John Corvino on What's Wrong with Homosexuality?

More good material from Dan Savage's site: Savage has been uploading a series of videos that ethicist John Corvino is releasing on YouTube, dealing with common arguments used by those who oppose acceptance and inclusion of LGBT human beings in society and faith communities. The one at the head of the posting is about the claim that one can love the sinner and hate the sin. Dan Savage uploaded it yesterday, with a reminder that Corvino's book What's Wrong with Homosexuality? was published by Oxford University Press last month.

Today, Dan Savage offers another video in the same series by John Corvino, one about the "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" approach to the discussion of the homosexuality. The entire series, to which Corvino is adding videos regularly, is at his YouTube page. The clips I've watched are outstanding, and I highly recommend the series.

Re: the claim that one can love the gay sinner while hating the gay sin, here's some of Corvino's commentary:

What's the sin in question here? It's not some isolated misstep like fudging your tax returns or ripping the little tag off the bottom of your mattress or poisoning your neighbor's cat. It's about the fundamental relationships around which we organize our lives. It's about how we experience love, as well as pride and shame, joy and sorrow, power and vulnerability, things that are intimately connected with our sense of self.  

And yet people say, "It's not you I'm objecting to. It's your homosexual activity, your homosexual practice, your homosexual conduct." What is that? What is heterosexual conduct? . . . Think about the wide range of activities that make up our romantic lives. And when we talk about heterosexuality, we talk about that full range. When we talk about homosexuality, we focus narrowly on the sex, the conduct. And then we get this skewed picture where straight people have  relationships and gay people have sex, where straight people have lives and gay people have lifestyles.

As you can see, good stuff. And much-needed educational material in a world in which too many people talk with such astonishing glib certainty about what "God" thinks and says about homosexuality, without ever letting even a smidgeon of thought into their empty heads as the words flow freely (and with malicious effects) out of their mouths. 

Oh, you thought I meant His Eminence Cardinal Dolan when I said that?!