Whether the homosexual sex should be penalized
The issue of whether the homosexual sex should be charged has been sparked a spirited debate in our English group. Personally, I think homosexual sex should not be punished until it brings externalities to others.
Firstly, whether individuals do homosexual intercourse is their own business and their privacies should be respected. It is true that the homosexual sex is not a nature way people tend to act. And some religious people also argue that homosexual sex would spread some lethal diseases such as AIDS and cause several social problems so that homosexual sex should be severely forbidden. However, actually, in this world, not all the people do have such twisted sex orientations and also not all the gays and lesbians are AIDS virus carriers. Although people who do homosexual intercourse may be risky to be affected AIDS and spread it to others, we still ought not to harshly interfere their personal affairs unless they required protection by the society. (On Liberty, John Stuart Mill, 1859) Therefore, in truly enlighten countries, the right for individuals to choose sexual partners should be respected as a part of human right and they should not be penalized if they do it personally.
However, homosexual behavior should not exert externality to others. It means people who tend to have homosexual intercourse should not impact other’s life and thinking especially for children. For instance, if a ‘couple’ make homosexual love publicly, and let a multitude of people including kids surround and watch, they should be charged. Firstly, after all the homosexual sex is not a nature way of sex people acts to, so when people make it openly, witness would feel disgusted about their behaviors and do harm to other’s mental health. Secondly, the homosexual issue is a blessing or curse has not been decided yet and it still cannot be accepted by our main stream society. So when people do homosexual sex aboveboard, they may be denounced and assaulted by the public opinions. And in some religious such as Christian and Muslim, the homosexual sex is strictly prohibited. So when people act it openly, some believers may be infuriated and unnecessary conflicts and troubles would be caused, which may lead to social restlessness and broke the unity of people of different believes.
Thirdly, it should be penalized for people who act homosexual sex openly because the general mood of society would be sleazed by their ill-mannered behaviors. From the statistics, it can be seen that more than 70% of the homosexual persons are not inherited but educated or affected by their living surroundings or families. (www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/.../statement_on_homosexuality.htm) So when a couple of gay or lesbian make love openly, it will be much likely make others especially children carious and accept homosexual sex gradually. Then increasing people who have such tendencies would act the same thing which would accelerate the spreading of AIDS which make a disaster to our society or even entire human beings. In our economics course when have been taught that a good policy-maker should reduce the externality to attain a desirable outcome for our society. But on the other hand, we are obliged to determine that a democracy society should not roughly interfere in individuals’ personal life and tendencies. It is quite a tragedy that thousands of people for homosexual behaviors are persecuted, held behind bars, even burnt to death in the past history by religions or Nazis. But now that age has passed and their right should be preserved. However, the homosexual sex also should not be encouraged in case it would taint people’s mind especially for children. Hence, the homosexual sex should be charged if it exerts bad influence to others.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
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I agree with Desmond that 'homosexual sex is not a natural way people tend to act'. This is the main reason why till today, many people are still not receptive to the idea of homosexual sex and come up with laws to prevent such ‘unnatural’ phenomenon from propagating in the society.
ReplyDeleteHere, we need to address the question of what it means to be a 'natural' way to act. We think that an act in a relationship is 'natural' when it does not come into conflict with our social memories and upbringing that tell us that heterosexuality is the so-called 'norm' in the society. Hence, it could be hypothesized that a child brought up in a homosexual family might probably view heterosexuality as 'unnatural'. This kind of scenario is not what most societies would like to arrive at and that explains why most societies would want to criminalize homosexuality so that their long-held values would not be threatened and challenged.
In this perspective, we see that it is the society's reluctance to step out of their comfort zone to embrace a new trend that is slowing emerging in the society which makes an act ‘unnatural’. The act in itself may not be ‘unnatural’ after all. It can also be viewed as the society’s fear of change as accepting a new value might mean a revolutionary change to the social fabric and its value system. It can even be said that it is a ‘natural’ tendency for the people in the society to subscribe to the majority’s viewpoints (this is in fact how a democratic country works).
For example, people used to think that our Earth was at the centre of the Universe until Copernicus and Galileo proved that theory was wrong. At that time, Galileo's viewpoint was considered 'unnatural' as it opposed the view held by the Catholic Church at that time. As a result, he faced many criticisms from the public. Hence, we can see that it takes time for a concept, an idea or a value deeply embedded in our mind to be changed before it is opened up again to accept new ideas or new values.
As such, it could be predicted that there will still be a long road ahead before most societies accept homosexuality as the ‘natural’ act.
Written by: Teo Kian Siong
Hi Desmond
ReplyDeleteYour views on homosexuality is interesting and wide-ranging, and I especially like your quotation of John Stuart Mills. Like Kian Siong, I do think social norms are conditioned by prevailing social beliefs and values which of course change with times and culture. That is to say, nature is not fixed in time and space, but is used frequently by the majority to control people who are different from them.
Souk Yee