Being gay is a fetish.

[Esquilax]

The point is that human rights come from a higher authority than personal opinions, group consensus, state mandate. If these are source of one's human rights, then they can be taken away by the same processes. You have human rights regardless of whether the government recognizes them or not.

Do you? How do you demonstrate the existence of human rights beyond their application and enforcement by government agencies? Your statement here implies that you have the means to detect them aside from their presence in our legal documents, so you go right ahead and do that.

In contrast to claims of people like Esquilax, my claims are not arguments of convenience to justify whatever opinion I have at the moment. They adhere as a somewhat complete and generally consistent whole.

Sorry, but something cannot be complete and consistent, while still holding as many arbitrary lines as your position does. Leaving aside the fact that your position is entirely unjustified and relies entirely on assertions of spirituality that you cannot hope to even begin to prove, you still make claims about the natural order while ignoring those parts of the natural order that conflict with what you want to be true. Your position is inconsistent, and to the extent that it's complete, it is, in fact, a complete load of bullshit that's actually an argument from convenience.

In fact, the recent gay marriage issue has caused me to further develop my beliefs in that area as well as others. For example, I now feel there is a compelling natural law argument against smoking apart from the health issues involved.

Because inhaling gases is so very unnatural?

Previously, I would have been less inclined to condemn various sexual practices but have come to a better understanding of how these specific types of sin undermine the Providential order.

The fact that you haven't even tried to demonstrate a "providential order" doesn't seem to bother you at all, but it's not lost on the rest of us. Like the rest of your positions, it's all talk, no substance.

[Hatshepsut]

It is the gay community's business, though. If you allow one person to make a blatantly discriminatory code of practice, you must allow everyone...

No, you needn't allow everyone. You pass a law when harms done require redress. You don't allow a monopoly like the phone company to refuse anyone who pays their bill. But is our society going on a crusade to demand that all hew to Political Correctness? Germany is on this path. They may well have more reason for this than we do, given their experiences with Nazism, so I won't presume to prescribe for them. But just because they do it over there doesn't mean we should do it on our side of the pond. Laws forbidding citizens to hold prejudicial thoughts and laws which infringe on their freedom of association militate against liberty, and I think the state needs compelling reason for any such law it passes.

I doubt there is a crisis of wedding cakes that urges us regulate the local bakeries.

(BTW you're not coming off as aggressive in any way;
'tis no shame to toot your side's horn.  )

[Neo-Scholastic]

Esquilax – “Do you? How do you demonstrate the existence of human rights beyond their application and enforcement by government agencies? Your statement here implies that you have the means to detect them aside from their presence in our legal documents, so you go right ahead and do that.”

The contrary multicultural view you seem to be promoting makes rights under Sharia law as valid as those under constitutional Western democracies. It’s like saying that North Koreans have no rights because they have not been legally granted to them by Kim Jong Un.
The very idea of human rights is predicated on the notion that people have some basic rights by virtue of just being human and that someone’s’ rights are independent of the social order in which the find themselves. That is the reason why the writers of the American Declaration of Independence used the word ‘inalienable’; natural human rights cannot be separated for an individual’s existence. They are an essential part of what it means to be human. Thus a theory of natural rights rests on the understanding that it means something to be human. In short, it rests on there being an essential human nature.

So you see, my advocacy of natural law applies not only various prohibitions, but is also consistent with a theory of human rights. You, Esquilax, appear to have no theory, just unsupported opinions. Your contrarian stances, each suited to the moment, have wide ranging implications and come at a cost, like nihilism. You want to claim all the benefits associated with Divine Providence, like purpose and rationality, but you don’t want to pay the intellectual price of fitting your ideas together as an internally consistent whole.

Esquilax – “Sorry, but something cannot be complete and consistent, while still holding as many arbitrary lines as your position does. Leaving aside the fact that your position is entirely unjustified and relies entirely on assertions of spirituality that you cannot hope to even begin to prove, you still make claims about the natural order while ignoring those parts of the natural order that conflict with what you want to be true.”

Your first sentence is correct, so I claimed that the Neo-Scholastic philosophy was ‘somewhat’ complete and ‘generally’ consistent. As I noted elsewhere, perhaps not on this thread so I excuse your assumptions, the discovery of natural moral laws is based on empirical data and our ability to interpret what we observe. Natural law statements about functions and purposes do not qualify as certain knowledge. That honor goes to necessary truths known by reason applied to experience. So I’m open to changing my opinions about the essential nature of things and how those relate to the social issues of the day, but your insults, hyperbole, and diversions contribute very little to the discussion and do not help your case.

[LostLocke]

The point is that human rights come from a higher authority than personal opinions, group consensus, state mandate. If these are source of one's human rights, then they can be taken away by the same processes. You have human rights regardless of whether the government recognizes them or not.

Do you? How do you demonstrate the existence of human rights beyond their application and enforcement by government agencies? Your statement here implies that you have the means to detect them aside from their presence in our legal documents, so you go right ahead and do that.

And do you mean rights like, the right to own slaves, the right to rape a woman, the right to kill someone? Because those are some of the 'rights' your 'higher authority' grants people.

[Esquilax]

Esquilax – “Do you? How do you demonstrate the existence of human rights beyond their application and enforcement by government agencies? Your statement here implies that you have the means to detect them aside from their presence in our legal documents, so you go right ahead and do that.”

The contrary multicultural view you seem to be promoting makes rights under Sharia law as valid as those under constitutional Western democracies. It’s like saying that North Koreans have no rights because they have not been legally granted to them by Kim Jong Un.

You're conflating two different things, here: the validity of the rights variously given by different political systems, versus their actual existence. Human rights can be valid and sound choices for the happiness and welfare of the people, while still not being conferred by government systems, but if the expression of those rights is non-existent under the law where you live, the rights themselves, though definitely more optimal for you as a human being, do not either. Human rights are a good thing, but they are also a conceptual thing, they don't exist as objective entities on their own, else you'd be able to demonstrate that beyond making emotionally charged aspersions about the consequences of what I'm saying.

Do you have human rights if the state you're living in actively suppresses them? No, you actually don't; you should have them, but rights are ensured by government respect for them, or at least stated respect for them (if a government has such rights in its charter but disregards them with their actions, then those rights are present but violated) and if the government offers no such assurances, then in what respect do they exist? And how do you demonstrate that?

The very idea of human rights is predicated on the notion that people have some basic rights by virtue of just being human and that someone’s’ rights are independent of the social order in which the find themselves. That is the reason why the writers of the American Declaration of Independence used the word ‘inalienable’; natural human rights cannot be separated for an individual’s existence. They are an essential part of what it means to be human. Thus a theory of natural rights rests on the understanding that it means something to be human. In short, it rests on there being an essential human nature.

Sure, and it's a nice sentiment, one that I happen to agree with, but what worth does it have under, say, Sharia law? Aside from the simple assertion that these things exist in some objective sense, how can you support what you're saying?

So you see, my advocacy of natural law applies not only various prohibitions, but is also consistent with a theory of human rights.

Without establishing that the theory of human rights is anything more than a morally correct conceptual stance, you can hardly appeal to it outside of the subjective framework that, while clearly and demonstrably beneficial, is just that; subjective. Same with natural law, though that's a far easier argument to have when you pick and choose what counts as natural and what doesn't based on your pre-existing prejudices.

You, Esquilax, appear to have no theory, just unsupported opinions. Your contrarian stances, each suited to the moment, have wide ranging implications and come at a cost, like nihilism. You want to claim all the benefits associated with Divine Providence, like purpose and rationality, but you don’t want to pay the intellectual price of fitting your ideas together as an internally consistent whole.

And you just want to assert that certain things are exclusive property of your god, without demonstrating a word of that. But I don't have to run when you're not chasing me, so unless you can provide something a little more intellectually rigorous than the parade of fiat presuppositionalism you've demonstrated prior, my response is little more than a shrug. I don't have to take the things you want to be true seriously, until you can demonstrate them, and all the condescension and strawmanning about nihilism in the world isn't going to change that.

Your first sentence is correct, so I claimed that the Neo-Scholastic philosophy was ‘somewhat’ complete and ‘generally’ consistent. As I noted elsewhere, perhaps not on this thread so I excuse your assumptions, the discovery of natural moral laws is based on empirical data and our ability to interpret what we observe. Natural law statements about functions and purposes do not qualify as certain knowledge. That honor goes to necessary truths known by reason applied to experience. So I’m open to changing my opinions about the essential nature of things and how those relate to the social issues of the day, but your insults, hyperbole, and diversions contribute very little to the discussion and do not help your case.

And again, I have to repeat myself: you're making the argument that natural law statements, though perhaps not certain knowledge, preclude the idea that sex can be for pleasure, and is in fact merely a function of procreation, which seems to me to be a bizarrely overreaching statement on more than a few points, most importantly since we know that sex does have certain psychological and social benefits for humans and other species besides their procreative function. This is a non-trivial point with regards to the argument you were making, and when I brought it up last you appealed to spirituality, which doesn't so much answer the point as it doe add on another glaringly obvious assertion that needs to be demonstrated before it can be used in support of the last point.