The limits of the not a choice argument (the nature of rights)

[dsc]

The "Is being gay a choice threads?" pop up here from time to time. It really isn't a totally unreasonable question given that often we decide who has rights and who has priviledges based on the perception that the distinquishing charateristic is a choice. Thus we protect people from discrimination based on gender, race, color, and national origin but not on having a criminal record or political affliation.

Yet in many cases we have advanced past this line. All disabilities are covered by the ADA, religion is covered, marital status often is protected, having children is protected.

The fact is that choice is a two edged sword for things which are considered undesirable on their face. Discovery of a gene for the trait could lead to abortion or gene therapy. Discovery of enviromental factors could lead to an attempt to remove them. Rights for people who are considered sinners can only be won if the battle is about the nature of the power of government. The argument should be that government has no business partrolling sin, not that a group of people aren't sinners. In short, our argument ought to be that people have a right to make choices at least as much as it ought to be that they aren't making them. After all, even God is pretty committed to that free will thing.

[Political_Junkie]

1. Bravo

Well said, dsc!

[sallyseven]

2. Massachusetts Home of the Brave

Weddings will be taking place on Monday. Souter and the Supremes will not touch the case at this point. Six months from now people will find out that there is no problem and their marriages are as sound as they were before the gays could get married. The fundies will continue to rant and rave and the Catholic church will go bankrupt because everyone left. I am going to start a new religion its call Faith "Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you" "The the 10 commandments" Very simple. No bull shit and no contributions. You must agree to uphold the Faith. Anyone want to join???

[dsc]

3. I am very pleasantly surrprised that the Supreme Judical Court

has stuck to its guns. I honestly thought they would grant a stay to give the legislature a chance to pass its amendment.

[dsc]

4. kick

[dsc]

5. kick

[DFLer4edu]

6. Argue both, but I hate having to even have this discussion

Argue both that it is not a sin (sin is a concept that I despise btw) and that GLBT is not a choice and that even if it was, the government has no right policing it. But ahhhhh, I hate that we even have to have this discussion. Because, to me anyway, it is about GLBT having equal rights as the rest of us. Because we're all one one in the same, the only thing different is sexual orientation. It isn't about the government staying out of it, ideally the government would be taking a leading role in the support of equal rights.

[markses]

7. Right

The gay rights movement cathected on the "natural determination" argument because it had a measure of utility when waged against the "moral wrong" argument of their opponents. Unfortunately, the argument morphed into a true belief and a scientism (much the same happened with the women's rights arguments, so that stuff like "women's ways of knowing" have become gospel - and naturalized past even where the original proponents of the argument went). That said, I don't know anyone who's thought about sexuality very long who still believes that there are two interpretations: Choice or Biological determinism. Both these categories are incoherent in the wake of conceptual discoveries in philosophy and studies in biology.

Deciding whether sexuality is a "choice" or "biological determinism" has about the status of deciding how many angels fit on the head of a pin. It makes no sense in the current discourses of either agency or biology. Now, to the extent that the gay rights movement still needs leverage against the "moral wrong" argument, it still tends to argue that homosexuality is naturally determined. Needless to say, this is a loser long-term argument, since it implicitly admits that the act is morally wrong, but that there's no agency involved ("I can't help it..." sung by Marlena Dietrich). But I think the strategy has been successful in weakening the "moral wrong" argument significantly, and that a new movement that can claim a kind of natural-cultural mobius strip will work much better, supposing anyone is even asked to explain anymore, which shouldn't be the case.

Kurt Cobain was right: Everyone is gay. Or not, depending on how a number of life possibilities (or rather, virtualities) are actualized - and not just by an "agent," but also at the molecular level - and how those actualizations accumulate to shape a series of desire.