From: billc@housing.msstate.edu (Bill Chapman)
Subject: Re: Gays in the military
Organization: Housing Department, Mississippi State University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 13:19:53 GMT

In article <CHRISTIA%92111922222407@ASUACAD.BITNET> Christopher Taylor <ST802329@BROWNVM.BITNET> writes:
>Date:         Fri, 20 Nov 1992 00:07:56 EST
>From:         Christopher Taylor <ST802329@BROWNVM.BITNET>
>Subject:      Re: Gays in the military
>I have been reading this topic with interest since it is a very prevalent
>issue and I am greatly disturbed over the persistence of invalid sterotypes
>and the treatment of homosexuals as offenders.  There is a growing body of
>evidence which supports a biological basis for sexuality.  Also, in reading
>and talking with gay persons, I have never heard a gay person refer to his or
>her sexuality as a choice.  Their attraction to the same sex is as natural to
>them as my attraction to the opposite sex is for me.  It also seems unlikely
>that a rational person would choose a lifestyle which would cause him or her to
>be ostracized, discriminated against, and physically or mentally assaulted.  I
>do not consider homosexuality to be a matter of choice or a lifestyle.  It is
>just the way they are.  A gay person is no less of a person and deserves to be
>treated as such.  In addition, the love that members of a gay couple have for
>eachother is no different than the love between two heterosexuals, and is most
>certainly not wrong.  How can caring and love be wrong?  I think that hatred,
>discrimanation, and sterotyping are far more deserving of the label 'sin'.  For

I agree with much of the sentiment you have, especially, "A gay person is
no less of a person...."  But I also have some concerns about parts of 
your argument.

Debbie Boone, singing, "You Light Up My Life," uses a phrase that always 
bothers me:  "How can it be wrong, when it feels so right? . . . You light 
up my life."  The definition of right and wrong can come from many different 
points of view.  The song's, and your logic above, places ethics in the
individual, either as feelings, or as biological factors within the 
individual.

There are times when this criterion is useful in determining what is right
or wrong for an individual, especially when two different alternative paths
lie before him or her, and a choice must be made, and both paths seem
equally good.  But this criterion should not be used in a vacuum.  If one
of the paths is called "good," and the other is called "evil," in scripture,
for example, then the alternatives are no longer neutral or equivalent.

For a man to feel love for a woman is a good thing, unless that man happens
to be married to another woman.  Even if it is granted that homosexual
attractions are biologically determined, these attractions must be 
controlled in the same way that the married man's lusts must be.  "The
fruit of the spirit is ..." (among other things) "...self control."

>these actions serve only to hurt and destroy people.  Maybe if we can lose this
>nontolerance and bigotry, which is equal to racism and sexism, we would
>discover that we have isolated a group of people who are intrinsically no
>different than ourselves.  The bottom line is that we are all people and to
>discriminate against a person for being what he or she is naturally is wrong.

Again, I agree with this part of your post.  This "... group of people...
are intrinsically no different than ourselves."  I.e., they have the same
responsibility to obey God with their natures that we all have, given 
our natures.

When God speaks about a matter, it is no longer a neutral subject.

--
Bill Chapman, Box 1262, Mississippi State, MS  39762
<BillC@Housing.MSState.edu>           (601) 325-2042
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