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Lumifer comments on Open Thread, Apr. 27 - May 3, 2015 - Less Wrong
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A large part of my argument is based on my understanding that the Roman empire and Greece and so forth did tolerate homosexuality. AFAIK intolerance of homosexuality in the west started with Christianity.
If you are right that every past civilization was intolerant of homosexuality, then P(tolerance of homosexuality will destroy civiliseation) would obviously have to increase a lot.
Yes and yes.
Did the Romans and Greeks "tolerate homosexuality" in the sense we understand that phrase today? They certainly didn't have gay weddings. And allowing people to have homosexual affairs as long as you marry a woman would not nowadays be thought of as toleration, but as an anti-gay double standard.
I think the Romans and the Greeks did not "tolerate", but rather "accepted and celebrated as a morally and socially fine practice". Not to mention that from a contemporary perspective they were all pedophiles and corrupters of youth, anyways X-D
Not when the "passive" partner was a mature adult man, IIRC.
Sort of, the passive partner had to have lower social status then the active partner. For example, at least in Rome, using slaves as the passive partner was common.
wikipedia seems to think there was sort of gay marriage, in that gay marriage ceremonies were occasionally held but not legally recognised. Dunno exactly how reliable wikipedia is on this.
Actually, if everyone is comfortable with the affairs and practices safe sex, this strikes me as a reasonable compromise.
In fact, anecdotally it seems that most bisexuals have hetrosexual relationships, and very frequently their partners allow them to have homosexual affairs.
Yes, there is some evidence things like this happened during the late Roman Empire (this certainly happened). Of cource, this is hardly encouraging from a gay marrige being pro-civilization point of view.
I know this is a serious conversation, but on a lighter note, this made me laugh:
Anyway, back to gay marriage and the collapse of civiliseation:
I would actually argue that prohibiting gay marrage could have contributed to the collapse of the Roman empire. The reason is that if a Christian government impose their values (including but certainly not limited to banning gay marrage) upon a traditionally pagan population, it could have led to internal conflict. Would you be so eager to lay down your life for Rome if Rome is banning centuries-old traditions like the Olympics which you still value?
Well, homosexuality (although not gay marrige) was much more traditional in the Greek east then in the Roman west (where it had only become acceptable under Greek influince). And yet it was the west that collapsed.
Also, there was a great deal of internal conflict (of the general declares himself Emperor and marches on Rome variety) even before the conversion to Christianity.
Homosexuals are a small proportion of the population. Annoying them would not make them emperor popular, but banning pagan ceremonies would cause far more discontent, because they are a greater proportion of the population.
Coups tend to resolve one way or the other quite quickly, but religious conflicts drag on and are more personal to individual citizens.
The pagan customs were banned in 393. Rome fell in 410.
I'm not saying its the fault of Christianity. But maybe its a 'United we stand, divided we fall' situation?
Suppose this interpretation was correct, what does it say about the current left-wing approach to Christianity?
Also, paganism was never a unified thing, and by the late Roman empire most of the leadership wasn't ethnically Italian (much less Roman).
Well, there are countries where public Christianity is banned, but the US isn't one of them.
I think that the left forcing ministers to perform gay weddings is going to cause resentment, but then the Christian right trying to ban abortion and stem cell research and the teaching of evolution are in the wrong too.
What about the left legalizing abortion in the first place, by way of a Supreme Court Decision with such convoluted logic that even people who agree with the outcome won't defend it.
Who's trying to bad the teaching of evolution? Oh wait, did you mean the people who oppose banning the teaching of creationism?
I don't think forcing ministers and priests to perform gay weddings is at all likely. I don't even think it's likely that there will be an effort to pass laws requiring that is at likely in the reasonably near future.
I think it's likely that some on the left will be applying social pressure, but that's short of force, and there's going to be countervailing pressure.