Scared of the gay maybe?

March 16^th 2007 – U.S. presidential candidate and republican senator of Kansas Sam Brownback declared that homosexual acts are immoral and are akin to adultery. He also announced that «gays» shouldn’t serve openly in the military and encouraged legislation to enforce this.

My opinion is here tainted with the bias of an atheistic heterosexual and by no means represents any interest group.

Senator Brownback «mountain» seems to have run out of real issues to debate because this is one that has been overdone and widely discovered as a useless one. The debate is over. The Bible describes homosexuality (a dozen entries, some vague) as a wicked act "And with a man you shall not lie with as a man lies with a woman; it is an abomination." (Leviticus.18:22). The matter is therefore closed, if you are a religious person of the Catholic or Jewish faiths, homosexuality is a sin and sins are bad.

The only point of protest I make here is, hypocrisy is not mentioned as being a sin. Many devout followers of God and his little black Book eat «unclean» animals such as pork, shrimp and camels. Many of them indulge in a little gluttony, lust and/or rage once in a while. These things are not important you would say but it is made explicit that these are sins, some of them mortal sins that will hike up a hefty purgatory sentence. Furthermore, the clergy seems to indulge in sins that are also legally criminal and have done so for over a millennium. The Pope Alexander IV Borgia amassed large riches, concubines and scandals in the fifteenth century and Pope Jean-Paul II supervised a campaign to demonize condoms in Africa; instead, he promoted abstinence on a continent where sex represents the only means of fun.

Why would certain sins, that are explicit in the Bible, be okay once in a while but homosexuality is a matter to be condemned and massively protested against?

On the other hand, a strictly political and legal hand, 1970s and 1980s Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau said it best: «there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation». We effectively have a separation of church and state in most countries of the world (Iran and the Vatican aside) so the quote applies and the Bible is not to provide a context for legislation.

THERE. Matter solved, homosexuality is not here to be debated, it is just here. Get on with your life Mr. Senator, there must be more important things on your to do list, for example, the grass is getting a bit long in your front yard, go fourth and mow.

In History, The ancient Athenians liberalised and encouraged homosexuality with an older mentor, in the seventeenth century, real pirates of the Caribbean engaged in it to pass the time (on this, see the book Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth Century Caribbean, 1995) and finally in 1974, the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual in psychology deemed it «not a mental illness», although we had to wait for the nineties for them to remove «sexual orientation disturbance» and «gender identity disorder».

I am not condoning or refuting the practise of homosexuality anymore than I condone or refute the practise of dancing. It is a moot point and a very weak campaigning technique.

End.