Why is it Wrong to Cast Moral Judgment on Sexual Styles, Whether Heterosexual or Homosexual? (Part 2)

Last Friday, TheFederalist.com posted an excellent article by Amherst College professor Hadley Arkes that gets to the bottom line of where the entire conservation about homosexuality and so-called “gay marriage” should start.

Here are the title and subtitle of the article by professor Arkes post at thefederalist.com.

Republicans Need To Argue About Sex Like Gay Activists

Gay people agree that it’s good to discriminate against some sexual activity. They and Indiana’s Republican leaders just disagree about where to draw the line.

Here are a few paragraphs from the post; the two sentences I highlighted actually get to the heart of much of my previous writing on this website:

At the ground of it all is finally the question of just why it is wrong for people to cast an adverse judgment on the homosexual life. At first we were told that these were simply matters of personal taste, that we should no more judge the character of a person by his style of sexuality than by his preference for peanut butter over coq au vin. But if it is simply a matter of taste, the demand for acceptance is amply met by the report that “that is a taste we don’t happen to share.”

Yet, as we’ve seen, the argument that began with the wrongness of casting judgments on matters of taste moved on, in its momentum, to casting the most severe judgments on those who would cast judgments! What has not been explained, even now, is why it is wrong to cast moral judgment on sexual styles, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Gay activists will register their own objections to NAMBLA or to those who boast of a staggering number of partners, including strangers. Even the most liberated among us may have certain doubts about putting children in the hands of an adoptive father who acknowledges his deep absorption in sado-masochistic sex. There may be grounds quite plausible for casting these adverse judgments on modes of sexuality—and casting them even when those judgments have to be made in the law.

Challenge the Claim that One Can’t Judge Sex

What I am arguing, then, is that this issue, suddenly flaring in Indiana and the country, and inflated with the most bizarre charges against the religious, could be deflated, with the moral outrage drained, if we simply challenged directly the claim that drives it all: that it is deeply wrongful to cast judgments on the way people act out their sexual lives, warranting a ban on all discriminations based on “sexual orientation.”

[T]he current crisis is like the light held to the retina, which reveals a vast amount of information about the state of organism. What it reveals here is that so many conservative leaders have the tag lines ready at hand, but once they are challenged, they cannot move from the surface of things and give the deep reasons that make their position defensible. We may have then just another glimpse of the state of the conservative political class.

And we can probably predict that if there is no attempt to offer a moral defense of the law in Indiana, the consultant class will draw this inference as its ongoing wisdom: that it is far better for the Republicans to steer away entirely from these vexing moral questions, and concentrate on taxes and regulation. Those vexing questions just happen to go to the very core of what constitutes this regime or our way of life; but for Republican consultants those issues are distant from the business that counts as their political life.

Please click over and read professor Hadley Arkes article here.