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Common Sense on Gay Rights
| Article
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11188 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1993 |
2,328 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
The issues of gay rights and alternative types of families are extremely controversial and generate enormous anger and political energy. We cannot, even if we wished, withdraw from these issues, for the parties involved will not allow this. A Kulturkampf is in process that will profoundly affect American and world society and politics. It is, therefore, quite important to think through these issues as objectively as possible.
I will try to apply some common sense to these issues. But first I must confess two predispositions. I stem from a time and culture profoundly prejudiced against these new social and political claims. Although I hope, and believe, I can rise above past acculturation in discussing these issues, it is only fair to note it. A second arises from my familiarity with variations in social and cultural organization throughout human history. A vast variety of human relationships have been consistent with stable and eufunctional social systems, and the forms of such relationships have been transformed over time with only transitional, although often severe, angst.
However, no system has been open-ended in its relationships, as ours is tending to become. And it is likely that no social system can tolerate such variety or acculturate individuals with stable character in its presence. The reader interested in further discussion of this topic can read my essay, "The Right to Be Left Alone Is the Right to Be No One," republished in Law in a Democratic Society. And I will say a few words on the subject at the end of this essay.
A third qualification is in order. Although science will shed light on some of these issues, broad conclusions will rest on informed, even if commonsensical, speculation. All parties run a serious risk of being wrong in their factual estimates, their evaluations of possible consequences, and their understanding of the moral issues that are invoked. However, we know that most mutations are failures, that there are many ways to take a mechanical watch apart and only one way to return it to its working state. Even though no society can survive, let alone improve, without changes in social relationships--including past changes, for instance, in race relationships, that we now recognize as enlightened--prudence properly should place a high burden on proposed change.
THE HOMOSEXUAL ISSUE
Let me start with the homosexual and lesbian issue. First, let us note that many homosexuals and lesbians are intelligent,
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