Spirituality and Discrimination

The second part of the discussion of Kung's book at the UUJK on Saturday night centred around the last chapter of that book on Spirituality and Anti-Discrimination. 

The Christian church has traditionally stood on the side of the weak and the marginal element of society but on the question of its attitude towards homosexuality, the church seems to be on the opposite side of the weak. Whilst it is understandable that the church has very strong views on supporting the values and of reinforcing marriage as a social and religious institution, is it possible for a rational discussion to take place instead of polarizing those in favor and those against homosexuality?

Traditionally, marriage has always been considered as a union between members of opposite sexes. From such a point of view, any relationship outside of the scope of a one-man to one woman marriage for the purpose of procreation is regarded as immoral e.g homosexuality, prostitution, pre-marital sex, abortion , sodomy etc. However according to modern sexual studies, some would view homosexuality as merely a different kind of sexual orientation or apppetite rather like a person preferring to eat vegetables instead of meat and not necessarily as pathological and women studies have suggested that there is always an element of domination and power in the traditional relationship between a man and a woman and anthropological studies have revealed the role cultural and economic factors played in the fashioning or shaping of sex or gender roles eg. Foucault's History of Sexuality 1988  took the view that sex roles may be little more than the results of socialization through the imposition of the views of the politically and ideologically dominant class in society. If prostitution and homosexual relationship between two males in private have been de-criminalized, leaving only the solicitation of customers for sexual services and the engagement of acts of sex in public (although in this case, such probibition is just confined to the exhibition of sex organs and sex acts, irrespecitve of gender) criminal, Kung questions whether or not homosexuals should continue to be discriminated against in terms of job opportunities or other forms of discrimination so that they may enjoy the same level of protection as age, gender and race discrimination.

Historically, marriage has never been considered an exclusively personal matter. The 摩梭 ethnic minority in Yunnan province has traditionally permitted very loose sexual relationship with the family based on the mother in a matriarchical type of society, without any serious disruption of social order. It is therefore possible for a society to exist with a marriage system other than the Christian monogamous system. Support for equality of treatment of homosexual does not necessarily create any disruption of social order. Unless there is evidence to show that homosexuality is immoral, homosexuals therefore ought to be treated fairly and not unfairly discriminated against either in their job opportunities or in terms of the provision of services to them. The opponents of legislation to stop discrimination against homosexual argue that homosexuality is abnormal. Only in terms of the number of people having homosexual tendencies is concerned are they right. But the question is:  must something done only by a minority be necessarily morally wrong? Does that necessarily imply that they must therefore be discriminated against? If so, this is very dangerous thinking. If we oppose all kinds of minority opinion and conduct, then society may well become homogenous and monochrome. Is that desirable? Even if it is true that homosexual tendencies is numerically "abnormal",  does that necessarily mean that their rights should be infringed? J S. Mill has shown long ago that from what "is", you cannot derive what "ought"! In any event, who shall have authority to define what true humanity is? When morality is based on the will of God, in the form of the divine command theory of morality (which posit that anything God says is wrong is wrong and anything he says is right is right), without regard to an objective examination of whether certain behavior is harmful or harmless to society and instead of being based on rational arguments. If so, rational discussions becomes impossible because according to their believers, it is always wrong to oppose the will of God. What if people do not subscribe to the divine command theory of the Christians, is there an alternative basis for morality? Socrates asked the question more than 2000 years ago,"Is something good or a virtue because the gods command it or do the gods command it because it is good  or a virtue?" His conclusion is obvious. Yet even today, there is no lack of people who still act as if they never heard of Socrates' arguments!

There is another related problem in the discussion of homosexual legislation: when two sets of values are in conflict, must we necessarily accept only absolute moral relativism? Especially in the case of matters of values, do we need some degree of toleration? To Kung there may be two kinds of toleration: false toleration and true toleration. False toleration is based upon the superiority of one side of the opposition who think that they are right and their opponents wrong and that it is only out of sympathy or pity or indulgence on their part that they allow the homosexuals to have equal rights. It is a top-down and patronizing atttitude towards the weak and those who practise false toleration merely reinforce their own moral superiority and marginalize the homosexuals even further because only those who are wrong need to be "tolerated" as a matter of the superior party's magnanimity. They are not based on the consideration of whether those being tolerated have sufficient breathing space to express their own authentic homosexual orientation, in their own right and not by virtue of the mercy of the tolerators. To the false tolerators, toleration is not an end in itself but only a means to an end, the end being social harmony but only insofar as their own interest is not substantially jeopardized. True toleration is however is based on the tolerator's genuine good will and humility about the correctness of their own moral judgement and will never seek to demonize their opponents. Toleration will encourage rational discussion, mutual respect and emphasize the use of persuasive rational arguments and facts and evidence and is not afraid of conflict. Only when there is genuine or authentic toleration will the pluralistc society have a chance to survive. To Kung, genuine toleration is a social virtue and both sides to the controversy should be genuinely tolerant and those in favor of homesexuality must themselves not practice reverse prejudice or discrimination against those who are opposed to their homosexual views.

At the moment, all discussions around homosexuality issue are based on the concept of human rights. This is good because it avoids consideration of matters which are relevant only to those having certain religious beliefs. To Kung, when we consider homosexuality, we should never forget that sex is only one part of a person's life, not his whole life. To him, the advocates of toleration and equality of treatment of homosexual should not merely concentrate on their sexual orientation but on their right to exist as a total human person and their right to participate in matters of common concern to all members of a society. To Kung, we should treat homosexuals also a member of society and they should be given the opportunity to live a normal and healthy life, just like heterosexuals. All discussions therefore should concentrate on the question of the common good which includes respect for individual rights and freedoms and be based on rational arguments carried on in a civilized manner and not through mud-slinging matches. We must view homosexuals not just as homosexuals but as a member of the human race having different sexual orientation. If their lives and conducts are criticized, they should be criticized on standards applicable to all human beings. The purpose of all anti-discrimination legislation is to create social harmony, not to create social enemies out of the supporters and opponents of homosexual equal rights! 

To me, homosexual rights is a complex issue. According to Anne Moir and David Jessel in Brainsex (1998),  there are overwhelmingly more homosexual men than women. Kinsey puts it at as high as one in ten while only one in 100 women are lesbians and tavestitism is almost an entirely male preserve and they conclude that " sexual deviance is as much a function of biology --as much a product of nature--as the orthodox sexuality which society accepts as "natural". According to the studies done by Dr. Gunter Dörner of East Germany, whose theory has since been confirmed by numerous studies elsewhere, the configuring of the male brain occurs by three stages relating to what he calls the sex centres, the mating centres and the gender-role centres. In the second stage, he identifies the hypothalamus which is differently arranged in men and women and controls sexual behavior in adult life. In the final stage, the work is done by the hormones., which determines the level of our aggression/docility, sociability/individualism and adventurousness/timidity. And The development of the mating centre, the hypothalamus, can be upset by the lower concentration of androgens( male hormone) which deficiency pushes the man to develop into a homosexual. And likewise, the wiring of the gender-role centre can follow a male pattern in a female or a female pattern in a male. The brain is thus not sexed in one big bang but at various stages. This explains why there is more sexual deviance in men which has to go through several stages of development because their brains need hormones to change from their natural female brain into a male brain from the first six weeks of our life in the womb. Homosexuals who are effiminate have both their mating centres and gender-role centres messed up. If so, can we blame men for being homosexuals any more than we can blame them for being left-handed? Men develop homosexual tendencies for a number of reasons usually during the teenage period of sexual puberty. One reason is purely social: lack of female companionship during the school years eg. boy only schools and worse, boys boarding school in which case, it's just a question of availability of sexual partners. To develop his masculine sex role with secure sexual identities, boys need a strong father figure as a role model. . They will develop normally only if they got a warm, strong but non-domineering father. Because as a child, his role is more dependent (or female), docile, obedient but some mothers deliberately encourage their male children to remain dependent on her for her own emotional satisfaction. Thus if the father is absent or is a weak, ineffectual and demoralized, the chances of his son failing to develop full masculinity is high, especially if the mother is an excessively smothering type ie. a family with a weak or absent father and a dominant mother. They thus may become homosexuals because of their fear of performing competently as a man before women largely because of lack of learning opportunity at the appropriate age. The Kinsey sex study says that half of American males have had some form of homosexual activity and at least a third of them had achieved orgasm with other males. One study shows that the importance of the father to the child is more important than the type of technique he uses to pry his son from his mother towards masculinity. Some weaker boys prefer to play with girls as a strategy for social survival because they find the competition amongst boys too tough and may as a result of such constant association develop feminine character traits and mannerisms.

But many of the supporters and opponents of homosexual rights try to simplify the issues and in doing so, they supply for the lack of rational arguments and firm evidence by appeal to dogma, to authority or by their zeal in advocating their own cause. As Richard Holloway quoted in his Godless Morality, Bertrand Russell has wisely observed that zeal is a bad mark for a cause, because you only need zeal where the issues are unsettled. and where the arguments are equally balanced and it is uncertain who is right and who is wrong or who has better grounds for their views. No one will ever quarrel over a mulitiplication table because it is already clearly settled. Uncertainty creates fear and fear makes us anxious and anxiety makes us want to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and our need to a quick solution encourages us to simplify the issues so that we may have a simple solution. But simplification of truly complex issues can and will always backfire!.