Demolishing Dumb Arguments: Gay sex is unnatural!

The other day I invited you to laugh and point at Mr. Gene Davis of Little Rock Arkansas. For this I was severely chastised by one of my self-righteously anti-intellectual readers:

DB, I thought you were intelligent enough to see through to the substance beneath the surface. Mr. Davis hasn't learned to express himself in the pretentious way that one learns at our prestigious colleges. Instead, he expresses himself in a simple, direct, even homey way.

That doesn't change the fact that he is making two strong arguments. The first is based on Scripture, and so would be lost on non-believers (though it could be reinterpreted to work for them, too).

In essence, he’s claiming that Leviticus 18:22:
"Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable." is related to Genesis 2:24:

"That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."

That claim seems entirely correct to me, as a matter of Biblical interpretation.

Mr. Davis's second argument is based on natural law. He's claiming that, while sexual relations between men are possible, they are manifestly not what our bodies were designed for.

That is obviously true, and I don't see how any honest person could deny it. How you feel about the argument will depend on how you feel about natural law. But it's by no means a foolish argument.

OK, now that I've restated Mr. Davis's views in more pretentious terms, do you feel better about taking them seriously?

Not being fluent in Hick, I confess to having thought Mr. Davis was a rambling idiot. Now that you have provided a translation to SWE,  I see that he is an ordinary idiot.

Allow me to explain by answering your objections directly:

In essence, [Davis is] claiming that Leviticus 18:22: "Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable." is related to Genesis 2:24:"That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."That claim seems entirely correct to me, as a matter of Biblical interpretation.

I agree that its a reasonable interpretation, but where is the argument against gay marriage? I grant the bible says XYZ. How can that be construed as an argument against gay marriage in a secular state? Was an argument of some kind present in the original Hick, or have both you and Mr. Davis simply assumed it sufficient to announce something in the name of the Bible without actually demonstrating it?

Mr. Davis's second argument is based on natural law. He's claiming that, while sexual relations between men are possible, they are manifestly not what our bodies were designed for.

Again it appears Mr. Davis  has forgotten to make an argument, or perhaps you have forgotten to translate it. Because even if I grant that the body wasn't designed for gay sex (debatable) how can that be construed as an argument for a secular state to ban gay marriage? Your translation doesn't say.  Anyway, we don't generally ask our congresspeople to pass laws preventing us from using our bodies unnaturally. Our ears, certainly,  weren't designed to carry around lumps of metal, but no one has announced a moral objection to earnings or demanded that Congress intervene.

In fact, most of what we do all day is "unnatural." Being polite isn't natural. Sharing isn't natural. Monogamy isn't natural. Indeed, our natural inclination is to be greedy, selfish and promiscuous. Only those who thwart those natural inclinations are considered virtuous. So why are you claiming the opposite regarding homosexuality? If I deserve applause for overcoming my natural desire to flip the bird at an obnoxious driver, why not clap for a male homosexual who has conquered his natural urge to boink females exclusively?  And in final, let's listen to John Stuart Mill who has already won the point by showing that "natural" and "moral" are two different, unrelated things:

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.

Please translate this post into Hick so that Mr. Davis can understand it. Thanks.

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