Too much has been invested by religion in cementing those moral ‘laws’ in the way that they want them. It is a fight to the death at this point. Neither fundementalist christian nor muslim is about to let us convince them of anything when it comes to our moral right to exist at all.

As a non-christian, I have dealt with this for far too long. Add in being gay and it is insufferable. While my actual morals nearly match, point for point, because they have an origin other than theirs, they are wrong. Logic appears to have no bearing. The fact that I am a moral person has no bearing. Only that the origin of my morality and the fact of my mere existence disqualify the possibility of validity is what matters.

That level of religious belief will not separate itself from morality and judgment of others by the standards of their own systems. I live my life by my own moral compass without the least concern for the perceptions of others concerning ‘morality’.

They must live their life and I mine. I honor the golden rule, do unto others as you would have done unto you. Therefore, I let them live their morality without comment and I expect and demand the same. I meet each challenge to mine with dignity and calmness. I also don’t expect them to change theirs since I will not change mine. I do demand the right to mine when challenged.

So, this need for the approval of the majority at large, not so much. Only those in my immediate day to day life matter that much. Fortunately, I am lucky in that respect, I have their respect and understanding of who and what I am and where my morality lies. It is in fact enough.

Equality matters legally. Are you conflating what is right with what is legal ?

Dr. Corvino: “One reason is that such approval makes our lives easier. True, my life is pretty good as it is. But it would be better with the legal protections that straight couples take for granted.”

No, your life would not be better: your relationship would be legally recognized perhaps but unless you ARE your relationship(s) then ??

Dr. Corvino: “I care about teens kicked out of their homes, workers fired from their jobs, servicemen and women discharged from the military, and so on – all simply for being gay. Increased moral approval of homosexuality would help.”

I hope that we all care about individuals who have been brutalized due to their perceived/real sexuality. Pleased you mentioned those examples and I wholeheartedly agree with you on that point.

Dr. Corvino: “Yet there’s another reason for seeking to change people’s false moral beliefs about homosexuality. Moral truth matters.”

What theory of truth are you assuming Dr. Corvino ? Further, how are you epistemically situating and justifying “moral” truth ?

Dr. Corvino: “But morality doesn’t work in the abstract. It works only when people recognize and encourage it. This requires moralizing – the voicing of approval and disapproval that gives morality its public face and force.”

Perhaps morality *only* works “in the abstract” ? Could you explain your assertion that is necessarily does not ??

Dr. Corvino: “As social creatures, we depend on moralizing. We benefit from our parents’ scolding, which keeps us out of trouble. We benefit from our neighbors’ raised eyebrows and encouraging glances, which nudge us to be the best people we can be.”

To define human beings as “social creatures” seems to be an unsupported assertion(?) Further: If indeed “We benefit from our neighbors’ raised eyebrows and encouraging glances” then why have you questioned the query from the “critic” you mention at the outset? Should you not then just accept (perhaps even thank ?) your “critic” for their (supposedly necessary) “neighbors’ raised eyebrow” ?

Dr. Corvino: “The alternative to avoiding or ignoring other people’s disapproval is to try to reverse it. Reversing it means convincing them that same-sex relationships are not merely tolerable, but morally good.”

One cannot necessarily move logically from the experiences of GLBT individuals to GLBT “relationships.” You did this same thing two weeks ago. I am open to hearing an argument that adequately addresses how one may move with intellectual ease between/among GLBT people and any/all of their relationships. Might you also define the type of “relationships” to which you refer? Do you mean (only) our sexual relationships ??

1. Morality serves the important social function of making life easier.

2. Ignoring something that makes life easier is wrong because it makes the lives of the ignoring group harder.

Therefore, ignoring morality is wrong.

I don’t think that morality does serve the important social function of making life easier, especially for the groups it excludes by virtue of their existence. I think we’ve got a lot of evidence for that, too. I think Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and the rest have argued quite convincingly that morality is toxic and makes life increasingly more difficult for even those who follow it. That fact alone (that more and more find such prohibitions rightfully unjustifiable) explains its decline. Further, the morality referenced by you for rational conversation implies a belief in a rational methodology and even moral reasoning that all participants acknowledge and subscribe, when the reality couldn’t be more false. There is no ethical reasoning with a lot of this individuals who accept “morality” (I’d go further…and suggest that there’s no reasoning at all with them). Arguing rationally and accepting the rules of logic and reason achieves very little. Instead, what we see is that the role of certain moral values diminishes as its utility fades.

Ethics serves to make life easier, and I don’t think I need to explain the difference between morality and ethics to you. And further, I don’t think that gay people ignore ethics any more than straight people do. Morality can be ignored.

Now I know that being seen as moral equals is important. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had many friends, due to my influence, learn to see gay people as equals. But before I came along, expressing that I was openly gay by actually having to say I was gay and had a boyfriend rather than possessing a stereotypical “gay personality”. Even before this came about they knew me as an individual, by my personality, my ways of wanting to express myself and be perceived as a strong, confident, person with a great deal of skill and tallent. A person who could help his fellow man in times of trouble. A person who was morally acceptable in their minds. Then they learn that I am gay and they don’t mind. It doesn’t matter how much of a super-christian or anti-gay they are. They will gladly accept me as their brother or fellow man, and if they know me well enough they will learn to think of me when voting on policies that affect gay people. If more people could do that rather than try to stand out and communicate or express one’s sexual orientation by reinforcing stereotypes which may be correlated with thoughts of immorality then indeed we could easily change public perception. I just don’t see enough people making a serious effort.

Maybe it’s due to a lack of education. I remember a quote from a Larry King interview saying that when a man decides to come out of the closet he may have never studied or researched the gay community, and no one has ever told that newcommer the “gay story”. How has homosexuality been treated through history? Many may not have known about the Nazi’s persecution, the public knowledge of homosexuality being recognized as far back as recorded human history, itself. They will often see themselves as strongly defined by this sometimes newly discovered aspect, and without anyone there to guide them what do they latch on to? Stereotypes. Because social stigma will always exist and some people may prefer to latch on to what is known rather than go to the trouble of understanding how one develops a personal identity for one’s self and researches and understands one’s “story”. This isn’t just a problem within the gay community either, of course. It’s an issue which has come up in many various cultural groups where people may seek to define themselves too strongly through a single personality aspect, turning into a stereotypical representation of that group of people including what may be seen by the public as stereotypically amoral.

Anyway, I’ve said enough. I’m sure most people will see my words as too politically incorrect or something. I’m just trying to express my own emperical observations. I don’t see morality as a religious factor, either, but more as a culturally reinforced examinaiton of what morality is. I’m certainly not saying two people shouldnt be able to walkl while holding hands or make out on a park bench. Those are freedoms all people should be entitled to. But if your method of self expression tries to push too hard on some people they will discriminate against anyone with shared attributes. Like this article said, perfectly, sometimes you have to cater to what the people will want to see. That’s what I do. I wear a “mask” on my personality which presents myself as a proud gay man and an upstanding citizen. When I go home at night and no-one is around accept for my lover we’ll be wearing different masks , ones which better represent other sides of our personality. This is all done for the sake of perception and people do it all the time. So I may be preaching to the choir, but it’s a strong lesson that many people who are first coming out and finding themselves may need to learn, as perception and being noticed are best done in a mature, accepting way. One last tip: If you can demonstrate that you are somehow on a more mature ground than the person who may be attacking you for being gay with violent verbal outbursts you can even win them over by not fighting back and continuing to express a personality that somehow expressed your possessing the moral high ground. For example, while visiting my fiance’s relatives in Alabama one of his friends started comparing me to Jeffrey Dahlmer and saying that I was an “evil” person for “choosing” my “lifestyle” and I started asking him if he activley chose to be straight to which he then had to admit then I pulled out the statistics of some psychological researchers arguing that 80% of the population may be capable of being bisexual if they culturally and willingly wanted to pursue that orientation. He then grew quiet and wanted to hear more about what I had to say. I spoke of how many people cannot have any determinaton in “deciding” who they are attracted to, some of these people are heterosexual but others are homosexual, approximatley 2-5% of the total human population. The reason for this is theoretically due to exposure in the womb to certain levels of testosterone or estrogen, and in some lesbians the inner-ear structure has been shown to be different, while brain structure in some gay men has also been shown to slightly differ. I wasn’t arguing with him any more. I was educating him, like any good psychology professor should do (many don’t, of course, due to their religious superstitions and lack of pay). By the end of the day I had completely altered his perceptions of a group of people he thought he knew and therefore hated. He went on to share that knowledge with his other friends and family if it ever came up in a conversation. Through educating one person, taking the high ground, and demonstrating that I knew information which he did not and that he was drawing conclusions he realized he could only listen or he could choose to not listen and therefore do something morally irresponsible for being in another person’s home and trying to yell at them in front of other friends and family members rather than let the professor talk.