Spin-off...are abortion and homosexuality categorically similar issues?

[Lori]

Abortion and homosexuality are often lumped together as issues with the same moral import and as being somehow categorically similar, particularly when they are seen as the two most important moral issues by prominent conservatives.

Do you think that's the case? Are abortion and homosexuality, as issues, categorically similar, or do you think that are differences between the two and how they should be handled, particularly as regards politics?

[Christine]

I think they're completely different.

In my view, one is a matter of life and death and the other is a matter of lifestyle choice.

[Beka]

i see a distinct difference in the sense one choses to have an abortion, one does not chose to be homosexual (although i know a person can chose to resist those urges and not act upon them, they are still - if consciously opressing such urges- homosexual in their sexual orientation) however i am aware the majority of christian churches view all sin as an equal level - sin is sin reguardless.

I see abortion and euthanasia as moral issues on a similar plain because both are focused upon the right to life. One concerning life of a potential human being and life of a human being with little/no life quality remaining and our right as competent adults to have a right to decide on these issues. I don't see homosexuality on the same par as these as although it may go against some religious teachings ultimately it doesn't physically harm anyone, anyone is a consensual homosexual relationship is in that relationship of their own fruition (sp??) through their own choice and desire.

[Lori]

Personally, I can see reasons for the government taking a role in passing legislation around abortion--I don't think it should be completely outlawed, but I've never met anyone who thinks that any woman should be able to abort a pregnancy for any reason at any point before birth--because it is an issue of developing life. I don't think it's murder, but it is an issue where there is more than one set of interests at stake. It's also an issue where people from a variety of religions and belief systems share similar concerns, even if they may come to different conclusions. So while I think that laws to outlaw abortion entirely would do more harm than good and would be wrong, I think there are good, valid reasons for the government to set limits on the practice.

I see homosexuality as entirely different. I see no reason why, in a pluralistic, diverse society, consenting adults should be punished or denied rights for expressing their sexuality in ways that don't harm anyone but go against a very specific set of morals around sexuality. I cannot think of one valid, secular reason why it should be legal for gay or lesbian people to be denied employment, thrown out of the military, denied custody of their children, denied the ability to adopt children, denied partnership rights (whatever they may be called), or in any way face legal penalities for being gay. I've never heard a valid, secular reason for it, or seen any objective research that indicated that there was any reason to do so.

I can see why people think homosexuality is immoral, but I don't see why that would be a reason to deny rights to people who are gay, because in a pluralistic society, we can't use sectarian morality as a basis for denying or granting rights. Even in cases where something is almost universally considered immoral--like adultery--we don't deny rights to people. We don't bar people who've had affairs from adopting children or from marrying and in most cases we'd think it was far outside of an employer's rights to fire someone because of an affair. I don't know why there's a different set of standards for homosexuality. I have no problem with it being an issue of contention within churches, and churches trying to figure out what sexual behaviors should be accepted and condoned within the church, but I honestly do not see any reason why it should be an issue in the realm of politics, whereas I do think that abortion is a political issue, to the extent that more than one set of interests are at stake and there is a valid reason for a pluralistic society to try its best to balance those interests.

[Lori]

however i am aware the majority of christian churches view all sin as an equal level - sin is sin reguardless.

The issue I have with that is how it is so often used to say that homosexuality is just as bad as murder or rape or bestiality, but so seldom used to say that greed or gossip or vanity are just as bad as any of those things. It's an idea that almost always used to lump homosexuality with really terrible things like rape and murder and never to lump it with things that people consider more mundane like vanity or covetousness or envy. It seems to be kind of a backhanded way to say that homosexuality is as evil as things get, rather than placing it as one among many sins that people commit every day.

But that's a whole different issue. I've never bought the idea that all acts are equally bad, anyway. I think that sin is sin in the sense that all our sinful acts derive from our alienation from God and God's will for our lives, but I think that killing someone is worse than gossiping about them, and I don't think God sees them as the same, either. But, again, a whole different issue. ;)

[Danielle]

I don't think they're similar at all. The only reason they're usually linked is because they're both considered sinful by Christian (and various other religion's) standards and are both hot-button issues currently. Otherwise, there's absolutely no comparison IMO.

[Desirae]

I agree with Christine here. ;)
Beka, yes, sin is sin though.

[off-kilter]

I can't imagine that lying about why you didn't go to your MIL's party is the same as having a crush on a same-sex person is the same as having an adulterous affair with an opposite person is the same as murdering your grandmother, so ....

No, they are not the same and I can't imagine why they'd be handled the same way.

[Lori]

No, they are not the same and I can't imagine why they'd be handled the same way.

But I do think they are handled the same way, in the sense that there seems to be the idea that they're both horrible and so both should be made illegal or at least the coercive power of the law should be used to its fullest extent to stop them from happening.

I just think that, looking at them apart from one another, in one case there is grounds for some degree of legislation, whereas in the other I don't see a single secular basis for any denial of rights.

[Jurgita]

I think they're completely different.

In my view, one is a matter of life and death and the other is a matter of lifestyle choice.

I agree with Christine on this one :)

[Marzipan]

I don't think they're remotely similar, but I also understand why many people (I thinking of some especially vile televangelists in particular here) have such an easy time lumping them together. They both have to do with sexuality and people love to make judgments in that arena.

Abortions, of course, are for loose, immoral women who sleep around and get knocked up outside of stable relationships. They prance into the abortion clinic and simply rid themselves of the fetus as though they were having a haircut and traipse back out to have lots more immoral sex outside of wedlock. Abortions are thus for whores and no one likes whores. So we should outlaw safe abortion and condemn those harlots to dying during back alley abortions, which they deserve anyway, may god have mercy on their scarlet souls.

Gay people, obviously, are also living outside the tidy sexual norm. They run around in their leather pants, molesting Boy Scouts and corrupting marriages with their rainbow flags and immoral sexual practices and AIDS and mustaches and purple Teletubbies. So clearly gay people are also wanton and doing all sorts of immoral things that would just make your tater-tot casserole wilt if I told you about them.

I think there are people who have legitimate reasons for opposing abortion and gay rights. (I will state, however, that I agree with none of those reasons, but I can at least disagree respectfully when the reasons are not presented as hate speech or full of ludicrous inaccuracies.) But when you get people like James Dobson or the South Carolina legislature who froth at the mouth when people have sex with the lights on in a non-missionary style position, it's easy to see why these issues come packaged together to whip people into a frenzy. It's not about the rights of a scared teenaged girl to have an abortion or the rights of two men who love each other to have the same legal rights as my husband and me. It's about viewing these people as somehow inferior because they have Done Things with their bodies that nice, normal Americans would never do.

[Lori]

They both have to do with sexuality and people love to make judgments in that arena.

I do agree with that. I think the similarity is that they're both issues where people want to bring in the full coercive power of the state in order to force people to stop doing things that, while there is no consensus on them being always or entirely or inherently immoral, they think are wrong. In both cases, the idea seems to be that, if you can just get the right laws passed, you can make the penalities for refusing to go along with a specific set of morality so severe (death, in the case of abortion, because women would be dying from illegal abortions should abortion be made illegal, or discrimination in the case of homosexuality) that people will, presumably, not have any choice but to obey.

But in terms of the issues themselves, I think it's bizarre that it's so easy for people like Dobson or Robertson to link them, because they are so entirely different. But I'm not even going to get started on Robertson, in particular, because he's stated that he "can understand" China's policy of forced abortions, which makes me think that, in his case, as long as the state is controlling what women do with their bodies, he doesn't care what it is they are forcing them to do. And maybe that's what it comes down to: the idea that the state should have power over people's bodies. I don't know. I can see similarities in how they are handled, absolutely, but in terms of the issues themselves, they seem so different that it's weird people are so willing to lump them together.

[Marzipan]

But again, I think the ease with which they can link them comes down to, "These godless immoral people are abusing their bodies and the lord is punishing them with AIDS and guilt and hemorrhages, so you'd better be opposed or nasty things will happen to you too!" People like to be encouraged that what they're doing is the right thing. So if you show them a bunch of people who are exactly like them except for their sexual practices, it becomes very easy to present what the flock does as right and everything else as wrong. And when you have such big, obvious targets as abortion clinics and homosexuality, it is very convenient to link them. It's hard to show a poster of people dishonoring their parents or thinking impure thoughts.