Do I wake or sleep?

Hi. Sorry if I'm butting in, but minstrel70 told me that he was involved in an interesting intellectual fight over here and it was getting so hot a hockey game was threatening to break out! It does look like a sticky issue being discussed. I'm really fond of philosophical debates like this one, and can't resist tossing in my two cents, no matter how decorum would suggest I remain an observer. If the owner of this journal objects, I will butt right out, but from what I have read so far, she seems intrigued by the discussion as well.

I'd just like to say that I agree that the gay bashers in question do appear to be one sorry bunch of people. They are certainly exhibiting a virulent form of collectivism -- which is pretty close to the root of evil in the world today. Here these people are, not content to say that homosexuality is wrong and that they believe it to be immoral to act on this orientation, but they actually go so far as to claim that gay people, because of who they are, are intrinsically evil and un-human, and thus not deserving of respect. Certainly this is a poisonous idea. Nevertheless, I'm going to have to agree with minstrel70 when it comes to "what to do about it" -- the scoundrels haven't done anything actionable yet.

The problem with mysticblaze's argument, is that he is falling for the same fallacies espoused by the people whose teaching he rejects. Yes, teaching is an action, so is breathing. Do other humans have any authority to license and regulate your breathing for you just because it is an action and not an abstract thought? The point here is that the criterion is not merely a question of the distinction between action and thought alone, but between actions that are peaceful and voluntary and actions that actually initiate real force. Absent the actual initiation or threat of real force the law lacks any moral authority to act.

mysticblaze asks why he should "live in fear" of the beliefs which are being taught to the children of others. The implication here is that his fears grant him some sort of authority to take action against the source of his fears -- in other words, they justify his treating the source of his fears as objects, as means to some end of his own instead of ends in their own right. The problem with this thinking becomes clear as soon as we reverse the sides. This is exactly the same argument put forward by the gay bashers, who fear that homosexuals are attempting to teach children to become gay, and therefore this fear gives them the authority to "do something about" the people who are gay. The argument is wrong, no matter who espouses it.