{"id":6753,"date":"2012-08-07T05:45:51","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T09:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=6753"},"modified":"2012-10-01T14:17:06","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T18:17:06","slug":"so-you-say-you-dont-hate-gay-people-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/08\/so-you-say-you-dont-hate-gay-people-part-iv.html","title":{"rendered":"So you say you don’t hate gay people, Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve all heard it before. If we normalize and accepting being gay, next we\u2019ll have to accept pedophilia! If we allow gay marriage, we\u2019ll have to let people marry turtles, or dogs! I remember hearing these arguments growing up, and they made perfect sense to me. So I\u2019ve asked myself why they made sense to me then and make no sense to me now, and I have come up with not only an explanation but also a handy way to visualize it.<\/p>\n

I call it the tale of two boxes.<\/p>\n

I mentioned yesterday that I learn from the comments my readers leave. Well, the seed of this idea was born after reading this comment<\/a> by reader smrnda:<\/p>\n

I actually think that Christian sexual ethics \u2013 which are based on purity rather than consent, are really to blame. When I read lists of \u2018sexual sin\u2019 that include say, \u2018masturbation, homosexuality and rape\u2019 I get really bothered since most sensible people would know that it\u2019s really inaccurate and insensitive to put those together on a list as if they were equivalent \u2013 I mean, the first two being moral issues is a joke, the third is one of the most terrible things you can do. Most people are horrified at sexual abuse and rape and power and oppression \u2013 the whole \u2018purity thing\u2019 doesn\u2019t seem to single out sexual abuse and assault as special categories worthy of special disdain. The whole \u2018sexual sin is sexual sin\u2019 trivializes real wrong sexual behaviors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reading this comment got me to thinking, and here are some conclusions I\u2019ve come to.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s imagine everyone has two boxes, one in which they place all the sexual acts they believe are wrong<\/em>, and the other in which they place all the sexual acts they believe are okay<\/em>. The thing is, not only do conservatives and progressives (we\u2019ll use those terms for the moment) divide acts differently between the two boxes, they also label the two boxes differently.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In other words, conservatives divide sexual acts into \u201cwrong\u201d or \u201cokay\u201d based on what God thinks of them, and progressives divide sexual acts into \u201cwrong\u201d and \u201cokay\u201d based on whether or not they are consensual.<\/p>\n

Because of this, conservatives associate acts like gay sex, pedophilia, and bestiality in a way progressives don\u2019t, and progressives associate acts like marital sex, premarital sex, and gay sex in a way conservatives never would. Similarly, conservatives see a bright line between, say, marital sex and gay sex but not between gay sex and pedophilia while progressives draw a bright line between, say, gay sex and pedophilia but not between gay sex and marital sex.<\/p>\n

Thus when a conservative hears someone saying that gay sex is okay, they\u2019re seeing that person dip into the box labeled \u201cWhat God forbids,\u201d and thus they wonder how, if you can dip into that box for one thing, that\u2019s any different from taking something else out of that same box, like pedophilia or bestiality. But for the progressive, pedophilia and bestiality aren\u2019t in the same box<\/em> as gay sex. So when the conservative asks how someone can accept gay sex but still condemn pedophilia or bestiality, the progressive says, \u201cWhat? Where in the world is that question coming from?\u201d<\/p>\n

And when conservatives object to gay marriage by equating it to marriage to animals, they\u2019re once again looking at these things through the lens of their two boxes \u2013 \u201cwhat God forbids\u201d and \u201cwhat God allows.\u201d To a progressive that argument makes no sense, since they view these things through the lens of their two boxes \u2013 \u201cnon-consensual acts\u201d and \u201cconsensual acts.\u201d Marriage to an animal would never be consensual, but marriage between two men or two women is consensual, so why would you ever compare the two?<\/p>\n

I think understanding that conservatives and progressives class sexual acts based on completely different categories \u2013 God\u2019s commands v. consent \u2013 is important in understanding why the two sides so often seem to speak past each other.<\/p>\n

I want to finish by quickly drawing this back to my \u201cso you say you don\u2019t hate gay people\u201d theme. Regardless of what a person says about not hating gay people, if they group consensual acts like gay sex together with non-consensual acts like bestiality and pedophilia, they\u2019re going to come across as offensive. Really offensive. And not really very loving, either.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve all heard it before. If we normalize and accepting being gay, next we\u2019ll have to accept pedophilia! If we allow gay marriage, we\u2019ll have to let people marry turtles, or dogs! I remember hearing these arguments growing up, and they made perfect sense to me. So I\u2019ve asked myself why they made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,11],"tags":[22,111,110,106,105],"class_list":["post-6753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","category-politics","tag-bible","tag-consent","tag-lgbtq","tag-marriage-2","tag-sex-2"],"yoast_head":"\nSo you say you don't hate gay people, Part IV<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm sure you've all heard it before. 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