What's wrong with gay sex?

These signs were displayed around YU last night, while inside some campus auditorium over 500 people attended a panel discussion on Being Gay In The Orthodox World

Photo Credit: @marczeffren

Kudos to YU on hosting a conversation about this important topic. Longer discussion of the post's title question, after the jump.

What's wrong with gay sex?

Appeal to the Bible

The Torah says gay sex is wrong. Calls it an abomination, in fact. That's the simple answer. But the simple answer becomes complicated when you recall a few facts.

(1) Christians routinely ignore large chunks of the bible. They eat shellfish. They lend at interest. They don't keep the seventh day holy, or remember any of the festivals. So by what right do they use the bible as a reason to complain about homosexuality? Why can't they ignore what the bible says about homosexuality as they ignore 90 percent of what it says about anything?

(2) Though we Orthodox Jews don't ignore the bible to the extent Christians do, we have a tradition of interpretation, and amendment. The Torah says we should perform Leverite marriages, but we don't. The Torah says that men should be executed for various crimes, but in the time of the Temple the Sages labored to find loopholes and ways around the law. A famous example is the ben sorer u'morer. By Torah law a rude and gluttonous child is supposed to be executed. The Sages, however, claim almost unanimously that this law was never followed, and today, no one thinks especially poorly of rude and gluttonous children. Certainly, we don't regard them as deserving of a death punishment.

Objection: But the Torah calls gay sex an "abomination". The ben sorrer isn't described this way. Doesn't this suggest that there is something uniquely wrong about homosexuality, that makes it deserving of unique condemnation?

Response: Perhaps, but on this score Orthodox Jews are guilty of the same inconsistency as Christians. Other acts - eating insects, or performing dishonestly in business - are also described as abominations, yet only homosexuals are singled out by Orthodox Jews for special disapprobation.

To paraphrase Stephen Law, Orthodox Jews often use their own sense of right and wrong, their own moral criteria, to decide which passages of the Bible to get all angry and excited about. People who cheat at their business - also an abomination, per Deuteronomy - aren't ever subjected to the same open hatred or expressions of disaproval as homosexuals are.

Why is that?

Possibilities

Homosexuality is unnatural 

It is dirty

It is unhealthy

It corrupts the young

Homosexuals are promiscuous

Homosexuals use each other as means, not ends.

Its corrosive to society.

Each of these arguments is roundly demolished by Stephen Law. See it here My summary of the counterarguments:

It is unnatural: So what? As John Stuart Mill said: Conformity to nature, has no connection whatever with right and wrong….To illustrate this point, let us consider the phrase by which the greatest intensity of condemnatory feeling is conveyed in connection with the idea of nature – the word unnatural. That a thing is unnatural, in any precise meaning which can be attached to the word, is no argument for its being blameable; since the most criminal actions are to a being like man, not more unnatural than most of the virtues

It is dirty. So what? Gardening is also dirty.

It is unhealthy: So what? Humans engage in all sort of unhealthy -even dangerous - activities, but we don't judge them or their behavior immoral.

It corrupts the young: Homosexuals are born, not made. Anyway, this is question begging. (asserting what should be proved) If there isn't anything wrong with homosexuality, what does it matter if young people are exposed to it?

Homosexuals are promiscuous: This rests on the premise that promiscuity is itself a bad thing, but is it? Why?

Homosexuals use each other as means, not ends: So what? All this means is that homosexuals are missing out on opportunities; it doesn't make the behavior immoral. As Lord Quinton says: It is certainly true that long-term, morally and personally profound relationships are less common among homosexuals. How much does that matter? If I regularly play tennis with someone but do not see him except on the tennis court and at the health juice bar afterwards, if, in other words, I am interested in him only as a tennis partner, am I ignoring his status as an end in himself? More to the point, if I pick up different opponents every time I go to the courts, on a purely casual basis, am I acting immorally? A life in which it is merely a source of short-term gratification and not an inseparable part of a whole shared life is to that extent trivialised. But triviality is not a moral offence; it is, rather, a missed opportunity and one which, in fact, many homosexuals do not miss.

Its corrosive to society Evidence please? Why must we say that societies that tolerate homosexuality ultimately crumble? What is the proof of that? What makes it impossible to have both a strong society, with strong families, and tolerance?

Conclusion: Follow the advice of the YU Rosh Yeshivas who signed the letter and treat homosexuals with kindness, deference, tolerance and respect -- and not because its "the nice thing to do" but because the premise that homosexuality is immoral is difficult to prove, and doubt should breed tolerance. (The Torah says the behavior is wrong, as it says eating bugs is wrong,  but doesn't impose on you and obligation to scream about it.)

Adapted from a post by Stephen Law. See it here.