In Reply to: an objective standard posted by ray on July 13, 2004 at 00:00:36:
Your question about objective standards is one reason I find it so difficult to post on the journeys board. I'm painfully aware there's always ground left uncovered when I try to articulate an ethical argument.
KG did a really good job of talking about the objective standard by which we determine the rightness of wrongness of certain sexual behaviors. Moral behavior is not a matter up to popular vote, but a thing based on recognizing of the difference between consenting adults who are free to make fundamental choices of self-determination and those (such as children) who are not. It is this principle--rather than the appeal to some external source of authority (e.g., "Because God forbids it in scripture")--that becomes the objective standard by which we determine right & wrong.
I have been making the argument that self-determination is deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian values & beliefs and that it is the principle of self-determination that drives the so-called "homosexual agenda" that asks for the social & economic enfranchisement of a marriage contract.
An argument based in the external authority of scripture has said homosexual marriage is "from the enemy" and is an outright rebellion against God's law and the divine plan for humanity. I am saying that the principle of self-determination--which is written in each and every human heart--is at least as sacred and objective as the various contestable interpretations of scripture and Christian tradition.