In honor of Valentine's Day, I would like to present today a philosophical theory of love. I began thinking about the theory I am presenting here (which I have not put in writing before) several years ago, in response to a paper which I now cannot find (I don't remember the author's name), which we read in my very first philosophy class at WSU. I believe the author said something about "love as valuation." My view is not the same as that of the author of the paper I can't find, but it was influenced by it enough that I thought I should do my best to make some kind of acknowledgment, even if I can't find the paper or the author's name.
This first post will give my theory of love in outline, and a second post will discuss the different types of love in light of this theory.
The theory that I hold to is this:
Love is a belief.
My theory holds that love is a belief. This is important to considerations about the voluntariness of love. Belief, I hold, is a partially voluntary activity. That is, in most cases it is not so easy as to simply will to believe or disbelieve some proposition (though it may be that simple in cases where my rational and irrational inclinations for and against the belief come out to be nearly perfectly balanced), but I can nevertheless do many things to change what I believe, and can in many cases be held morally responsible for what I believe. For instance, I can culpably believe or disbelieve a proposition by failing investigate a matter it is morally obligatory for me to investigate, or by simply not thinking things through and allowing irrational inclinations to dominate. On the other hand, there are some things I simply find myself believing or not believing, without much thought or examination. There are some things I believe naturally. I can also develop a belief in something by persuasion (persuading myself or allowing others to persuade me), or by acting as if it were true (which amounts to internalizing a non-belief - see the section "Love is Deeply Internalized" below).
For comparison, another partially voluntary activity is breathing. I can decide how to breathe (deeply, shallowly, more frequently, through the nose, through the mouth), and I can hold my breath, but I can only hold my breath so long (I cannot keep holding my breath until I suffocate), and if I stop concentrating on breathing I will breathe in a certain way without particularly deciding to. There are also other situations I can bring about (being underwater, having my mouth covered, having pressure on my diaphragm, etc.) that can indirectly cause me to breathe (or not breathe) in a particular way. Similarly, beliefs are partially voluntary and, if love is a belief, love is partially voluntary as well.
This make sense, on the one hand, of the belief of Christians and others that there is a moral imperative to love but, at the same time, it makes sense of talk about "falling in love." That is, on the one hand, there are things that it is morally imperative to believe and there are things that (in light of the evidence or in light of our situation and psychology) we cannot help but believe, and situations come about at certain times such that they render us incapable of believing/disbelieving certain propositions. In the case of love, emotion may be an important factor in our finding ourselves psychologically compelled to love or not to love a person or thing. The role of emotion will be discussed in more detail in the section "Love is Deeply Internalized" below.
Love is a belief in intrinsic value.
If love is a belief, then what does the lover believe? According to my theory, the lover's belief is a belief in the intrinsic value of the beloved. That is, the lover believes that the beloved is valuable for his/her/its own sake, and not for any derivative purpose. It is certainly possible to love an inanimate object in this sense, but, something I regard as a plus of this theory, is that it says that most of us are speaking hyperbolically when we say, for instance, that we love pizza. We don't really regard pizza as having intrinsic value, value for its own sake. Rather, we value pizza because of its flavor, and (for those of us who are students) because it is cheap. If we actually loved pizza, we would regard the well-being of pizza as an intrinsically good thing, and we would want there to be pizza in the world (good pizza, no less) not for the sake of eating it, but simply because a world with more pizza in it is a better world, whether or not there is anyone there to eat it. Perhaps someone loves pizza this way, but, for most of us, this kind of talk can't be any more than hyperbole.
If we regard a person as having intrinsic value, we will seek the good of that person as an end in itself. We will desire that person to be the best that he or she can be, and we will think that his or her presence in the world would make the world a better place, even if we did not particularly get anything out of it.
An interesting consequence of this theory, which I realized only after I adopted it, is that it makes one of the forms of the Categorical Imperative ("So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means." - Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4:429, tr. Mary Gregor) almost exactly equivalent to the Biblical command to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18, Mark 12:31, etc.). The "almost" comes in because, according to this theory, action is not a core part of the definition of love, though, as we shall see, it is a necessary corollary. This formulation of the Categorical Imperative is, in fact, what "loving your neighbor" looks like in practice.
Love is deeply internalized.
What does it mean for a belief to be deeply internalized? We hold many beliefs in the abstract, and some of them don't mean very much to us, and some of them we wouldn't mind rejecting if we were given some reason to. Some beliefs influence our actions on a nearly instinctive level, some only if we make a conscious effort to impose them on our actions, and some do not influence our actions at all. In contemporary epistemologies, we often think of a web of beliefs, where the challenging of some belief creates a hole in the web that must be repaired by modifying beliefs around it, etc. At the center of the web are our most basic and deeply held beliefs. These beliefs are the ones that I mean by deeply internalized. In particular, deeply internalized beliefs have the following (inter-related)characteristics:
Note that degrees of love are admitted by this theories along two dimensions. First, there is the degree of value one assigns to the beloved, and, second, there is the degree of internalization. Things may get more complicated as, for instance, I may hold an abstract, not very deeply internalized belief that a certain person has a very high degree of intrinsic value, while I hold a very deeply internalized belief that the person has at least some lesser degree of intrinsic value. (Just as I have a very deeply internalized belief that there are more than 100,000 people in the world, since this is a more or less comprehensible number and I'm sure there are a lot of people around, but a much less deeply internalized belief that there are about 6 billion people in the world, since 6 billion is a mind-bogglingly huge number that I have trouble digesting.) This is probably the way most people are in their love of a random person on the street with whom they are not acquainted: they hold a very very deeply internalized belief that the person has at least enough intrinsic value that it would be terribly wrong to kill him simply because his existence was inconvenient to you, but their deeply internalized belief probably doesn't assign nearly as much value to him as their abstract beliefs. (This will, of course, be especially true of those people, including, but not limited to, Christians, who hold abstract beliefs that place a very high intrinsic value on human beings.)
Note further that deeply internalized beliefs will be related to emotions in at least two ways. First, if a belief is about a matter of great moment emotionally, it will become deeply internalized very quickly once it is accepted. Beliefs which one comes to on the basis of emotion (and certainly love is often this sort of belief) will have almost instant internalization, whereas beliefs that enter by way of the intellect will usually take much longer to become interalized, and may never become internalized at all. Conversely, as a belief becomes more deeply internalized, a stronger emotional attachment to the belief will develop. Thus emotion can (but need not) contribute to the development of love, and, conversely, genuine love will always generate a certain degree of emotional attachment. Nevertheless, love is by no means identical with any particular emotion. Neither affection, nor good-will (if that's an emotion), nor infatuation is a form of love, but all of them may be either causes or effects or both of genuine love.
It is also very important that genuine love is always accompanied by action, and not just by action, but by natural action. That is, to the degree that the belief is deeply internalized, we do not need to stop and think and say "I must act lovingly toward this person" but, rather, the loving act will be our instinctive reaction. However, intentionally and consciously acting according to beliefs (or even things we do not yet believe) that are not yet deeply internalized is one of the key ways they become internalized. By acting as though a belief were true, we invest ourselves in it and this will tend to cause us to act in such a way more naturally and with less effort. (Compare Jesus' remark, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" - Matthew 6:21.) It may also be the case that our instincts about how best to act lovingly toward a person are wrong, and for this reason we may need to stop and think. This may not be evidence that the love is not deeply internalized but, rather, that our rational beliefs about what actions are consistent with our belief in the intrinsic value of a person are not deeply internalized.
This is what I mean by the statement, "Love is a deeply internalized belief in the intrinsic value of the beloved." Part 2 will discuss how this theory can differentiate the three traditional types of love - philia, eros, and agape - along two dimensions: the reason for the belief, and the action the lover desires to take as a result.
A month or so ago, I published a post which has been rather popular on Christianity and Homosexuality. In it, I discussed Paul's statements on homosexuality in contrast to the "received view" in Greco-Roman "polite society." I referred then to Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus, early and middle dialogs, respectively, which contain useful information on the practice of pedaresty in classical Athens. (If you are interested in interpreting Paul, it is important to note that classical Athens is some 400 years earlier, and a lot can change in 400 years - compare attitudes to homosexuality in our culture today to those of a mere 50 years ago.) In the Republic (I'm not going to hunt down the exact reference right now, but if anyone is looking for it and can't find it I will), another middle dialog, Plato made remarks to the effect that pedaresty probably had a negative effect on the boys involved. In our culture we of course believe this to be a self-evident truth and would not dream of questioning it, but Plato speaks as though he expects to be in the minority in making this claim. The reference I found today was from Plato's Laws, generally considered to be the very last of his dialogs (according to some accounts, he had not had a chance to edit it when he died). The passage is very helpful both in distinguishing what Plato believes to be the majority view among the Greeks of his time, what arguments were floating around (at least one of them will sound very familiar), and what Plato's own view was. One piece of background will be needed, which shows the complicated view of the subject the Greeks took: in Greek myth, Laius, the father of Oedipus, was the first pedarest. In some versions of the myth of Oedipus, this is the reason Oedipus and his descendants are cursed, but in other versions it has to do with the fact that Laius abducted the boy involved from his host, violating the laws of hospitality, and in still other versions it is simply because the Oracle commanded Laius not to have children and he disobeyed. Whatever the case, Odysseus meets Laius in Hades undergoing some nasty punishment or other (I don't remember the details at the moment). Having got that background out of the way, here is Laws 8.836c-e, in which Plato discusses what laws should regulate sexual conduct if the state is to be organized in such a way as to make its citizens virtuous (my fellow libertarians may cringe with me now):
Suppose you follow nature's rule and establish the law that was in force before the time of Laius. You'd argue that one may have sexual intercourse with a women but not with men or boys. As evidence for your view, you'd point to the animal world, where (you'd argue) the males do not have sexual relations with each other, because such a thing is unnatural. But in Crete and Sparta your argument would not go down well, and you'd probably persuade nobody. However, another argument is that such practices are incompatible with what in our view should be the constant aim of the legislator - that is, we're always asking, 'which of our regulations encourages virtue, and which does not?' Now then, suppose in the present case we agreed to pass a law that such practices are desirable, or not at all undesirable - what contribution would they make to virtue? Will the spirit of courage spring to life in the soul of the seduced person? Will the soul of the seducer learn habits of self-control? No one is going to be led astray by that sort of argument - quite the contrary. Everyone will censure the weakling who yields to temptation, and condemn his all-too-effiminate partner who plays the role of the woman. So who on earth will pass a law like that? Hardly anyone, at any rate if he knows what a genuine law really is. (tr. Trevor J. Saunders, emphasis original)
In the very first Carnival of Citizens, there is a post at HeartFulls (a blog with which I was not previously familiar) in which the author wants to know how Christians deal with homosexuality. She seems to be particularly concerned with the question of gay marriage (which is presumably why this post was included in the Carnival of Citizens). She cites a few Scripture passages that are commonly used in arguments, but doesn't present a clear picture of how and why these arguments cause Christians to hold the positions they do (presumably, she doesn't know quite how these passages are interpreted, which is why this is part of her "I want to know" series). In this post, I will try to explain how these verses are interpreted, and how they should influence Christians' actions, especially in the political realm.
First, a word on where I'm coming from. My approach to Scripture is, in theory, held in common with virtually all those who call themselves Evangelicals. That is, I hold that the correct interpretation of the passage is the interpretation which, in the context, would have been the most obvious one to the originally intended audience at the original time of writing. I further believe that the correct interpretation of a passage of Scripture, in its complete content, always yields truth. (That is, I believe in Biblical inerrancy. On the problem of uncertainty about what the Bible actually teaches and what that means for inerrancy, see my post on the inerrancy of the autographs.) However, there are certainly plenty of cases where I think that the mainstream of Evangelicalism applies these principles incorrectly, and this especially happens in the case of Evangelicals who are heavily politically involved. My approach to politics is that of right-libertarian political philosophy; that is, I believe that there is a fundamental right of private property which is not created by the government or society, that the first thing an individual has ownership over is himself, that all other rights derive from these principles, and that the violation of such rights is never morally justifiable. As such, I believe (based on Scripture) that homosexual behavior is morally wrong as a matter of private or individual morality but that people nevertheless have a right to behave in this way without interference from their fellow human beings as a matter of public or political morality (on how I deal with matters of individual vs. political morality, see my post applying this distinction to the abortion debate). In other words, I think that the Church should continue to teach that homosexual behavior is wrong and should never perform or recognize homosexual marriages or civil unions, but that the government should mind its own business and not define marriage at all, one way or another. As a result of this, it can be seen that I really can't answer all of the question posed at HeartFulls, since I don't think gay marriage should be illegal, but I can provide a partial answer, by at least explaining why Christians (at least among those who believe in Biblical inerrancy) don't support it.
Now that we've got that out of the way, let's address the verses cited at HeartFulls. They are Leviticus 18:22, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and Romans 1:27. I think these verses, although not the only ones referring to homosexuality in the Bible, are sufficient to present the correct picture, if interpreted correctly. All quotes are from the Holmann Christian Standard Bible (HCSB).
You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable. - Leviticus 18:22
The first thing to note about this verse, is that it is part of the legal code of the Torah. This means that Christians in general do not (or at least should not) make direct application of it. This is not because we deny that the Torah is true or inspired or any such thing. Rather, we believe that the Torah is not addressed to us. What this means is that laws like this one, from a Christian perspective, simply record as a matter of historical fact that once upon a time (about 3500 years ago), God commanded the Israelites not to engage in homosexual sex. This doesn't tell us anything applicable to the present day unless we can understand why and under what circumstances he did this. Now, the phrase "it is detestable" might be thought to answer the question of why God did this. The Hebrew word, tow'ebah, does, indeed, seem to be applied only to sexual sin throughout the Leviticus. However, in Deuteronomy 14:3 the ritually unclean animals (e.g. pigs) are called "detestable" using the same word, and in 17:1 sacrificing an animal with a blemish is called "detestable to the Lord." So it doesn't appear that based only on the Torah text we can conclude that the prohibition is presently applicable. It is in a passage that seems at first glance to convey all or mostly universally applicable prohibitions (e.g. on incest and adultery), but the section does also, as was pointed out at HeartFulls, contain the prohibition on a man having sex with his wife when she is menstruating (v. 19) (by the way, it was asked whether this was still observed - certainly by Orthodox and Conservative Jews, beyond that I expect it is probably not seen as a moral obligation). In short, it would require quite a bit of research to determine whether this particular passage, taken without the aid of New Testament parallels, was presently applicable, and there would be a lot of uncertainty in the conclusion. Fortunately, we have NT parallels, so we don't have to do that.
Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be deceived: no sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, or swindlers will inherit God's kingdom. - 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
There is a lot of confusion about the meaning of the words here translated "male prostitutes" and "homosexuals." The New King James Version has "homosexuals" and "sodomites," respectively, and a confusing footnote stating the "homosexuals" actually means "catamites" (what on earth is a catamite? The Heartfulls post includes the Webster's definition). Neither of these is very helpful. The original Greek words are malakoi and arsenokoitai, respectively. Malakos (the singular form of malakoi) literally means "soft." When applied to a man (as it is here - the grammatical form is masculine) it means "effeminate," which is indeed how the original KJV translated it here. (Interestingly, in modern Greek, malaka is a mild curse used as an interjection, roughly equivalent to the English "damn".) I will discuss in a moment how exactly that applies here, and why the translations say what they do. Arsenokoites (singular of arsenokoitai) is from the words arsen, meaning "male" and koite, which literally means "bed," but is a euphemism for sex. The grammatical form is masculine, so this word literally means "men who go to bed with men." Now, why are both words used here, what is the difference between them, and why do the translations say what they do?
Warning: the below section discusses some Greco-Roman sexual practices, and is slightly more explicit than anything I would normally post on this blog. I've tried to keep it as inoffensive as possible, but some readers may prefer to skip it.
I think it is clear that here malakos refers to the "passive" partner and arsenokoites to the "active" partner in anal intercourse between males. Why should Paul mention the two separately, and why should the NKJV tell us the first means "catamites" (by which they apparently mean willing victims of pedarests?) and the second "sodomites"? Why does the HCSB think the first means "male prostitute"? I think this links back to the Greco-Roman attitude and practice toward male homosexuality and is important in the cultural context in its differences from that practice.
It is abundantly clear from the literary record that pedaresty was a near universal practice among (especially upper-class) Greeks of the classical period (roughly 400 years before the NT - it is less clear what was going on in NT times in Corinth, but it is unlikely, I think, that the practice had completely disappeared). The older man was considered a sort of mentor to the younger boy, and the boy and his family were generally without objection to the practice. It was considered to be a normal part of the boy's growth and education. (See the speech of Alcibiades in Plato's Symposium, where in a role-reversal the Greeks must have thought humorous, a young Alcibiades attempts to seduce the older man, Socrates, and also Plato's Phaedrus where a speech attributed to Lysias attempts to convince a young man that it is better to have sex with an older man who is not in love with him than one who is, since love is a type of madness. Not all of the references to the practice are in Plato, it's just that I know Plato better than I know other writers.) Stories about "thigh rubbing" in connection with ancient Greek pedaresty can be disregarded (and are now disregarded by most scholars, I believe) as a prude fabrication of the Victorian era.
The practice was deemed no longer acceptable when a boy's beard began to come in. At this point, the boy became a man, and it was considered shameful for a man to be sexually passive. (In modern Greek the word pathetikos, which literally means "passive," has taken on sexual connotations and is considered highly obscene - I once heard a story of an argument in Greek between a native English-speaker and a native Greek-speaker which nearly came to blows when the English-speaker said this word thinking it had the same meaning as the English word "pathetic.") The ancient Greeks saw the sexual love between a man and a boy as of a higher order than that between a man and a woman (see the speech of Aristophanes in the Symposium). Note, however, that there was little or no stigma against homosexuality as such, but only against sexual passivity on the part of adult males.
While the Romans didn't engage in the pedaresty of the Greeks, they, similarly, had the attitude that it was not homosexuality as such, but sexual passivity that was shameful for men. So, in the Greco-Roman world, homosexual intercourse seems often to have been in some sense a form of dominance between males, as is seen in certain animals (e.g. dogs). It was also common in the tradition of Roman invective (for instance, in political mudslinging in the days of the republic) to label someone a passive homosexual. This is not to say that it was never consensual. I find it highly implausible to suppose that Paul means to say that men (or young boys) who were raped were somehow to blame for what happened to them, especially in light of the Torah law specifically stating that a woman who is raped is not to be held responsible for the loss of her virginity. (Specifically, a woman who did cry or may have cried for help cannot be punished for adultery or fornication - Deuteronomy 22:23-27.) This is probably the reason that the HCSB has translated the word as "male prostitutes." There were, indeed, homosexual male prostitutes, and consensual homosexual practice (and also heterosexual adultery) were quite common among Roman aristocrats (though, if I recall correctly, there is evidence that these things were frowned upon by the lower classes).
Based on these observations about the surrounding culture, it is my conclusion that Paul includes both terms in his list to make it clear that Christianity finds all homosexual practice equally unacceptable, rather than seeing the active partner as dominating the passive in a way that shows his strength or some such.
This is the end of the potentially offensive part.
So this verse does indeed object to (at least male) homosexuality, even if it is between consenting adults.
There is one more thing I want to observe before moving on, and that is verse 11: "Some of you [i.e. the Christians at Corinth] were like this, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God." Thus we can see that the individuals in the list are not irrevocably condemned by the text. Rather, Paul is saying that individuals whose identities are defined by these kinds of behaviors are still in need of salvation. They cannot inherit the Kingdom of God as long as they see what God regards as sin as being part of their identity. They must be willing to give it up to God. (Compare Romans 7:17 and surrounding verses.) Note also that we are talking about behaviors here. Certainly we must also cease to identify with the inclination, but we are not held morally responsible for our natural inclinations, only for what we do with them. A person is not guilty of being a kleptomaniac, he is guilty of being a thief. There is a big problem in a lot of debate about homosexuality that some people use the word to mean the actions, and others to mean the inclinations. Here we are talking about actions, and the Bible condemns those actions.
This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual intercourse for waht is unnatural. The males in the same way also left natural sexual intercourse with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty for their perversion. - Romans 1:26-27
The HeartFull post only quoted verse 27, but I think verse 26 is important because it is the only place I am aware of where the Bible talks about female homosexuality. I think this verse is quite clear. It consideres homosexual "passions" to be "degrading" and condemns the actions, whether male or female. It seems, in context, that these "passions" are punishment for the sin in verse 25: "they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served something created instead of the Creator."
There are two things which I think need clarification about this whole punishment for sin thing: the first is that the text does not necessarily teach that every person who has homosexual desires has them for the reasons in this verse. There may also be other reasons which apply in some cases. Secondly, the Bible teaches that human beings are inherently communal beings, and, because we live in community, one person's sin (or righteousness!) affects other persons around him (see, e.g., Exodus 20:5-6). Thus, for instance, we can say that AIDS is a punishment for sin in the sense that if nobody ever sinned nobody would have AIDS. This does not - I repeat not - imply that people who have AIDS have AIDS because they are worse sinners than other people. One individual person getting AIDS may have nothing to do with any sin of his own - he might get it from a bad blood transfusion, or a spouse who cheated on him, or any number of other things like this; in other words, he might get it as a result of someone else's sin. It should be noted that, according to the Bible everything that is wrong with the world, including every disease, is ultimately a result of sin (i.e. of The Fall - Genesis 3); I have only chosen the example of AIDS because it is easy to see where sin enters the equation (although, I should mention that not everything that appears to be wrong with the world to us is necessarily actually wrong). I hope the use of AIDS as an example is not unnecessarily offensive and I hope I have made it clear that I don't mean to add to the already quite significant suffering of those affected by AIDS.
At any rate, there is no reason to think that similar reasoning does not apply to the claim in Romans that homosexual desires are some kind of punishment for sin. For instance, I have been told (I don't study psychology, so I don't really know if this is true, but it seems plausible) that women who are raped are more likely to become lesbians because some of them develop a general fear of men. These people have been deeply hurt by the sin of others.
So, this passage teaches three things: (1) having homosexual attractions is undesirable, (2) homosexual acts are sinful, and (3) at least some people at least some times have homosexual attractions as a result of sin (their own or that of others).
Beyond the passages mentioned, there is also the Biblical definition of marriage, which is always unequivocally heterosexual. (See Genesis 2:24, which is quoted repeatedly by the NT.)
This, I think, is enough to say that people who view the Bible as authoritative on ethical matters must believe that homosexual behavior is immoral, as a matter, at least, of individual morality. What does all of this mean to politics? I've said already that I don't think it justifies the illegalization of gay marriage. However, one thing that should be pointed out is that Christianity has a definition of marriage by which marriage is between a man and a woman and is the only appropriate context for any sexual activity. If the government passes a law that defines marriage in any other way, the government is passing a law that says Christianity is wrong (about this issue). This may be one reason that Christians generally fight to have this definition of marriage included in the law.
This is, however, the wrong approach and a totally wrong way of thinking about the issue. Why? Because America is not (contrary to popular belief) a 'Christian nation.' There are lots of non-Christians here, and we do not have a Christian government. I believe that it is wrong (Biblically) to attempt to impose Christianity on others by force, which is what we do when we try to legislate it. Besides, if we give the government power, they are going to use it wrongly, like they always do. Last but certainly not least, other religions (not to mention atheists) have different definitions of marriage, and we violate their religious freedom if we include our definition in the law. Ultimately, civil marriage is a contract and religious marriage is, well, religious, so if the government has any legal definition of marriage it violates either freedom of contract, freedom of religion, or, more likely, both. It amazes me that so many Evangelicals go around emphasizing the importance of making a "personal decision for Christ," and then support political action to prevent people from making their own decisions freely.
In conclusion, Biblical Christianity teaches that all homosexual activity is morally unacceptable, and this means that people who believe in Biblical Christianity ought not to practice homosexuality or condone gay marriage. However, there is no justification for the application of coercive force in this area. Furthermore, Christianity teaches that everyone stands equally condemned under God's law apart from the sacrifice of Christ (Romans 3:9-10). If someone is practicing homosexuality and doesn't know Jesus, his real problem is that he doesn't know Jesus, not that he's gay. If it wasn't homosexuality, it would be some other sin, and he would be equally condemned. Our call as Christians is to love people and show them the way out of sin and condemnation. Jesus sent us just as the Father sent him (John 20:21). How was Jesus sent? "Not ... that He might condemn that world, but the the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:17)
This, I hope, is a step to answering HeartFull's question, but as to Christians who think homosexual marriage should be illegal, I'll let them speak for themselves, since I am not one of them and don't think their position is justified.
A while ago, in a post on abortion, I had a brief discussion with Jeremy Pierce about the distinction between rights and obligations. Since we are discussing abortion again, I thought now would be a good time to clarify what I mean by this distinction. I will also discuss briefly how this applies to the abortion debate.
First and foremost in this distinction is this: rights belong to the province of public or political morality, whereas obligations belong to the province of private or individual morality. Political morality has to do with the existence and nature of morally appropriate government, what it may and may not do, what people may do to one another, etc. Rights belong to this realm, because it is morally permissible, in terms of political morality, for you or your agent to enforce your (negative) rights against me. If I violate your negative rights, you or your agent (e.g., the government) may punish my transgression. Obligations do not belong to this realm, because it is not morally legitimate for you to force me to fulfill my moral obligations, even my moral obligations as regards you - with the exception, of course, of my obligation to respect your rights.
That paragraph might be a little opaque, so let's take a real example. I believe that the rich have a moral obligation to help the poor, but the poor do not have a right to the assistance of the rich. What this means is that if a rich person fails to use his wealth to help the poor, this is a moral imperfection, i.e., a sin. However, because the poor do not have a right to his assistance, they have no legitimate political grievance against him, and neither they nor the government may justly punish him for his immoral behavior, because this is a matter of personal morality. On the other hand, the poor have a right of self-ownership, which includes a right not to be forcibly enslaved by the rich. If the rich do enslave the poor - literally enslave them, and not merely "exploit" them in the Marxist sense - the rich not only act immorally, but transgress the rights of the poor, and therefore the poor or their agents may justly punish them.
Now, the situation begins to get sticky when individual morality and political morality cover the same area in seemingly contradictory ways. For instance, Christians are commanded to "turn the other cheek" to someone who assaults them (Matthew 5:39), but, according to my (libertarian) political theory, they have a right to exact punishment. What this means is that there is a case in which a person has a right to do something, but an obligation not to exercise that right. This is indeed a little sticky, as I said, but it is not terribly troubling. After all, it is easy to see other similar cases that are more straightforward. For instance, I have a right of free speech, but there are some things that it would be immoral for me to say. So there may be some cases where a person has a right, while at the same time has an obligation not to exercise that right, or perhaps not to enforce that right against those who violate it. No problem.
Now, as to abortion, like I said I just want to sketch how this distinction will apply to the debate, not develop a detailed account of the morality of abortion. I think it is absolutely indisputable that a couple who voluntarily and intentionally brings a child into being has a moral obligation to care for that child and bring it to healthy adulthood insofar as they are able, even from before it is born. I think that, while not as indisputable, this is equally true in cases where the couple did not intend to create a child, but nevertheless does so by engaging in consensual sex. In fact, I think it is probably the case that the parents of a child have such obligations in all cases, even rape and birth-control failure. However, in order to justify illegalizing abortion (or even exposure of infants!), it is not sufficient that the parents have such obligations; the baby must have a right to their care, or at least a right to the use of his mother's womb until birth, and this is difficult for libertarians, because this looks, on the face of it, like a positive right, which libertarians, including myself, don't believe in. In order to establish such a right, we would either have to say that the parents somehow took that obligation upon themselves voluntarily (which will be difficult to say in the case of failed birth control, and impossible to say of a woman who was raped), or that this is somehow, contrary to appearances, actually a negative right.
If we wish to take the second route, it may have profound consequences for our overall understanding of private property. For instance, we may say that if someone comes to be on your property through no fault of his own, expelling him from your property in such a way as to physically harm him constitutes an act of aggression against him, and therefore violates his (negative) rights. This will then also apply to the fetus's presence in the womb. This doesn't seem like a bad position for a libertarian to take overall, but I'm having trouble seeing clearly what, if any, are the ramifications for the case of, for instance, forcibly expelling a burglar from one's house. In this case, you are defending against an act of agression, and this makes our exercise of force acceptable. If the person didn't know he was trespassing, or something, he wouldn't be agressive, and therefore we couldn't expel him by force in such a way as to harm him. Sounds good to me. Interestingly, the Talmud (don't ask me for the exact citation, but I know I read this in Jewish Law class freshman year) says that when the mother's life is endangered, the fetus becomes an agressor, and describes in graphic terms cutting the fetus to pieces in the birth canal in order to save the mother's life, saying that this is not only permissible, but obligatory, but nevertheless prohibits abortion in the general case.
At any rate, my general point is this: if the parents have an obligation to the fetus to care for it, abortion will be immoral, but only if the fetus has a right to the care of the parents will the illegalization of abortion be legitimate. I do, in fact, think that the fetus has such a right, in addition to the parents' obligation, but I think that the right is much more difficult to establish than the obligation.