Morality = Bigotry?

  

George Whitefield preaching

  In our last blog post we noted that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy virtually equated morality with bigotry. He pointed out that the House of Representatives, in passing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), stated that the intent of the legislation was to uphold Judeo-Christian morality. Justice Kennedy then went on to insinuate that this amounts to a purpose to "degrade," "demean," and "disparage" homosexual couples who wish to get married.
    Does this mean that Judeo-Christian morality is tantamount to bigotry? Let us be perfectly blunt and candid about this. The whole aim and purpose of morality is to stigmatize certain forms of behavior. What Justice Kennedy appears to be objecting to is the very idea of morality itself – the idea that certain forms of behavior, by their very nature, are wrong. But most laws have the same practical effect that Justice Kennedy found so obnoxious in DOMA. They criminalize certain forms of behavior. Those who engage in those forms of behavior are subjected to certain incapacities. Is this unfair discrimination? Not hardly. The whole purpose of the law, of any law, is to proscribe certain forms of activity. DOMA was no different.
    But passing beyond a court ruling on a piece of legislation, why do Judaism and Christianity consider homosexual activity immoral in the first place? What is so bad about being gay?
    Homosexuality is immoral because it runs counter to the creative purpose of God. Implicit in any monotheistic religion is the idea that all of reality was created by a single, intelligent Being. That being the case, everything in life has meaning and purpose. And so, when we ask the question, what is the primary purpose of sex, the obvious answer is heterosexual reproduction. This is why the great Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – have always looked on homosexuality as a perversion of something that God created for other purposes. The norm is that a man and a woman should enter into a permanent, intimate relationship with each other, and that that, in turn, would provide the basis for a stable family life. Anything else beside that and perpetual chastity is forbidden.
    But, it will be objected, gays are born that way and cannot help being the way they are. They should not be stigmatized for something over which they have no control.
    We would acknowledge that in some individuals same-sex attraction is very real, and not something over which they feel they have any control. Nevertheless, certain things must be borne in mind.
     First of all, there is no solid evidence that homosexuality is hereditary. No one has been able to identify a "gay gene." A homosexual male is still biologically a normal male, and is capable of fathering children the usual way. Instead, homosexuality is manifestly an emotional or psychological condition, what used to be known as "Gender Identity Disorder," and most likely it is the result of a problem in early childhood socialization.
    But beyond that, homosexuality is really no different from any other kind of sin, and should be treated no differently. Do homosexuals feel a predisposition to their particular form of activity? We all feel predisposition to some form of sin. We are all born liars and thieves. As one older woman of our acquaintance put it, "I have been a mother and a grandmother, and I never once had to teach a child how to steal cookies." Anti-social behavior comes naturally to us, and it is only with great difficulty that it can be driven from us. Nevertheless, we are still morally accountable for our own conduct. We can tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, and can make a conscious choice to do what is good and right. The mere fact that we have a natural predisposition to do what is wrong does not excuse us. We are rightly condemned for our bad behavior.
    Therefore we should not single our homosexuals and treat them as social lepers. The fact of the matter is that the Word of God stands above us all and condemns all of our sin – that of the selfish, greedy executive in his corner office suite as well as that of the sexual libertine in the gay bathhouse. We are all sinners by nature, and we all need redemption.
    No one likes to be told that he is a hell-bound sinner, and it is only natural that some will react negatively, sometimes even violently. We would rather shoot the messenger than heed the message.
    And so that is the position in which the church finds itself today. We have a message that is decidedly unpopular. And yet it is our duty to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. We do no one a favor by hiding or disguising the truth.
    
Related blog posts:
The Case for Moral Absolutes 
What Is Morality? 
What God Requires 
What God Thinks About Modern Western Society 

And on the subject of Judeo-Christian morality see:
Jesus and the Torah