Moral absolutism is “easy” way to discuss sexual identity issues

Editor:

[In response to the editorial "Safe Space: what's wrong is wrong" by Brady Soop:]

For a week now I have been thinking of how to counter the author’s argument against Safe Space and the scholarship associated with it. The ultimate question here isn’t whether or not the scholarship or program is wrong, but in the concept of absolute morality that the author profess when writing “what’s wrong is wrong.”

I dislike it when people use the moral absolute argument to give credence to alternate lifestyles, such as homosexuality. I’m not one to say that there are no absolutes in life. I do believe in some absolutes, but I have a hard time arguing that under any circumstance an action will be one hundred percent right or wrong. There actually is a lot of grayness to life even if Soop seems to use “moral grayness” as an evil phrase. A simplistic example of this is lying. We are taught from an early age that lying is completely wrong especially if your moral education is provided by a conservative Christian church, but as we grow we learn that there are circumstances when you have to lie to protect someone you love from being hurt. Another example is killing if your life is in danger. There is no one that would doubt a person’s right to kill some one who was attempting to kill them. So how can you argue absolutes if there are many examples of moral flexibility?

My next point is that professing a philosophy of moral absolutism is very easy, especially when you use it to single out particular issues such as sexual identity. What could be more satisfying than knowing that what you are doing is right absolutely? The difficult thing is that when making choices it is impossible to know every piece of information really needed to make a complete decision, especially big ones like deciding if you are gay or not. So how on earth could you know if you are making the right choice or not? You can’t. You have to make the choice that is right given who you are and what you feel inside of you. If you have ever had a friend who was dealing with their sexual identity you would understand exactly how hard that decision is to make. There is nothing quite as difficult and painful as discovering and accepting that you are gay.

Another issue I have with moral absolutism is that it very rarely takes into consideration other cultures perspectives. This is especially true in Western cultures. We believe that we figured out the universe years ago, but we constantly forget that our morals and ideals of morality have changed over the centuries and continue to evolve. At one time, homosexuality was considered acceptable in ancient Greece, and actually homosexuals have been important parts of many societies and cultures. For instance, Native American cultures have homosexuals who were more or less accepted as important members of society. Another similar circumstance that recently shows how an absolute wrong has changed is interracial marriage, which to up to a few decades ago was considered a sin, but because of the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, that feeling has all changed leading to most Americans to not only tolerating but accepting interracial marriage as a norm.

In conclusion, I will admit that I do believe in at least one absolute, love. I believe that I have been loved by God and that because of that I should love everyone, whether they be Christian, Muslim, black, white, Asian, straight or gay. Remember, love passes all understanding.

Joshua Kitchens

Senior, History

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 25 2005. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry