The Colby Echo

Issue date: 9/16/09 Section: Opinions

Those who assume that the campaign for marriage equality is the central front in the war for the improvement of the gay condition have, in accepting this assumption, already given the ground to our enemies. And for this egregious violation of the basic rules of war, they deserve neither marriage equality nor even the hope for an improvement in the gay condition.

Marriage is not a natural or necessary feature of human existence but, like all human institutions, is merely an artificial construct and it has existed for so long that its meaning and values are largely accepted rather than determined.
It is not a given that relationships must be between men and women or between two people or even should exist in perpetuity. And to make any of these assumptions is to commit the same naturalist or mystical fallacy that is committed by the homophobes and bigots who not only oppose gay marriage but also hate the very existence of gay people.
These people contend either that God deems gay sex and relationships to be a sin or that homosexuality is unnatural because it seemingly does nothing for the continuance of the species. Similarly, gay advocates assume that marriage has some inherent value and meaning that inspires them to lobby for legislation recognizing gay marriages.

But there is no God and nature is not the dictator of what is right and wrong but merely provides one with the data from which he must use reason to subjectively determine what is morally right for himself.

Furthermore, there is no ultimate purpose to life because such a fact would imply that at the end of life, it would be possible to reach some goal; but, since the end of life is merely the cessation of existence, there can be no inherent purpose for living.

And if there is no ultimate purpose to life then to live, we must create a reason for living. On a more meta-ethical level, we can determine the basis for a pro-life morality by identifying the potential kinds of 'being' that are possible.

The two fundamental alternatives that confront any human being who chooses to live is between leading a life of suffering or one of happiness. Of course, one could live a life that is defined as being neither one of happiness nor of suffering but all such lives could only be defined in relation to these two essential kinds of living. Because there is no after-life, the only kind of 'being' that would make life worth living is a happy one.

Continued...

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