www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Russian lawmakers move to recriminalize homosexuality

To bring this topic back around, the government has an interest in the issue when the action also harms another person or society as a whole.

Does homosexual behavior harm society as a whole? Does it harm another person? Does it harm children? Does it harm families, the very structure of society?

I believe it does.

I, personally, am not in favor of five years in prison or hard labor for homosexual behavior. I am in favor of the government taking a moral stand, though. For instance, by not placing them under protection through hate laws, which effectively ban anyone being against homosexual activity. By not requiring private agencies to provide aid and assistance to them, especially when that aid will harm others (such as adoption of children into homosexual active households). By not providing tax breaks to them comparable to married households (the reason tax breaks are provided to married households is to encourage marriage and family life, which stabilizes society, something homosexual unions do not do). So I do believe the government has an interest in it. I also believe the interest stops at some point in time and becomes dictatorial instead of serving the people.

That is what freedom is. To be able to do something that others may not agree with as long as you do not harm them.

If I decide to drive on the wrong side of the road (we're taking the libertarian ideology to the extreme for arguments sake), I am not hurting anyone. It has a high probability of hurting someone, but it hasn't yet. Should a person be prosecuted for putting someone else at risk, and not the actual crime itself? What harm have they actually done?

This scenario is assuming that people are so stupid that they actually would drive on the wrong side of the road. I assume the best in people that the vast majority wouldn't put other people at harm.

And I'm just taking this to the extreme for arguments sake. Just as I use the slippery slope of saying that soon they could legislate us drinking, smoking, and going to church (the first two the govt has been cutting down our freedom to do bit by bit and continues to do so), you can use the slippery slope to ask what would happen if we gave people TOO much freedom (such as driving on wrong side of road, carrying bazooka in downtown).

I tend to error on the side of too much freedom.

Ok, I'm done, back on subject.

Sorry, personal liberties and freedom are a big deal to me.

Thank you for your patience!

Dear Wondering,


I believe that anti-sodomy laws were put on the books in states of the U.S. as being laws regarding 'the crime against nature'.

Alice

We agree on much Wondering.

I also do not want them under hate law protection. I don't believe in hate laws of any kind. If you hurt someone, you hurt them, doesn't matter if it was random or race driven, you still hurt them.

I also believe in the freedom of private agencies to deal with whom they please, and should not be required by the govt to take certain clients or provide aid to certain people.

I also don't believe in tax breaks for them. I don't believe it is the government�s duty to recognize any marriages, that is the duty of the church. They dangle tax breaks as an excuse to increase bureaucracy and their involvement in our personal lives, and it gets politicians votes.


Exactly, I believe it is our duty as citizens to stop the govt from getting too dictorial, and we just disagree on where that line is. To me we crossed the line here in the US under FDR, and it has been a downward spiral ever since.

Disregarding the pluses and minuses of this law, and the question of whether it's the State's job to enforce laws like this, could the driving factor behind this law be the single-most important and pressing issue the Russian government has been trying to cope with of late: the fact that, if the trends continue, the Russians will literally abort and contracept themselves out of existence within a matter of decades?

The Russian government, as discussed here in certain threads, has even considered (and enacted?) laws that would pay Russian women thousands of dollars for every child they bring into this world. The government is very, very frightened about the massive fall in population in Russia, and justifiably so. Perhaps this proposed law is just part of the bigger picture, i.e. to increase fertility in the Russian people who by their own choice would commit to other avenues...

Logos - Alexis

Good point Logos - Alexis,

I wonder if that could have something to do with it. I wonder what percentage of the Russian population is gay? I never saw it when I studied there for a semester, but obviously that doesn't mean it didn't exist!

I was told during communist days when it was illegal the hookup place was in front of the Bolshoy Theater. Just as it still went on then when it was illegal, it would still go on now if it was, but perhaps it would cut it down some.

I don't understand how society expects young couples to have lots of kids. Financially it's almost impossible. I want to have a huge family, but in today�s world trying to survive on one parents income (plus my wife works part time from home) is DIFFICULT. How the heck does the govt expect us to afford it?

In my opinion it�s the fault of the feminist revolution and instilling the idea that a woman cannot be totally contempt with her life unless she has a career...HOGWASH. Now we have twice as many people in the workforce as we did when houses were predominately a one income household with the wife raising the kid. Wages are down, housing prices are through the roof (due to competition with two income households), and western society is wondering why couples don't want to have more than two kids?

Sorry, I just had to vent.

I'm waiting for the usual suspects to post that we are not Christian for not supporting "homosexual rights!"

I think the worst of them have gone. There are a few hanging around but not as many as several months ago. Western Civilization is almost an oxymoron. While I dearly love teaching at the college level I find facing some of the perversity very difficult. I guess one might say it creeps me out.

CDL

I doubt it. I'm not a student of Russia, so I might be wrong on this. But, I doubt that this proposed law is an expression of concern about falling birth rates. Instead, I think it is simple bigotry against homosexuals.

Also, I scanned the previous posts on this thread, and I found them disturbing. Some were equating homosexuality with suicide, drug abuse, and prostitution. (It reminds me of the frequent comparison, by Christian conservatives, of homosexuality with abortion.) Others were equating homosexuality with mental illness. Others don't want the government to recriminalize homosexuality; but they do want the government to "take a stand" against homosexuality by removing any protections for homosexuals under the law.

I find all of this ridiculous. Homosexuality is not the same thing as suicide, drug abuse, or prostitution. (And, for that matter, homosexuality is not the same thing as abortion.) Homosexuality is not a mental illness.

Homosexuals are people with a same-sex attraction. That's all.

Yet, because of that, they have been historically vilified and hated and persecuted and murdered. Thus, they need legal protections --just like other persecuted classes of people-- to insure that they are not persecuted again.

Homosexuals are not out to ruin the world. Homosexuals are "out" in order to be treated as human beings -- with rights, and dignity.

And I do wish, especially as Christians, that we could actually love our brothers and sisters who are gay instead of fearing them and hating them.

-- John

John,

Like the extreme and dangerous lies and exaggerations that so many have fallen for concerning the Inquisition you seem to have fallen for the lies and exaggerations regarding the horrible way homosexualists have been treated over the years.

CDL

I know this is a hot-button issue that inflames many people. However, I will point out that homosexuality is not the only sin. There are plenty of others around, also.

It is the one most shoved in our faces. To calm your nerves I assure you that God opposes all of them. I oppose them to though I sometimes find myself stumbling into one or another. I haven't formed any associations to promote those sins nor have I demanded that anyone accept them either officially or unofficially.

Sleep well.

CDL