Comments on: Harvey Milk and the Politics of Normalization

By: voigreereob

voigreereob — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:26:03 +0000

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By: Madzionist

Madzionist — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:02:49 +0000

‘Round and ’round we go. I guess that means we’ve come to an impasse; you want to have a discussion about my personal thoughts on homosexuality, which I flatly refuse to do, while I want to have a discussion on the ethical ramifications of genetic science and how homosexuality could be affected, but you refuse to have such a conversation.

/Thread.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:37:12 +0000

“The real point is whether or not parents-to-be should have the right to customize the genetics of their children, and, if so, to what degree.” – but not Alex’s point at all; if you’re raising a new, only tangentially related question it’s reasonable to ask where you stand on it; by raising such issues you grant legitimacy to ideas (“curing” gays or that gays are “defective”)that many of us find abhorent. As Alex said, it’s as morally neutral as innocently bringing up the question of “curing jewishness” as if this was within the bounds of reasonable debate, i.e not at all. You’ve already projected your morality to a certain extent; you might as well be explicit.

By: Madzionist

Madzionist — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:35:33 +0000

Nick, I’m really not interested in projecting my own morality into this debate, and don’t really intend to either. Certainly many people have no problem with homosexuality, hell some probably see it as superior to heterosexuality, while others obviously view it as a defective condition that leads to a life sentence of being an outcast with a disproportionally high likelihood of contracting a terminal illness. What I personally think about homosexuality, or for that matter gender, hair color, or height selection, is not important at all int he framework of this discussion. Irrelevant, actually. The real point is whether or not parents-to-be should have the right to customize the genetics of their children, and, if so, to what degree.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:00:44 +0000

Madzionist- you bought up the question of eugenics, which wasn’t really pertinent to Alex’s post. It’s very hard question to raise in a morally neutral way- I would venture that for most of us, there’s no ethical dilemna here in the way there might be for preventing genetic defects, because most people (who read the blog, anyway) don’t see same-sex relations as a problem; on the contrary. Do you see homosexuality as a social problem, to be cured if the means become available and other ethical considerations are resolved? Why have you framed it in this way?

By: Madzionist

Madzionist — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:57:26 +0000

Exactly, Alex. There are always going to be questions like these about what is and what isn’t permissible in terms of the science of genetics. Is it ethical or unethical to predetermine the sexual orientations of our children? If parents want to produce only hetero babies, and the science exists to do so, is it right or wrong for them to be provided the option as we can do now with gender? How about the height, or the eye color? Skin color? Singing ability? We are approaching an era where the customization of our offspring is becoming more and more of a reality, and how we choose to play God with our technology is a matter of social, political, ethical and religious debate. No simple, knee-jerk answers suffice when embarking on such complexity.

By: Alex Stein

Alex Stein — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:58:12 +0000

MadZionist – why does homosexuality need curing any more than heterosexuality?

By: Madzionist

Madzionist — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:54:20 +0000

Alex, there is unquestionably a genetic proclivity for sexual orientation. The question of whether that means genetic science should cure it at some point is a matter of ethical perspective. What’s interesting to me is that as genetic research continues, ethical questions like these will continue to be more commonplace. What is the ethical line on cloning? Should we cure dwarfism? Should we be able to custom build our babies intelligence, hair/skin/eye color, height in a tube?

As genetic science and technology continues to develop, the ethical taboos of the times will be shifting with them, and profound ethical debates and fears will be at the forefront of each potential breakthrough.

By: Alex Stein

Alex Stein — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:33:19 +0000

Nick – agreed, of course sexual identity can be much more fluid, but this is a 900 word off the cuff blog-post!
Gaon – I don’t remember him promising to publicly out people, although I do remember him encouraging people to out themselves.
MadZionist – what if I said that Judaism could be cured through genetics?
Also, I posted this on Harry’s Place, and the comments are worth looking at
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/03/18/harvey-milk-and-the-politics-of-normalization/

By: Madzionist

Madzionist — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:26:54 +0000

Very well written review. I haven’t seen the movie, don’t intend to see the movie, but I can appreciate the layers of depth in which you evaluate homosexual lifestyle issues. One consideration that you didn’t touch upon is how the attitudes, morality and ethics of homosexual society could be transformed if/when AIDS should be cured/vaccinated.

Personally, I see homosexuality itself to be a condition that could eventually be cured by genetic science, perhaps via the path of stem cell research, which raises a still much deeper question regarding where the lines between science and ethics could/should be drawn.