I received the following in an email message from someone who does not like the idea that laws have a religious foundation:
Scott: “What 2 people do in their bedroom is not my business or yours.”
Dear Scott,
I don’t know anybody who wants the state to invade the bedroom in all cases. (Rape, incest, and even murder take place in bedrooms, so obviously there are some exceptions.) As long as homosexuals practiced their disgusting behavior behind closed door, few people ever bothered them. But homosexuality is not closeted any more. It’s being taught in schools all across the country as an alternative lifestyle to impressionable children. Homosexuals parade their behavior in the streets. More homosexuals have killed other homosexuals than any theocracy might ever do. Consider the tens of thousands of homosexuals who have died as the result of AIDS and the billions of dollars it has cost our society.
The law does pick out certain groups: child molesters, pedophiles, rapists, murderers, drug pushers, etc. Chastity Bono, Anne Heche, and Ellen DeGeneres, among others, have admitted that they were sexually molested as children, homosexually molested. Older homosexuals prey on vulnerable young boys and mess with their developing sexuality. Homosexuality is learned by some very bad examples.
Are you calling for the legalization of mother-son, father-daughter, father-son, mother-daughter consensual sex? If consent and privacy are the standards for behavior, then you have a problem.
How about Armin Meiwes who placed a personal ad on the internet, seeking “a young, well-built man who wants to be eaten”? A man actually answered the ad. Bernd Brandes, a man who is said to have had an obsession with pain, allowed himself to be killed and eaten by Meiwes. Did Meiwes commit a crime? Meiwes’ lawyer argued that this was a case of “killing on request,” a consensual killing done in the privacy of his home. No one was hurt because Brandes wanted to be killed and eaten. Columnist and physician Theodore Dalrymple wrote the following in City Journal: Meiwes and Brandes were consenting adults: By what right, therefore, has the state interfered in their slightly odd relationship. . . . Brandes decided that it was in his interests to be eaten, and in general, we believe that the individual, not the state, is the best judge of his own interests."
There you have it. Consensual cannibalism is considered nothing more than “odd behavior.”
Consider A Natural History of Rape by Drs. Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer where they argue that “rape” is natural, a “Darwinian imperative” to reproduce and pass on one’s genes. According to the authors, rape is “an adaptive reproductive strategy.” It used to be argued that rape was “an act of aggression, designed to intimidate women.” Not anymore. It’s a way to strengthen the gene pool.
Your position is logically in tune with the cases cited above. You might have an aversion to rape and cannibalism, but there is nothing in your worldview that could legislate against them.
Sincerely,
Gary DeMar
The dilemma of the desire for moral absolutes haunts those advocating a libertine ethic. They will recoil at the logic of my response, but they have no answer to it within the narrow confines of their worldview. They will begrudgingly borrow moral elements from the Christian worldview, but this ethical deus ex machina is a sham. Christian morality is used as a temporary prop to sustain a paradigm that cannot stand on its own. Some will agree with my logic, and that’s the horror of it all.