Morality Debate Won't Lead to Consensus

To the editors:

In "Questioning Homosexuality" (Opinion, March 13), Stephen E. Sachs '02 claims that the morality debate over homosexuality is far from settled and must be engaged before a "consensus" can be reached on issues like same-sex marriage.

To borrow Andrew Sullivan's argument, the institution of marriage is utterly uninterested in the question of morality or character. Death-row criminals, immigrants held for deportation, the mentally-retarded, dead-beat fathers, even the "rapists" with whom Sachs compares homosexuals all have a legal right to marry in this country. Sachs is right to note that there is not a national consensus on homosexual rights. But morality, as the issue of same-sex marriage shows, is not the starting-point for such a debate.

Adam Christian '01

March 13, 2001

Issues are Subjective

To the editors:

Stephen E. Sachs '02 is after something in "Questioning Homosexuality." He is conniving, using slithery arguments and doubling back, but why? Flare is a silly publication, and they have produced a silly headline in "Moving Beyond the Morality Debate," but this is all secondary. Can we honestly believe that there is still a debate to be had? We can carry on our "morality debate" until we're blue in the face, but it won't matter. Morality, as of now, is still subjective; until a moral philosopher comes along and cements the whole thing, and all humanity says "Oh, now I get it!" and we have an absolute moral code to follow, it will continue to be subjective.

And if homosexuality loses the morality test, what then? What would the recourse be? Demote homosexuals to second class citizens? Enslave them? Kill them? Tell them to stop being homosexuals, because they made the wrong choice? I daresay we are not "past" the issue of homosexuality in our society, but we should be. We are also not past the issue of race and racial discrimination in our society, but no one should propose reopening the debate on whether or not black people are inferior to white people, or whites to blacks, in order to figure out how to coexist. I daresay again that that tactic might be more divisive than helpful.

How, and why, does Sachs propose entering into this debate? If he wants to get in to a morality debate over homosexuality with the "so many Americans--whose opinions and votes matter," he will lose, because there is nothing moral about homosexuality. There is nothing moral about living, either.

Harry G. Kimball '03

March 13, 2001

Wrong Issues Debated

To the editors:

Stephen E. Sachs '02 claims that "it is understandable that many gays might find questions about the morality of homosexuality upsetting." It is not the prospect of debate which upsets me, but rather Sachs' provision of the following statement as evidence of the reasonable nature of his aversion toward homosexuality: "I'll admit it: homosexual acts do unnerve me." To his credit, he re-assures us that his distaste for "homosexual acts" is insufficient justification for moral condemnation. But the only reason he thinks he can separate the idea of being "unnerved" from a more abstract moral objection is that he is "unnerved" for purely visceral reasons, that he pales at the thought of a "homosexual act."

What is it that "unnerves" Sachs about homosexuality? Is it the mere existence of attraction between persons of the same gender? Is it anal sex between two men? Many straight men find sex between women an appealing prospect, at least to watch. Why does he shy away from telling us precisely what he means if he believes that we should lay our cards on the table and discuss what "acts" we like to perform and why we like to perform them?

I am attracted to (some) men, emotionally and physically. I am a good person, but there is no way for me to demonstrate this in a debate. How can I, as someone who is considered so removed from the institutions embodying the morality of many, even begin to explain how I fit into a moral framework which specifically precludes my presence in it?

I agree that there ought to be a moral debate, but not on the question of whether or not it is right for homosexuality to exist. Rather, perhaps we should be asking whether it is moral that anyone can be fired in 40 states because of his or her sexual orientation; that I can be kicked out of housing in 42 states; that homosexual sex by either gender is forbidden in 5 states; and that non-vaginal intercourse is illegal for all persons in 13 states (including this one). If these are the sorts of moral issues Sachs wishes to debate, bring it on.

Clifford S. Davidson '02

March 13, 2001

Decision is Personal

To the editors:

Stephen E. Sachs '02 raises a number of poignant questions surrounding what he terms "the morality debate" concerning the moral nature of homosexuality. This central question is, as he phrases it: "...what is it about identity, especially one connected with a set of actions instead of anatomy or skin color, that shields it from moral scrutiny?" Mr. Sachs derives this question by analogy, citing rapists and kleptomaniacs as examples of persons who "also have strong desires for immoral acts"; to read this makes me wonder whether he has not already answered this question for himself.

To ask the original question another way, what is it about being a zookeeper, a senator or a musician that exempts them from moral scrutiny? Rather than ask that BGLT (bisexual, gay, lesbian or transgendered) persons answer to the moral "prescreening" detailed in the column, it seems apropos to consider the nature of and right to demand this scrutiny. Sachs cites the issue of scriptural texts on the subject, and notes that regardless of perceived validity these arguments deserve to be engaged. However, the nature of this argument may, if not preclude a meaningful response, at least silence an appropriate one. To some individuals, the lexicography of Paul is not a moral concern that demands reply, just as to some individuals religious prescriptions against wearing polyester-cotton blend clothing or revealing one's face in public do not merit a moral defense.

The same feeling of Sachs' being "unnerved" by the idea of homosexuality might be mirrored by a BGLT individual feeling "unnerved" that their sexual orientation is considered an issue involving other people's morality at all. To seek moral evaluation of another person's sexual preference is, in some sense, to presume that the person in question has not made their own stringent moral evaluation already. As a "straight" male, I have never had much cause to decide whether the entire body of my sexual desire was moral or not, and I hold in high regard those of us who are strong enough to undergo the moral and emotional self-examination that this entails. It seems to me that the "morality debate" is being fought out daily in the hearts and lives of BGLT individuals, and any claim of another person's right to externally arbitrate this struggle should be carefully evaluated.

Matthew E. Kutcher '02

March 13, 2001