that takes place between consenting adults, doesn't hurt anyone, and results in a great

deal of pleasure for the people involved—and that's all that you know about the activity

that I'm imagining. Given that information, it sounds pretty good. Suppose I fill in the

picture a bit more and tell you that not only does it result in pleasure for the people

involved, but it's an avenue of communication and a source of deep meaning in their lives.

And, again, that's all you know about the activity that I'm imagining. Given that information,

it sounds great—the kind of thing we'd want to encourage. But, of course, when I fill

in the picture a bit more, and tell you that the adults in question are two men or two

women, and the activity is some kind of sexual activity, suddenly people are not so keen

on it anymore. In fact, not only would many people condemn it, some would call it a moral

abomination.

Consider the fact that right now there are thousands of people across the world having

sex. It's kind of disconcerting when you think about it. Especially when you realize you're

sitting here listening to me. Some of those people are with partners of the same race;

some of them are with partners of a different race. Some of them are with partners of the

same age; some of them are in what we call "May-December relationships." Some of them

have known each other a long time; some of them met last night on the Internet. Some

of them are in loving, nurturing relationships; some of them are in abusive relationships.

Now those facts all have varying moral significance. But when I tell you that some of these people

are with partners of the same sex and some of these people are with partners of the other

sex, that fact seems to take on a significance all its own. And the question I want to explore

tonight is "why?" What's morally wrong with homosexuality, if anything, and if nothing,

what's all the fuss about? And the way I'm going to do this is I am going to look at

some of the most common arguments against homosexuality and subject them to philosophical

scrutiny. It sounds fancier than it is; really, we're just going to look at these arguments,

see what they are, and see if they work.

Before I get to the arguments, there are a few preliminary things I want to get out of

the way. We're talking about homosexuality tonight. What is that? A lot of people like

to make a distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual activity—homosexual orientation,

being attracted to people of the same sex; homosexual activity, engaging in some kind

of romantic activity with people of the same sex.

Like many such distinctions, this one is both useful and problematic. It's useful, in part,

because it reminds us that we all have feelings that we don't act upon, and maybe shouldn't

act upon. I'll give you an example. Sometimes I'm in line, and there's somebody in front

of me with one of those bluetooth earpieces on. They're chattering and chattering, completely

oblivious to the people behind them, and we're all waiting while they keep chattering. And

sometimes, when that happens, I fantasize for just a split second about pulling out

a sword and chopping of their ear. Whoosh!

I don't act on that feeling; don't act on that feeling. You may have had similar feelings.

We all have feelings we don't act upon, and that's part of being a grownup. That's part

of being a human being; you have self-restraint. Just because you have a feeling, doesn't mean

you ought to act on it, and this distinction reminds us of that.

It's a problematic distinction because it over-simplifies. For one thing, it draws a

very sharp contrast between feelings and activities, when the contrast between those things is

not always so sharp. Sometimes they're intimately connected. Sometimes who we are and what we

do are profoundly connected, and this distinction maybe makes us forget that a little bit. It's

also problematic because it over-simplifies each of the elements involved, both sexual

orientation and sexual activity. Let me say something about each of those elements. Let's

start with activity. What do I mean when I say, "homosexual activity?" Well, what do

I mean when I say, "heterosexual activity?" Intercourse? Sure. What about kissing? Sometimes.

What about holding hands? What about going for a romantic walk with someone? What about

making a nice dinner for someone? What about waiting outside someone's door because you

have a crush on that person? Yeah, you know who you are.

Think about all of the activities that make up our romantic lives, broadly understood.

When we talk about heterosexuality, we talk about that wide range of activities. When

we talk about homosexuality, we focus on the sex part of it. That gives us the kind of

picture like the bedroom is the only room in the homosexual person's house or the most

important part of our lives and relationships, and it's a false picture. This is not the

only time we get this sort of false contrast. We say things. With heterosexual people, we

talk about relationships. With homosexual people, we talk about sex. We say heterosexual

people have lives; homosexual people have "lifestyles." I teach at a state university.

I don't make enough money to have a "lifestyle." We say heterosexual people have a moral vision;

homosexual people have an agenda. The words we use to talk about these things really affect

our way of thinking about them. Now, I'm going to focus on homosexual sex tonight because

that's the part that bothers people, but I don't want you to get this kind of skewed

picture that's the only part of homosexual activity, homosexual relationships, or homosexual

people's lives.

What about the other side of this contrast? Sexual orientation. I have a certain sexual

orientation. What is that? I'm attracted to people of a particular gender. That's true.

I'm also attracted to people of a particular age range, body type, personality type, and

certain kinds of senses of humor. All of these things make up my sexual orientation, broadly

understood. But when we talk about sexual orientation, we focus very narrowly on the

gender of people that you're attracted to, and then we divide everyone into these nice,

neat categories. There are heterosexual people, and there are homosexual people. Then there

are bisexual people, and they mess up our neat categories!

Everywhere I go, people say to me, "I just don't understand bisexuality." Let me take

a little time to explain it; it's not a complicated concept, really. Some people are attracted

to both men and women. That's it! It doesn't mean they're attracted to everyone. That'd

be exhausting. It doesn't mean they're confused. It doesn't mean that gender is not important

to them. It doesn't mean any of those things. It just means it's not an overriding factor

in what makes people attractive to them. I mention this because many of the same problems

faced by gay and lesbian people in our society are faced by bisexual people. Bisexual people

are not half kicked out of the house or half fired from their jobs or half harassed for

being bisexual. I'm going to be focusing on homosexuality tonight, but much of what I

say can be applied with the appropriate changes to bisexuality.

Finally, in the years that I've been doing this, a number of people have made the comment,

at least in the early years (I started doing this in Texas in the early 90's), people said

to me, "You know, your approach seems so negative. You're always talking about the arguments

against homosexuality. Why don't you ever give an argument in favor of homosexuality?"

I say, "You know, that's a good idea." So, I want to start with a kind of preliminary

argument in favor of homosexuality. It's just a preliminary argument; there's a lot more

to be said, but, in a way, the preliminary argument is quite simple: Homosexual relationships

make some people happy. When I say it makes some people happy, I don't just mean that

they're pleasurable, although that's part of it. But, there's more to it than that.

A homosexual relationship, like a heterosexual relationship, can be an important avenue of

meaning and long-term fulfillment in people's lives. This is the kind of thing that we celebrate

when we talk about heterosexuality. We celebrate it everywhere from great literature to romance

novels to trashy shows on MTV. You know these shows? You can feel your brain cells dying

as you watch some of these shows; you know the ones. But they have this point in common

about finding a special someone, connecting with that person, expressing your feelings

for that person in a way for which mere words would be inadequate. This is a wonderful,

beautiful part of the human experience. If we're going to deny this to a whole group

of people by saying, "You can't have that. That's wrong," we better have a darn good

reason. So, let's look at what some of those reasons might be.

This first reason that I'm going to look at, the first argument is the argument that homosexuality

is wrong because the Bible condemns it. Now, when I say "the Bible," I could be talking

about a lot of different things. There are many different scriptural texts that different

groups of people recognize as authoritative. Even if we focus on the Judeo-Christian tradition,

which is actually a melding of different traditions, there are arguments about which books should

be included, which translations are authoritative, and so on. We could go through all of that,

but let's put that aside. Suppose you know what I'm talking about when I talk about the

Bible. When we look to that Judeo-Christian Bible, we find some things that actually sound

pretty negative with respect to same-sex relationships. The book of Leviticus says, "Man shall now

lie with man, as with woman. It is an abomination unto God." Of course, the book of Leviticus

calls a number of other things abominations that we don't tend to pay attention to quite

as often. The book of Leviticus says that eating shellfish is an abomination unto God.

Shrimp cocktail? Not if you follow Leviticus. The book of Leviticus says that wearing clothing

of mixed fiber is an abomination unto God. Cotton-polyester blends? Not if you follow

Leviticus. The book of Leviticus says that touching the carcass of a dead pig is an abomination

unto God. Football? Not if you follow Leviticus. They used to be made of pigskin. Stay with

me. It's not just the book of Leviticus, and it's not just the Old Testament.

As we look through the Bible, we find a number of things that seem, at best, morally problematic.

St. Paul says, "Women must remain silent in the churches." Doesn't seem to me like good

moral advice. The Bible suggests that those who divorce and remarry should be put to death.

Why? Well because the New Testament defines divorce as adultery; the Old Testament prescribes

death for adultery. Again, this doesn't sound very good. The Bible suggests that slavery

is morally acceptable. People don't believe me when I tell them this. I say, "Okay, I'll

read to you." This is from Leviticus 25:44-46:

You may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you. You

may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are

with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may bequeath

them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession forever.

Who says this, according to the Bible? God says that, according to the Bible. And yet,

we have a hard time imagining how an all-good, all-loving God could condone an institution

like slavery. And it's not just the Old Testament, either. St. Paul says in Ephesians, "Slaves

be obedient to your earthly masters, in fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as you

obey Christ."

Again, you look at this and say, "Well, what's a believer to do?" One thing I think you can

do is to say maybe the Bible is wrong about certain things. This does not mean that God

is wrong. Rather, maybe human beings have been wrong in discerning God's word. After

all, we should not confuse complete faith in God with complete faith in our ability

to discern God's voice. And, in fact, any honest look at history should tell us that

we should be wary of people who are too certain that they speak directly for God.

But, some people want to say, "No no no, the Bible is God's word. The Bible is infallible.

The Bible contains no error." And, I say, "The Bible contains no error? What are you

going to do with those slavery passages?" And you know what the people say to me? They

say to me, "John, you are pulling those passages out of context. You can't just take passages

out of the Bible and quote them as if they mean the same thing today as they did for

the people at the time. You can't just pull the passages out of context!" And I say, "Well,

wait a second! If it's not okay to do that with the slavery passages, then why is it

okay to do that with the homosexual passages?" Because, after all, the context surrounding

same-sex relations was very different in Biblical times than it is during our own day. And indeed,

in the handful of places that the Bible talks about homosexuality, it's almost always in

the context of a discussion of idolatry because homosexuality was very much associated with

certain pagan practices. If that's the kind of thing that Biblical authors had in mind,

if that's what they meant, then what they're talking about and I'm talking about are very

different things, and to use those passages that way would be to pull them out of context.

Now, a few caveats and clarifications. First of all, I want to make it clear what I'm not

saying here. I'm not saying , "Hey, the Bible is old, so forget about it. Ignore it. Just

pick the parts you like." A lot of people do that on different sides of the debate.

I don't think that's a very good way to proceed. Rather, I'm saying that if you're going to

understand what the Bible means for us today, we have to understand that the Biblical authors'

concerns and our concerns may be different, and that's relevant to our interpretation

of the text. And the alternative to that is to commit ourselves to very strange views

on women's roles, on slavery, and a host of other things.

Second, having said that, I'm not so convinced that any amount of context is going to help

the slavery passages. I think that when we look to those passages, we have to admit that

the prejudices and limitations of the Biblical authors crept into the text, and if they did

that with respect to slavery, then it could have happened with respect to homosexuality.

Finally, it seems to me in many cases, not all, but in many cases the Bible is not really