I didn’t say it was a good thing! But as Manfred points out, I can imagine it. More than just imagine it: I know that people hold such beliefs, are sincere about it, and act upon them in acceptably predictable ways. I can also imagine it being true (like, it cause strange psychological damage, or if you zoom out and look at the universe like a painting it’s prettier when purely heterosexual, or unresolved sexual tension is a really important emotion, whatever) - but that doesn’t put me in the same mental state as people who currently believe it; namely, it makes me fall over laughing at how deeply weird the universe is.
It does make me no different from the theist who, upon reading blog posts carefully explaining “No, we don’t hate your god, we just think it’s a silly idea like the tooth fairy”, stammers “Buh… buh… WHY?”, looks for arguments, find they don’t at all match eir arguments for theism, and walks away scratching eir head. The cure is more blog posts.
Take as a premise, “One of the key [insert suitable word choice something like: duties/responsibilities/purposes/nice-things-to-do] of being human is to carry on your ancestry and raise healthy children to serve as the next strong generation of humanity.”
Or, as a less extreme version—“A mentally and physically healthy person having kids and raising them with more opportunities than they had is one of the easiest huge benefits for humanity. This is especially true if the person is particularly intelligent and thoughtful.”
If you had one of those premises, you might come to the conclusion that homosexuality doesn’t serve that goal.
Now me, I actually have the second ethic and do believe it, but I also have gay friends and could care less who anyone is loving, fucking, cuddling with, consorting abouts with, or whatever. Though if I had a son that was intelligent, healthy, and gay, I’d strongly encourage him to look into other ways to reproduce and get both the joy of having children and serve humanity by creating the next line of a-bit-more-intelligent and a-bit-better-informed people. (I don’t know what I’d do if I had a daughter who was gay—I’d have to do more research. I think I understand well enough how a gay man thinks sexually and in terms of family, but I don’t personally know any lesbian women so will refrain from an opinion until knowing more.)
(Edit: I realize this isn’t a mainstream view. I tend to believe people have base temperaments and pushing people against their base temperament is a bad idea, but I also think one of the chief forms of the world getting better is by healthy people having kids and raising them with better opportunities and teaching them more than they knew growing up. So I sat down and thought it through, and this is what I came up with. I doubt I’m the only person in the world that thinks this way, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard it put this way before.)
I didn’t say it was a good thing! But as Manfred points out, I can imagine it. More than just imagine it: I know that people hold such beliefs, are sincere about it, and act upon them in acceptably predictable ways. I can also imagine it being true (like, it cause strange psychological damage, or if you zoom out and look at the universe like a painting it’s prettier when purely heterosexual, or unresolved sexual tension is a really important emotion, whatever) - but that doesn’t put me in the same mental state as people who currently believe it; namely, it makes me fall over laughing at how deeply weird the universe is.
It does make me no different from the theist who, upon reading blog posts carefully explaining “No, we don’t hate your god, we just think it’s a silly idea like the tooth fairy”, stammers “Buh… buh… WHY?”, looks for arguments, find they don’t at all match eir arguments for theism, and walks away scratching eir head. The cure is more blog posts.
Take as a premise, “One of the key [insert suitable word choice something like: duties/responsibilities/purposes/nice-things-to-do] of being human is to carry on your ancestry and raise healthy children to serve as the next strong generation of humanity.”
Or, as a less extreme version—“A mentally and physically healthy person having kids and raising them with more opportunities than they had is one of the easiest huge benefits for humanity. This is especially true if the person is particularly intelligent and thoughtful.”
If you had one of those premises, you might come to the conclusion that homosexuality doesn’t serve that goal.
Now me, I actually have the second ethic and do believe it, but I also have gay friends and could care less who anyone is loving, fucking, cuddling with, consorting abouts with, or whatever. Though if I had a son that was intelligent, healthy, and gay, I’d strongly encourage him to look into other ways to reproduce and get both the joy of having children and serve humanity by creating the next line of a-bit-more-intelligent and a-bit-better-informed people. (I don’t know what I’d do if I had a daughter who was gay—I’d have to do more research. I think I understand well enough how a gay man thinks sexually and in terms of family, but I don’t personally know any lesbian women so will refrain from an opinion until knowing more.)
(Edit: I realize this isn’t a mainstream view. I tend to believe people have base temperaments and pushing people against their base temperament is a bad idea, but I also think one of the chief forms of the world getting better is by healthy people having kids and raising them with better opportunities and teaching them more than they knew growing up. So I sat down and thought it through, and this is what I came up with. I doubt I’m the only person in the world that thinks this way, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard it put this way before.)