From: Russell Blackford (RussellBlackford@bigpond.com)
Date: Sat Aug 25 2001 - 18:20:46 MDT
Harvey said
>These kinds of arguments scare me for what they imply more than what they
>actually say.
Great post, Harvey. If I went through it line by line, I might not agree
with all of it.
Eg.
>When he says you can accept but not celebrate homosexuality without being a
>homophobe, he implies that we can accept that it exists but we don't have
to
>like it or even cooperate with it.
Well, look, I am prepared to celebrate homosexuality. I've had people very
close to me who are homosexual or bisexual. I'm just your standard model
heterosexual polyamorist.
However, can I really expect the local Catholic bishop to *like*
homosexuality or *cooperate* with it? I think not. The point of having a
liberal society is that people will put up with things they don't like and
won't cooperate with. Tolerance entails tolerating things you don't like.
But if we are committed to the classical liberal ideal of society we won't
try to bring force, in the form of the state's coercive powers, to bear
against those things we don't like. In that sense, we'll tolerate them.
Tolerating homosexuality even if we don't like it is more than just
acknowledging that it exists.
I can't work out where, exactly, Heston stands on this. However, some of
your interpretations seem ungenerous.
That said, there does seem to be a lot of code running through the speech,
much as you describe.
Russell
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