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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.motss,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: "Justifying" beliefs based on "western moral tradition"
Message-ID: <971@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Aug-84 10:00:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.971
Posted: Mon Aug 13 10:00:39 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Aug-84 02:12:04 EDT
References: <3107@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 37

> To advance your cause you appropriate
> moral language of the Western tradition and stand it on it's head.

> There is however, a public forum in which you had better be prepared with
> more than slogans and calls for keeping it all very polite.  You do yourselves
> no favors by merely asserting the line that you can't help being homosexual
> because the vast majority, I believe, do not buy that and will not buy that
> without some kind of data or cogent argument to back it up.

How does one alter a biased "morality" by using existing morality as a
reference?  Does one need to?  Does it matter?  Is morality just a popular
consensus?

Frankly, I'd be ashamed to have to use "western moral tradition" as the basis
for any of my beliefs.  This is the same morality that gave us the Spanish
Inquisition, the witch trials, the pogroms, virulent anti-Semitism and anti-
ANYTHINGism where that ANYTHING didn't fit in to its mold, and two bloody
world wars.  If *I* was asked to defend *my* beliefs based on western moral
tradition, I'd simply laugh and win the argument by forfeit.

As I mentioned in an earlier article, it would seem that the only way one
would be allowed to propose a change in the moral structure (vacuous as it may
be) is to 1) show that what you're proposing is already part of the moral
tradition, and 2) secure an eleven tenths majority of the voting body that
determines ultimate morality, be it popular consensus or secret conclave.

On "justifying" sexuality based on biological factors/personal choice:

> So where do we stand gang?  Is there any responsibity for sexual behavior?
> Heterosexual?  Homosexual?  

Again, does it matter.  Why is such a big deal made over this?  Do people
have to "justify" their sexuality?  Their personal beliefs?  Their tastes
in music?  Food?  To whom?  Why???????
-- 
It doesn't matter what you wear, just as long as you are there.
						Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr