incidental. Coming
from Romanticism's emphasis on the individual's search for love as a defining
part of their true being as opposed to their role in society, there ceased
being any attempt to hide the fact that sex was at the center of this quest for
love and essential to it. To object that a boy or girl was violating some taboo
that historically had been honored more in the breach than actually practiced
was to deny the very essence of that couple's being. Thus, the moral imperative
was flipped from defending social standards in the face of temptation to not
allowing social standards to stand in the way of pursuing one's "true
self."
If you wish to understand how nearly total this Romantic capture
of how we think has been, in addition to its conception of self, consider every time you hear a song or watch a movie
in which love is considered some kind of all-powerful self-justifying end in
itself in a way that is not supposed to be even controversial. This should be
even more obvious in things like the end of the otherwise excellent Wonder
Woman film in which the lovely Gal Gadot could, after spending the
entire movie being this generation's embodiment of awesome, spout utter
nonsense and end it with something along the lines of saving the world for
love. It is taken as a given that sexual love is so essential to our lives and
the center of our actual religion (regardless of what we officially call
ourselves) that we would nod our heads and pretend that this was something
other than lazy writing.
Even most conservatives who oppose the Sexual Revolution's
practical conclusions regarding pre-marital sex have accepted its narrative of
humans finding their true selves through sexual love. This is quite easy
because social conservatives can still pretend that the demands of sexual love
as the fulfillment of one's personhood can be fulfilled within marriage. This
ignores the fact that the high of sexual love for one person is not something
that can be maintained. Its focus must switch from person to person in a
never-ending quest. Thus, if sexual love is to be pursued as the end goal of
life, monogamy must be rejected.
Keep in mind here that none of this can be blamed on homosexuals.
Their only part in this wreckage of traditional values has been to come in,
after the fact, and, very reasonably point out that if one is going to be
logically consistent about sex as central to one's true being then, yes, they must
be included. Just like heterosexuals, they are capable of using sex to pursue
meaningful loving relationships. If the pursuit of such relationships is
central to human thriving then the failure of society to actively approve of
same-sex relationships or, even worse, to express any disapproval of gay sex is
to deny homosexuals their very being.
In this sense, the gay rights movement has been a good thing.
Since the vast majority of people in our society, including most conservatives,
have implicitly accepted the basic premise of the Sexual Revolution, it is
right that gay marriage should be the law of the land and that society actively
promotes the notion that homosexual relationships are the equal of heterosexual
ones. In fact, homosexuals have the moral advantage that their pursuit of their
sexual identities has an honesty unavailable to heterosexuals as they had to
overcome real obstacles that tried to prevent them from becoming their
"true" selves. This leaves those of us in the minority who have not accepted
the Sexual Revolution in a bind.
To be clear, there is nothing about a conservative sexual
ethic, as I have described it, that prevents one from being fully supportive of
gay rights. Furthermore, nothing that I say here should diminish the importance
of offering members of the LGBTQ community full libertarian tolerance. Adults
have the right to engage in whatever consensual behavior they wish in the
privacy of their own homes. That being said, if you are operating within the
intellectual framework of a conservative sexual ethic, the standard
non-libertarian arguments for gay marriage and LGBTQ tolerance make no
sense.
Take the statements "love is love," "all love is
equal," or "love wins" as examples. As a social conservative,
love, particularly sexual love, has no supreme value. Love justifies nothing.
Since I have never raised love, heterosexual or otherwise, on a pedestal, all
love is equal in not being particularly valuable. Since love has no moral
standing (in contrast to things like reason, truth, and justice), there is no
particular reason why we should want it to win. One might as well celebrate the
victory of the meek inheriting the Earth.
Since these arguments only make sense for someone who accepts the
Sexual Revolution, the minority of us who reject the Sexual Revolution are
forced to actively reject them. Failure to do so would mean allowing a world in
which it is impossible for anyone to see things but from the perspective of the
Sexual Revolution. On the other hand, to make this about homosexuals also dooms
the fight against the Sexual Revolution as it distracts from the key issues
that would still be with us even in a completely heterosexual society. This
requires intellectual discipline to hold one's ground and not attack until the
opposition actively makes a non-libertarian LGBTQ acceptance argument.
As I said before, it is only right that people who accept the
Sexual Revolution should go all the way with mainstreaming LGBTQs. They are
only being consistent and, as rationalists, we should honor that. LGBTQ
supporters only make themselves vulnerable when they fail to realize that the
Sexual Revolution is not the only intellectually serious way to understand
human beings and that there are people who operate outside of that framework.
The moment they accuse us of being intolerant, they throw away their moral high
ground and we have them. They are no longer fighting for tolerance but are
using the issue of LGBTQs to marginalize those of us outside the Sexual
Revolution. They are the ones being intolerant and trying to take away our
rights. We are, hereby, exempt from compromising with them or any need to seek
out their goodwill.
Being actively tolerant of homosexuals as individuals and avoiding
conflict with them while openly defending a conservative view of sexuality
sounds like a paradox. In truth, they feed into each other. The act of showing
kindness to homosexuals as individuals keeps a conservative sexuality within
the realm of principles, untainted by personal animosity. Being open about
one's conservative values keeps one's personal tolerance from turning into a
Trojan Horse to undermine traditional sexuality. The Sexual Revolution may have
captured society but it is still possible to uphold conservative values in our
homes and communities. If we do so with love and intellectual honesty, we might
even succeed in passing them on to our children.
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