PROFILE: John Corvino

I have met and hung out a few times with Dr. John Corvino, philosophist and author of What's Morally Wrong with Homosexuality? and consider him a friend.

I am especially impressed with the way that he juxtaposes moral arguments that are bastions of gay rights nay-sayers with their ultimate philosophical argument to dilute their strength. For instance, he has the best argument against the "slippery slope" justification for calling homosexuality immoral: that is, "once we allow homosexuality, we'll have to allow polygamy, bestiality, necrophilia ..."

John breaks it down to three challenges. First, have the arguer explaing why bestiality, polygamy, and necrophilia are wrong. Then, have them explain why homosexuality is wrong. Then, use their own arguments against them.

For instance, a lot of people use the bible (no, I will never capitalize it again) as carte blanche justification for why homosexuality is immoral. Specifically those pesky verses in Romans and Leviticus.

Does the bible ban polygamy? Oh ... whoops ... nope ... it does not... in fact, how many wives did so-and-so have?

You will have them running in moral circles. Of course, the bible does outright ban bestiality, but it doesn't make them equivalent to homosexuality.

More on this argument can be found a http://www.johncorvino.com/ ... where you can truly find way to break down the moral objections of almost anyone in their views about homosexuality.

It's really hard to defend something you have no good reasoning for. Challenging the moral equivalency merit is usually all it takes for a gay rights foe to argue themselves into a corner.

Is a Gay's Marriage to a Hetero Legally "Fraud"?

Today it came out that former Governor of New Jersey, Jim McGreevey, told his ex-wife and reporters that according to divorce papers, one of the counts in an attempt to get money from him was based on "fraud". That is, he lied about his sexuality and "duped" her.

We saw this also come up a couple years ago when often-rumored closet gay Kenny Chesney was served with annulment papers from Renee Zellwegger, saying that the marriage was based on "fraud", as well.

As someone who worries about legal precedent, I wonder if we are only going to see more of this. If someone is not comfortable with their true sexuality, and enter into a heterosexual marriage anyway, are the bitter divorce(e)s going to be allowed to sue for fraud?

When it comes to gay issues, people will find a way to discriminate based on the law no matter what, I find. EVEN IF THOSE RULINGS CONTRADICT EACH OTHER. Sigh.