Who died and made you...

Recently I have been wondering, who sets the moral standards of society, and who sets the moral standards of the gay society? What is morality anyway? Depending on whom you ask, you will obviously get different responses.

One thing I learnt though is that I was woefully ignorant! It truly is bliss. All I (thought i) knew about morality is what was taught me in church. I really had never taken the time to research what the different views on the subject were. So I decided to google it and I went through a series of web sites and research papers. I actually did not know that secular authorities do have definitions of morality.

Social anthropologists, psychologists will define morality as matters relating to harm, and Justice. These are the foundations to which moral conduct is judged. A theses by Haidt & Graham also includes three more tenets, Loyalty, Authority and Chastity. But they all agree that moral judgement is based on intuition, i.e. gut feeling. And on those foundations do we all judge one thing as moral or not.

Whenever discussions on homosexuality arise, they will definitely revolve around issues of what people perceive as moral. There will be two camps. The liberals, who basically rely on the tenets of justice and harm (which tend to the needs of the individual) and therefore they have no problem with the rights of the gays since they harm no one and it is just to give them a fair chance. On the other hand, there are the conservatives (esp. fundamental Christian's) that also include the authority and chastity tenets with equal gravity. To them, an issue for instance like gay marriages will go against established institutions, which would be amoral/immoral. And gay sex would be amoral/immoral as it goes against principles of chastity!

Understanding the viewpoints of these groups will be important when it comes to the fight for inclusion for the gays. Presenting the homosexual lifestyle as acceptable to persons that have for all time hold fast some intuitive notions on sexuality and institutions will be an uphill task. Violent confrontation will definitely not yield to anything. The gay man has to come up with tactics that will bring down the barriers that have been set up to protect these viewpoints on sexuality and institutions.

What tactics are these you ask? Guess I'll have to keep on googling for now, unless you have any ideas :)