Is gay right is a human right? Someone argued here that gay right is a human right issue. He argued that since it is a human right issue, it should be decriminalised. I agree that it should be decriminalised, but I disagree with the reason provided for why it should be decriminalised.
Human rights are rights that each person possesses by virtue of being a human person, and violating human right amounts to dehumanising the person. If a person is forced to have sex against her or his consent, that can be a violation of her or his human rights. But if a person is not allowed to have sex, will that be a violation of her or his human right? Or if I put it in a slightly different way: if a person chooses to restrain from sex, would she or he be violating her or his human rights? I would answer the latter question in negative; celibacy is not a violation of one's human rights. I shall come back to the former question later.
But one may argue that there is a difference between choosing to remain single and being forced to remain single. After all, there is a difference between choosing to fast voluntarily and being forced to starve. If I choose to fast voluntarily, that is not a violation of human right; but if I was forcefully starved, that would be a violation of human right. Now is this analogy quite right? Is state's position -- or rather lack of it -- in not positively legitimising gay sex akin to not positively providing food where and when there is starvation? I think there is a difference. No one can survive without food; one can live well without expression of homosexual activity or heterosexual activity. But one may still argue that the state not legitimizing same sex union is different from forcing a person not to have same sex relation. And I do think that there is a difference. Let me take the latter case first i.e the state forcing a person not to have same sex relation. This is also the question that I paused in the second paragraph.
The state forcing a person not to have same sex relation would mean that the state criminalises people who have same sex relation; meaning, the state considers homosexual activity a crime.
Now if gay right is a human right, what would that mean? Now if gay right is a human right, the state has to take steps to positively and actively promote and legitimise it. This is what being an item of human right would mean. If starvation is a human right issue, then the state should not only starve people, but when there is starvation the state has to actively work and ensure that starvation is wiped out. Now this is problematic.
But are these two the only options -- The state criminalising homosexual activity and the state legitimising and advancing gay marriage saying that it is a matter of human right?
Now if same sex union is a human right, then those religious communities that teach the members of the community against homosexual practice cannot do that. Because saying that homosexual practice is morally wrong and should refrain from that would be a violation of human right of someone. So I would say that to argue for expression of homosexual taste. based on human right is a wrong-headed argument. In my previous post, from a different perspective I argue why same sex marriage should not be legalised, but also why it should not be criminalised; I argue that it should be a non-criminal act yet not a legalised act that the state affirms, recongises and celebrates. It should rather be treated like live-in relationship which is neither a criminal activity nor a legal union.
I agree that homosexual practice should be decriminalised. But to argue for that based on human right is, I think, a mistake. Human right is a thin idea. To put different kinds of right into the category of human right is to do disservice to human right. I think decriminalisation of same sex relation should rather be argued based on the idea of a liberal state.
So the third option is consider it as a non-criminal act, and leave it at that. This is to say that the state is not criminalising it nor is it legalising it. The state does not legitimise gay union no more or no less that it does with adultery or fornication. This way it leaves room for religious communities the freedom to shape the moral consciousness of the members and also the gays to be single or otherwise and also it leaves the state not too morally stringent that it curtails individual liberty nor too morally loose that age old civilisational scaffold like marriage and religious teachings are undermined.
The state forcing a person not to have same sex relation would mean that the state criminalises people who have same sex relation; meaning, the state considers homosexual activity a crime.
Now if gay right is a human right, what would that mean? Now if gay right is a human right, the state has to take steps to positively and actively promote and legitimise it. This is what being an item of human right would mean. If starvation is a human right issue, then the state should not only starve people, but when there is starvation the state has to actively work and ensure that starvation is wiped out. Now this is problematic.
But are these two the only options -- The state criminalising homosexual activity and the state legitimising and advancing gay marriage saying that it is a matter of human right?
Now if same sex union is a human right, then those religious communities that teach the members of the community against homosexual practice cannot do that. Because saying that homosexual practice is morally wrong and should refrain from that would be a violation of human right of someone. So I would say that to argue for expression of homosexual taste. based on human right is a wrong-headed argument. In my previous post, from a different perspective I argue why same sex marriage should not be legalised, but also why it should not be criminalised; I argue that it should be a non-criminal act yet not a legalised act that the state affirms, recongises and celebrates. It should rather be treated like live-in relationship which is neither a criminal activity nor a legal union.
I agree that homosexual practice should be decriminalised. But to argue for that based on human right is, I think, a mistake. Human right is a thin idea. To put different kinds of right into the category of human right is to do disservice to human right. I think decriminalisation of same sex relation should rather be argued based on the idea of a liberal state.
So the third option is consider it as a non-criminal act, and leave it at that. This is to say that the state is not criminalising it nor is it legalising it. The state does not legitimise gay union no more or no less that it does with adultery or fornication. This way it leaves room for religious communities the freedom to shape the moral consciousness of the members and also the gays to be single or otherwise and also it leaves the state not too morally stringent that it curtails individual liberty nor too morally loose that age old civilisational scaffold like marriage and religious teachings are undermined.
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