Scratching my head here. If you think it is not the sexual acts between homosexuals per se but the (oppression determined?) frequency of them, then how do you account for the very real statistical differences in STD and HIV transmission between comparable groups of homosexuals and heterosexuals? After all, if it is not an issue of frequency (and the statistics are corrected for such) then what is the difference?

Ok, if you don´t know what I mean by “per se”, I will ask it this way: What is inherently unhealthy about homosexual sex? As I said before, I never denied that homosexual comunity has a higher health risk than other groups, but I contend that has is not inherent to gay sex itself, but to contigent historical issues.

Well I don’t know about risky “per se” as I am not quite sure what you mean by that. But consider this from the gay advocacy Bilerico Project blog (citing a report from the National STD Prevention Conference) At the (2010) National STD Prevention Conference ….. the CDC released some astonishing data regarding rates of infection among MSM (Men who have Sex with Men). The data indicate that rates of HIV infection among gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) are more than 44 times higher than rates among heterosexual men and more than 40 times higher than women. Rates of syphilis, an STD that can facilitate HIV infection and, if left untreated, may lead to sight loss and severe damage to the nervous system, are reported to be more than 46 times higher among gay men and other MSM than among heterosexual men and more than 71 times higher than among women.

I think that any neutral observer would consider an infection rate for STD and HIV that is ~at least~ 40 times higher than amongst comparable heterosexual populations to be a very significant “risk to ones health” wouldn’t you?

I do not know how it will work with the black community (and I am not even sure if blacks could have stable families during the time of slavery or racial segregation). But the way I see it, homosexuals, being ostracized and denied by social (and for years legal prohibitions and persecution) to openly have stable partners, ended in an underground ghetto culture, were sexual repressed instincts manifested in promiscuity.

Still, I have yet to see an argument that shows homosexual sex is unhealthy per se. Do you have any to show me?

I am confused. You seem to be saying that promiscuity (at least amongst homosexuals) is the result of societal “oppression”. This argument, by the way, is much the same argument that is made about the high frequency of out of wedlock birth in the African American community — ie: that the legacy of oppression (slavery) has made the African American family much more prone to instability.

Both cases seem to me to be (incredibly) contrary to the facts on the ground. If it were the case that these pathologies (or signifiers if you prefer) are the result of some form of “oppression” would we not expect to see those behaviors ~decrease~ as said oppressions are lessened and even eliminated?

Thomas Sowell makes this point occasionally. If the African American family was made unstable by slavery, why has the stability (as measured in out of wedlock births) of the black family not ~increased~ in the last fifty years?

Is it your argument that the there is ~less~ sexual promiscuity now than fifty or a hundred years ago? I sure would like to see a statistical metric confirming that. Certainly we’ve seen nothing of the sort since the dawn of the ‘sexual revolution’ (with its rhetoric of freedom from oppression) amongst heterosexuals…

Okay, to reengage for a moment. I am confused by what looks like two different arguments coming from you that seem to me hard to hold together.

I think we agree that “enforceablity” is not the only reason to make a law. In your discussion of the “big soda” ban you say that the government has an interest in “promoting public health”, which is, I think, to say that the law has a pedagogical function — that it is there not just to sanction but to teach what a society holds as a “good” regardless of whether or not the law is ever enforced. Peter Kreeft (the moral philosopher) makes that argument when talking about abortion. He says, for instance, that we have laws against suicide, even though such laws are in the strictest sense unenforceable (as one cannot prosecute a “successful” suicide…) So we are on the same page as far as that goes, correct?

Why then do you seem to be saying something else when it comes to laws regarding sexual behavior? Let’s leave fornication and homosexuality aside and only consider adultery. Is it not clearly the case that adultery is bad for society? Aren’t there adverse and clearly measurable public costs associated with adultery? If the law has a teaching function don’t we want to “teach” married couples by legal sanction that it is bad/wrong to betray their partner sexually? Yet you seem to be saying that such laws should not be made because they are not enforced or enforceable. Wherein lies the distinction for you?

If laws were only made based solely on prudential reasoning — ie on the likelihood of their being obeyed and or being enforced, we would not have very many laws at all. But the law is more than that, it is the expression of a social compact, a secularized “moral code” if you will.

The argument often comes that we can’t “legislate morality”. It’s a silly argument. All laws legislate some sense of what the state believes is the “best” way to live. Which brings us full circle round to the question I started with: what is the best way to live? Who decides? How? What roles do freedom and personal choice play? All of those questions (I think we would agree) are not trivial. So a law or regulation that touches on those questions — even in a silly way (like Nanny Bloomberg’s soda size ban) nevertheless has at it’s heart a very serious set of questions/assumptions and can be an indicator for us of the mindset of the one(s) making it.

The contradiction, it appears to me, is the willingness on the part of some on the Left to accede to and even advocate for state intrusion into all sorts of minimally to moderately harmful behaviors while at the same time screaming bloody murder at even the suggestion that the state might have a stake in seeking to eliminate or at least severely restrict certain much more obviously high risk behaviors?

Yes, but the cheap foods eaten by plebs are an crime against all that is tasteful and pleasing to the senses.

Gluttony (even if it’s only food being overindulged) can be an important part of living well and is an essential freedom, but only if it’s done with panache. Big Gulps are unhealthy because they are offensively prole, and therefore they should be criminalized.

As I have pointed out before, laws against sodomy, fornication, and adultery were very rarely enforced (or enforceable) when they were on the books.

I asked what makes homosexual sex unhealthy per se. I am aware that homosexuals are more promiscuous as a group. But that seems to me as contingent, historical development of homosexuality (more probably, due to the repression that community has suffered for centuries). But that doesn´t mean it has always to be that way, or that there is anything unhealthy about the practice.

On the other issue you commented: I am 34 and I am not sure if that is old or young for you, but certainly my views have little to do with my age. Contrary to what you seem to think, I do not imagine that all forms of pleasure are not harmful; drugs (including legal alcohol) are an example of that. But I also know that the use of coercion to limit the liberty of people to have those pleasures is ethically unacceptable and it usually backfires, creating more harm than the one it seeks to prevent. In any case, I do not think homosexual sex fits into the category of pleasures that cause harm.

Hurry up, Bloomberg, I’m already popping the (butter-free) popcorn.