Nature also dictates that leader of our society should be the strongest warrior among us all, and that any of our silly human institutions shouldn't exist.
Puberty merely means a human body is capable of sex. It makes no concessions as to if a person is emotionally capable of the reprecussions of such a decision. It's well and good to compare us to animals if an animalistic society you desire. But, unfortunately for your argument, our society is NOT anamalistic. Whether or not you agree with it, we have standards and we protect the rights of the individual. You may not think that sex is anything more than a diversion, but to some people it means much much more. Many of these people either don't know how much it means to them until they are older and many who hold it in high regard are easily mislead by pedophiles who would promise them more. It is for the naive, the ignorant and the just plain stupid that these laws exist. Also, it is to make the **** of a minor so much more costly to an individual found guilty of such a crime.
A child simply cannot consent to sex. He/she is not mature enough to make that decision at all. Now, some people get lucky and the decision they make as a child is the same decision they would have made as an adult capable of consenting. But, the fact remains, unless you have the mental, physical and emotional maturity to make the decision, you are not capable of giving what constitutes "consent".
Unfortunately, we cannot measure these levels of maturity objectively, even on a case by case basis. And, if we could try, it would still be an enormously innefecient endeavour. Age might not be a proper indicator of maturity, but it's very easy to measure and has a decent correlation. As such, it's the best measurement we have. One could argue that there are plenty who ARE of legal age who are immature, but there are enough who ARE mature enough to make the decision that it would be immoral to hold them back for the faults of their fellow man.
All that being a mere tangent to the original point: sex REQUIRES informed consent from both (or all... if you're kinky) involved parties in order to make it ethical. Nothing about homosexuality violates this precept. However, beastiality involves sex with a creature that, no matter how intelligent it may be for its species, is completely incapable of giving informed consent because of the massive gap in intelligence between man and other creatures. Pedophilia involves sex between a fully mature (or at least arguably so) adult and a jejune child. Some of the children are more mature than others but, generally, they are not mature enough, or even close to mature enough, to make such decisions. They have an overdeveloped trust in adults, for the most part, at these ages and a lack of understanding of the reprecussions of their actions. Sure they may be able to consent, but that consent can't be "informed" because they are not yet capable of fully apreciating the gravity of their decisions.
I think you'll find yourself rather alone in your stance on this issue Terran: you simply have no reasonable ground upon which to stand.
Now since that was a rather large deviation from what would be considered germane in this thread, I'll try to link this back to the point of this thread:
Is homosexuality
abnormal?
That depends on your definition of abnormal:
- yes, homosexuality is NOT the norm, therefore, it could be considered abnormal.
however,
- No, homosexuality might not be near as common as heterosexuality, but it is merely an inborn alternative to the standard much like blonde hair, while overwhelmingly less common than the norm, isn't considered an abnormality so much as a rare alternative.
But, is homosexuality
wrong?
- No. From a purely ethical standpoint, absolutely no school of ethics can find fault with the existance of homosexuality. Homosexuality does not impinge upon the greater good, thereby validating it by Utilitarian ethics and does not impinge upon the freedoms of an individual, thereby validating it by Kantian ethics. The other schools of ethics similarly condone homosexuality, while almost all find fault with pedophilia, beastiality and the opression of homosexuals. The only schools of ethics that could possibly find fault are those rooted deeply in religious basis (such as divine comand theory). And even THESE schools of ethics do not find homosexuality unethical. There are no shortage of interperetations of religious texts that find absolutely no grounds for sating the wrongness of homosexuality based on the texts (pretty much every theological scholar I have encounted shares such a belief). However, all serious interperetations of the text would find fault in the snuffing out of such practices. Therefore, even the intereperetations that would claim that it is wrong for homosexuality to exist would claim that it is MORE wrong to attempt to snuff it out.
I really wouldn't recommend entering a debate against anyone who's going to tell you that it's wrong because, chances are, they are biggoted and won't give an inch even if you provide enough ammunition to move a mountain of doubt to any reasonable thinker. However, if you are bound and determined to bring the belifes of others into question, then make sure you have a good understanding of the principles that you will be debating. Read into different ethical schools and, more than likely, you'll need to research the Bible to take out the beliefs of some others. Just make sure you don't go into such a battle unarmed if you're going to go at all. If not, however, I suppose you can just check out the points I have listed above and feel better than no serious ethial philosopher could ever find fault with us.
I will. Or, at least, I will behave enough.
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