Should Gays and Murderers have Rights?

It was asked of me recently where a Libertarian of my flavor lands in regards to the rights of the gay community here in America, or anywhere for that matter.  On the face of it a Libertarianism is committed to individuals and the rights endowed to them by their creator [?] – this 18th and 19th century political quackery has run its course.  There are no such things as natural rights. They exist only in our ability to assert them and force them into law by the whore of all political systems, democracy. That said, Americas gay community, just like other minorities, are hell-bent on raping democracy for all its worth and obtaining the laws they feel are just – more power to them, I suppose.

I suppose that gay rights is a no brainer for most Libertarians due to reasons already mentioned, so why am I reluctant to join in? Well, the slippery-slope of natural rights, if you believe in them, has to stop somewhere else we will have cats and dogs living together, whales and Japanese signing peace treaties, Al Gore enjoying the snowy slopes of Aspen, you get the picture, right? It would be complete pandemonium. So what is my view?

My view is as follows:

There is good reason, I think, to denounce the union of gays and lesbian that fall well outside the confines of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is the bulk of complaints made against said community. In fact, there is good reason on secular grounds alone to outlaw, or at the very least shun, all homosexual activity in society whatsoever.  As an aside, the ancient Greeks practiced homosexuality among its military, but condemned the practice once military duty was over and shunned the continuing practice of it.

Consider: (P1) The human species must survive at all cost. (P2) All activities which prevent the survival of the species should be prohibited. (P3)Homosexual activity prevents the survival of the species. (C1) Homosexual activity should be prohibited. We can call this an evolutionary argument against homosexuality.

Notice, too, that we are all wiling to grant that murder is wrong for the same reason suggested in (P1)(P2)(P3). So it seems something as potentially damaging to society/species as homosexual behavior should also be anathema. I suspect that someone will respond, “what they do behind close doors doesn’t affect me or my marriage/family”, and this would be true. However, this takes for granted the parallel response that can be made, that while homosexual activity behind close doors doesn’t bother me per se, neither does a murder taking place behind closed doors, yet, everywhere in our society murder is illegal for reasons (P1)(P2)(P3). To be sure, there is nothing inherently wrong/evil with murder, or homosexuality. The odds are we found vehicles, namely,  religion, natural rights, ie., to prohibit the practice for obvious evolutionary reasons. I just think we have come to the end of traditional western values and need a fresh way of looking at human experience, especially human values.

Any thoughts?

~ by rle4 on December 18, 2009.