6 ms·

>being gay is illegal in many places. Is that true? Or is it the behavior that's illegal?

by jimmyk 9y ago

acchow 9y ago
Can you explain why and how you think these are different?
- jimmyk 9y ago
  They're pretty obviously different. One is a characteristic of a person, and one is an action that can be taken by a person.
  - wybiral 9y ago
    Sure, if we're being pedantic it's hard to enforce laws against "being" gay so they enforce laws against "acting" gay. And until those countries figure out mind control it's just going to be oppression of their actions. Now that we've cleared that up, I still think laws against "acting" gay are wrong (within the same framework that it's legal to "act" heterosexual).
    - jimmyk 9y ago
      Laws against inherent characteristics seem to me at least to be worse than laws which ban behavior. Conflating the two in order to make some particular law sound worse seems sort of dishonest to me.
      - 7952 9y ago
        Perhaps. But within the context of gay rights it is the government that behaved improperly. Society bundled behaviour and innate characteristics into a single thing. That was wrong, and it is important to highlight that. Of course in a post homophobic world the distinction is rather irrelevant. It makes no difference to anyone if homosexuality is innate, or just a set of chosen behaviours. Why would it matter either way? But for a while it was necessary to remind people that you don't have any choice about being gay, or about having gay relationships. That claim was a response to homophobia, not something rooted in science of philosophy
        gorkonsine 9y ago
        There's still plenty of conservative people who believe the being gay is a personal choice, or perhaps something caused by your upbringing/environment, not something you're born with. Of course, this has as much veracity as the idea that the Earth is flat or that the Sun and planets revolve around it, but there's a lot of people who believe it.
        7952 9y ago
        But the whole argument is ridiculous. Maybe there is a choice element to being gay. So what? That is a perfectly valid choice to make. But attacking someone for that is not valid, it is completely perverse. It seems to me that the purpose of the "born with it" argument is to develop empathy among people who lack understanding. Because it helps explain why people act on their feelings, even if they are not a good idea. We can all relate to the power of lust, love etc. It is an important point to make. But that argument only has relevance to people who find it distasteful in the first place. The argument is a reaction to homophobia.
        gorkonsine 9y ago
        I agree that it's a valid choice to make, and people should have the freedom to make such choices if they want. However, you said before that "It makes no difference to anyone if homosexuality is innate, or just a set of chosen behaviours." and that's incorrect. It does make a difference, to some people. To those people, they'd oppose it if it were proven to simply be a choice, whereas they'd have more empathy if it were proven to be completely innate: it'd like being mad at a mentally-retarded person for doing something dumb, compared to being mad at or disappointed in a very intelligent person for making a very dumb decision. I'm not defending this mentality (because again, I have no problem with homosexuality and I think people should be free to have whatever physical relationships they want), but I'm explaining it. Also, remember that a lot of people (particularly religious ones) want to regulate social behavior, even in the bedroom, because they believe this is important for society's survival and prosperity. So in their view, homosexuals should be oppressed (either strongly by the state, or more weakly by social pressure) for the good of society, and to keep their behavior from "spreading". There's not really a way to counter this mentality by people like us because their worldview is so entirely alien to us: we don't believe in divine retribution for "immoral" behavior (a la Sodom & Gomorrah) and they do, and nothing's going to shake their belief.
wybiral 9y ago
...It's legal to think about murder as long as you don't behave that way. That doesn't mean murder is legal. Is there a reason for the distinction?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  > ...It's legal to think about murder as long as you don't behave that way. Sort of. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1117 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1117 ("conspiracy to commit murder") only requires one person to take action and everyone in the group that did the thinking with them is guilty of a crime. This is in the US, but I would be quite surprised if various other countries did not have similar statutes. More generally, there are all sorts of laws out there that effectively criminalize thoughtcrime rather than behavior. Of course behavior might be needed for anyone to _discover_ the thoughtcrime.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Sort of. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1117 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1117 ("conspiracy to commit murder") only requires one person to take action and everyone in the group that did the thinking with them is guilty of a crime. Wrong. It requires all the people to have taken action to communicate their intention to collaborate on the plan, and only one of them to have taken additional action toward acheiving it. People don't think in groups; thoughts have to manifest as action for people to conspire.
    - bzbarsky 9y ago
      > to communicate their intention to collaborate on the plan What the law says is "conspire to violate". If person X and person Y together work out a way for person Y to commit murder and then person Y commits murder, is person X considered as conspiring? > People don't think in groups Sure they do. It's called "conversation" or "correspondence". If we had telepathy, we could skip the transcoding to sound or text, but we don't yet, but fundamentally it's the same thing.
treyfitty 9y ago
I think what you're trying to ask is: Is being labeled gay grounds for imprisonment? Or does one have to be caught in the act of fornicating with a male to be imprisoned? I'm sure it depends on the jurisdiction, but many jurisdictions that have this kind of explicit law usually frowns upon homosexuality so much, that the mere accusation is enough to be damaging.
- jimmyk 9y ago
  What I'm asking is more like, if the government microphone in your potted plant hears you coming out as gay to your friends, would that be grounds for criminal punishment?
- __jal 9y ago
  > Or does one have to be caught in the act of fornicating with a male [...] I think your definition needs some work.

>being gay is illegal in many places. Is that true? Or is it the behavior that's illegal?

by jimmyk 9y ago

>being gay is illegal in many places. Is that true? Or is it the behavior that's illegal?

acchow 9y ago

Can you explain why and how you think these are different?

jimmyk 9y ago
They're pretty obviously different. One is a characteristic of a person, and one is an action that can be taken by a person.
- wybiral 9y ago
  Sure, if we're being pedantic it's hard to enforce laws against "being" gay so they enforce laws against "acting" gay. And until those countries figure out mind control it's just going to be oppression of their actions. Now that we've cleared that up, I still think laws against "acting" gay are wrong (within the same framework that it's legal to "act" heterosexual).
  - jimmyk 9y ago
    Laws against inherent characteristics seem to me at least to be worse than laws which ban behavior. Conflating the two in order to make some particular law sound worse seems sort of dishonest to me.
    - 7952 9y ago
      Perhaps. But within the context of gay rights it is the government that behaved improperly. Society bundled behaviour and innate characteristics into a single thing. That was wrong, and it is important to highlight that. Of course in a post homophobic world the distinction is rather irrelevant. It makes no difference to anyone if homosexuality is innate, or just a set of chosen behaviours. Why would it matter either way? But for a while it was necessary to remind people that you don't have any choice about being gay, or about having gay relationships. That claim was a response to homophobia, not something rooted in science of philosophy
      - gorkonsine 9y ago
        There's still plenty of conservative people who believe the being gay is a personal choice, or perhaps something caused by your upbringing/environment, not something you're born with. Of course, this has as much veracity as the idea that the Earth is flat or that the Sun and planets revolve around it, but there's a lot of people who believe it.
        7952 9y ago
        But the whole argument is ridiculous. Maybe there is a choice element to being gay. So what? That is a perfectly valid choice to make. But attacking someone for that is not valid, it is completely perverse. It seems to me that the purpose of the "born with it" argument is to develop empathy among people who lack understanding. Because it helps explain why people act on their feelings, even if they are not a good idea. We can all relate to the power of lust, love etc. It is an important point to make. But that argument only has relevance to people who find it distasteful in the first place. The argument is a reaction to homophobia.
        gorkonsine 9y ago
        I agree that it's a valid choice to make, and people should have the freedom to make such choices if they want. However, you said before that "It makes no difference to anyone if homosexuality is innate, or just a set of chosen behaviours." and that's incorrect. It does make a difference, to some people. To those people, they'd oppose it if it were proven to simply be a choice, whereas they'd have more empathy if it were proven to be completely innate: it'd like being mad at a mentally-retarded person for doing something dumb, compared to being mad at or disappointed in a very intelligent person for making a very dumb decision. I'm not defending this mentality (because again, I have no problem with homosexuality and I think people should be free to have whatever physical relationships they want), but I'm explaining it. Also, remember that a lot of people (particularly religious ones) want to regulate social behavior, even in the bedroom, because they believe this is important for society's survival and prosperity. So in their view, homosexuals should be oppressed (either strongly by the state, or more weakly by social pressure) for the good of society, and to keep their behavior from "spreading". There's not really a way to counter this mentality by people like us because their worldview is so entirely alien to us: we don't believe in divine retribution for "immoral" behavior (a la Sodom & Gomorrah) and they do, and nothing's going to shake their belief.

wybiral 9y ago

...It's legal to think about murder as long as you don't behave that way. That doesn't mean murder is legal. Is there a reason for the distinction?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bzbarsky 9y ago
> ...It's legal to think about murder as long as you don't behave that way. Sort of. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1117 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1117 ("conspiracy to commit murder") only requires one person to take action and everyone in the group that did the thinking with them is guilty of a crime. This is in the US, but I would be quite surprised if various other countries did not have similar statutes. More generally, there are all sorts of laws out there that effectively criminalize thoughtcrime rather than behavior. Of course behavior might be needed for anyone to _discover_ the thoughtcrime.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Sort of. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1117 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1117 ("conspiracy to commit murder") only requires one person to take action and everyone in the group that did the thinking with them is guilty of a crime. Wrong. It requires all the people to have taken action to communicate their intention to collaborate on the plan, and only one of them to have taken additional action toward acheiving it. People don't think in groups; thoughts have to manifest as action for people to conspire.
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    > to communicate their intention to collaborate on the plan What the law says is "conspire to violate". If person X and person Y together work out a way for person Y to commit murder and then person Y commits murder, is person X considered as conspiring? > People don't think in groups Sure they do. It's called "conversation" or "correspondence". If we had telepathy, we could skip the transcoding to sound or text, but we don't yet, but fundamentally it's the same thing.

treyfitty 9y ago

I think what you're trying to ask is: Is being labeled gay grounds for imprisonment? Or does one have to be caught in the act of fornicating with a male to be imprisoned? I'm sure it depends on the jurisdiction, but many jurisdictions that have this kind of explicit law usually frowns upon homosexuality so much, that the mere accusation is enough to be damaging.

jimmyk 9y ago
What I'm asking is more like, if the government microphone in your potted plant hears you coming out as gay to your friends, would that be grounds for criminal punishment?
__jal 9y ago
> Or does one have to be caught in the act of fornicating with a male [...] I think your definition needs some work.