It has become common in public discourse and policy debate routinely to describe those believing that practicing homosexuality is immoral as "homophobic" or "anti-gay". I believe these descriptions are wrong, offensive, and lead to oppression, and should be challenged. I shall explain why.
As an orthodox mainstream Christian, I adhere to the standard teaching of the Church on sexual conduct, namely that sex is reserved for lifelong monogamous heterosexual covenant partnership. Many of us might like to have sex with people we are not morally permitted to - wives or husbands of others, other men or women than our own spouses, and many other obvious cases. But to do so is morally forbidden.
Terms for things that are morally forbidden include "immoral" or "sinful". Of course, all of us are sinners and yet all can be saved, so that someone does things that are "immoral" does not mean one considers that person worthless or an enemy or someone to be hated.
To be "homophobic" is to hate or fear homosexuals. I regard practicing homosexuality as immoral. Does that make me "homophobic"? Well, I regard having sex with multiple partners before marriage is immoral. The vast majority of people do indeed have sex with multiple partners before marriage. Does that make me "everyone-phobic" or "anti-all-young-people". I believe that divorce and remarriage is immoral. Does that make me a "divorced-o-phobe"? Do I hate or fear divorced people? I believe that sloth is immoral. Yet everyone, without exception, is slothful. Does that mean I am a misanthrope - someone hating humanity in general?
You would regard it as ridiculous to claim that my moral outlook on sloth meant I hated or feared everyone. So why is it considered acceptable to routinely describe me as hating or fearing homosexuals, or being anti-gay, because of my moral outlook on practicing homosexuality?
This is the more offensive because there are, in fact, many people that I would regard as homophobic - people that regard homosexual practice as in some way disgusting or "creepy", or who would react with fear to discovering that an acquaintance were homosexual, in case that person might find them attractive or make some kind of pass at them. I declare straightforwardly that I find nothing disgusting about homosexual practice and would be (and occasionally am) flattered if homosexuals find me attractive. I reject outright that I am in any way hateful or fearful of homosexuals or "anti" them. I have no less (or more) general good will towards homosexuals than I have to the rest of humanity.
Yet, the attitude behind the lazy and offensive use of the terms "homophobic" and "anti-gay" has become oppressive. The most egregious example of recent years was the rejection of conservative Catholic Rocco Buttiglioni as a European Commissioner with responsibility for civil liberties on the grounds that since he believed that homosexual conduct was sinful, he would be unable to oversee anti-discrimination law and regulations.
This attitude is wrong, offensive, and oppressive. I, for example, have always been a supporter of legal rights for homosexuals. I argued vocally in favour of equalisation of the age of consent and civil partnership for many years before these measures were introduced. The idea that anyone believing that things are wrong cannot support them being legally protected involves a blatant rejection of liberalism - for at the core of liberalism is the rejection of the idea that it is the task of state law to divide the moral from the immoral. A liberal wants many things she considers wrong to be legally protected. Few would deny this when it comes to freedom of speech - we all trot out cliches about hating what is said but being prepared to die to defend your right to say it.
The same applies to many other areas. The fact that sloth is not illegal does not mean that it is not wrong, and the fact that it is wrong does not mean that it ought to be illegal. The fact that sex outside marriage is not illegal does not mean that it is not wrong, and the fact that I believe that it is wrong does not mean that I believe it ought to be illegal and in no way means that I would not seek to defend people's legal right to do it. You don't think I have to believe that Maoism or Nazism or Scientology or Wahabbism or Buddhism or Wiccanism are right in order for me to want to defend the freedom of these groups to argue for their doctrines. So why would you believe that I have to think that sex outside marriage is right for me to be prepared to defend the practicing of it?
Smearing those that believe that practicing homosexuality is immoral as "homophobic" or "anti-gay" impoverishes public discourse, hobbling the free expression of an important and relevant minority view, and oppressing those that hold to it openly. (Mine is of course a minority view. Only about one third of people disagree morally with practicing homosexuality, according to social attitudes surveys, and I am sure that much lower proportions have any moral objection to several of the other forms of extra-marital sex with which I disagree.)
I am not anti-gay or homophobic. I simply believe that sex outside marriage (including homosexual sex) is immoral. You are free to disagree with me - I could be mistaken, of course. But don't try to smear me and make people hate or fear me by alleging, falsely, that I hate or fear them.
