Arf!
Guy’s walking along, innocent like, when, lo, he has his “nuts bit off by a Laplander“.
Perhaps needless to say, his young wife is distressed over the incident. What goes through the poor man’s mind, as you men out there will understand, is easy to guess. But, more importantly, can we say the man now has a disability?
You bet we can.
Suppose instead that, from before birth, a genetic anomaly, the feared Lapinkoira Suomenlapinkoira syndrome, causes the man to be born without the extremities so enticing to the aforementioned hound. He still have a disability?
Yes, and the same one.
And would it also be a disability if the syndrome did its number on only the first of the pair of pertinents? Yes. Not firing on all cylinders is a disability. Not all disabilities are as disabling as others: disabilities have gradations.
Now suppose another man, by whatever method, by choice or by biochemical means as yet undiscovered, despite an intense search and lack of plausible mechanism, acts exclusively on his self-declared same-sex attraction. He have a disability?
He does. It is effectively the same disability as the man who met the dog. The second man cannot reproduce, and, with trivial and known qualifications, not being able to reproduce is a disability.
But wait. This is the modern world, and what was trivial and obvious to our ancestors is hidden and difficult for many of us. A prepubescent male is unable to reproduce, but his inability is not a disability, because—and be careful agreeing with me here, for that will have deep consequences—it is not in the nature of prepubescents to be able to reproduce.
Being stuck on a desert isle—or in a Womyn’s Studies Department, which is a near equivalent—is also a bar to reproduction, but it is obvious that it is not a disability, just the lack of chance for an ability.
Choosing not to reproduce is also not a disability, but the refusal to use an ability. The man who has same-sex attraction is only refusing to use his ability to reproduce in the most trifling sense. It is exactly the same sense when a normal man refuses to use his ability on any but his own wife: he could, but he chooses not to (“desert-isle” circumstance may prevent him even if he chooses to).
No. We are told, and supporters are adamant, that same-sex attraction is not a choice. It is therefore a disability, because the lack of the ability to reproduce is a disability. And this is so because it is in the nature of men to reproduce. Ask your father for verification.
The only possible objection to this is to deny the nature of man. If you do that, you also deny the nature of prepubescent males. You must even deny the difference between males and females, for to recognize any distinction is to recognize human nature, and if you recognize human nature the only questions left are what characteristics are proper to man’s nature and which are accidents. But if you insist same-sex attraction is not a disability, then you are are left arguing that reproduction is not natural, which is absurd.
The conclusion is that (exclusive) same-sex attraction is a disability, and a major one. Of course, lacking a foot or having congestive heart failure are also disabilities, not necessarily to reproduction, but to health in general. Having a disability is not therefore in itself a judgment on a person’s morality. Acts are always reason for a judgment on a person’s morality. And there we leave it.
This is but an introduction to the real story, which is this: Christian Organization Apologizes After Keynote Speaker Argues That Homosexuality Is a Disability.
Michael Rea, president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, apologized Saturday to anyone who may have been offended by a recent presentation by leading Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne at the 2016 Midwest Society of Christian Philosophers in which Swinburne said homosexuality could be considered a disability.
More about it here: ‘Shut Up, Bigot!’ The Philosophers Argued. Another attendee, one Hackett, said, “My response was mixture of abhorrence and overwhelming anger”, which only proves he doesn’t get out of the house enough—or that he is willing to use hyperbole to advance a fallacy.
Rea’s and Hackett’s conclusion is that a (most mild-mannered) Christian speaking of the historic and accurate interpretation of Christianity at a Christian philosophy conference now requires apology.
Reportedly, Swinburne also said same-sex attraction is “incurable”, a mistake and false in fact. There have been many men who reported prior exclusive same-sex attraction but who were able to lose their disability.
Regular readers will recall the prediction that the time is soon coming where the culture will demand not only that you not disavow homosexual acts, and not only that you not just tolerate them, but where you will you be required to say they are in some sense superior to heterosexual acts. Claiming, what is true, that homosexuality is a disability will be classed as “hate speech”, and will be proscribed.
Bonus A Georgetown University academic philosopher says Swinburne and his supporters, whom she labels “douche tankards”, can, she says, “suck my giant queer [go and find out which learned word she used].”