Christian ethics and homosexuality

Richard Swinburne gave the keynote address at a conference for the Society of Christian Philosophers in which he defended the traditional Christian position that homosexual acts are immoral, and apparently argued that those who experience same-sex attraction are disabled in some way. By some accounts he was inflammatory and insensitive in this; by other accounts he was only presenting claims that he published years ago in his book Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy. The President of the SCP is Michael Rea (whose book World without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism is on my shelf waiting to be read) apologized for the hurt caused by the presentation and that Swinburne's views are not those of the SCP, which was founded to be inclusive of all those who consider themselves Christian. As Eleanor Stump pointed out, Rea didn't actually condemn Swinburne or his claims, or even criticize them. Nevertheless, there's a cyberstorm over whether Swinburne's lecture was out-of-bounds and whether Rea's apology was appropriate. I'll just send you to Rea's apology on Facebook that has numerous responses -- some positive, some negative -- some thoughtful some not so much -- and follow it up with William Vallicella's comments and links over at Maverick Philosopher.

Now in one of those links I read that in his presentation Swinburne also argued that the fetus is not really a person until 22 weeks gestation and so abortion should be allowed up until that stage. I understand why people with same sex attraction would be offended and hurt by someone claiming that homosexual acts are immoral, but it seems to me that someone who lost a fetus before 22 weeks gestation and considered it to be their child, their baby, would have just as much a claim to be offended and hurt by claims that their deceased child was never really a person. But such claims are made frequently, in academic conferences and in society at large, and I don't hear a comparable sense of outrage by it. And I think that's appropriate: in order to discuss these things, we have to be exposed to all sides of the issue, even those we consider offensive. I mean this is ethics. Ethical issues tend to involve situations that people are emotionally and personally invested in, and debating those issues is bound to hurt someone and hurt them deeply. But the idea that we shouldn't discuss those issues for that reason does not seem to me to be the right response, although I think any debate must be done with respect for those who disagree, even if you don't respect their position. I have to heavily qualify this though: I have my issues that I'm sensitive to too, and while I occasionally try to toughen myself up regarding some of them, most of the time I take the easier route and just try to avoid having to consider the possibility that I'm disastrously wrong. So I'm not in a position to judge anybody.

I'll supplement all this with a post by a gay Christian philosopher who writes something similar to what I expressed above and communicates how difficult it can be for him.

I’m an openly gay philosopher at a top-five program, and these issues are terribly important to me because I struggle daily to reconcile my sexuality with my faith. This stuff makes a difference to how I might lead my life, a phenomenon that is sadly rare in contemporary analytic philosophy. If a philosopher like Richard Swinburne has something to say, I need and want to know. I want to lead a Christian life, and I’ve grown to think that means living a celibate one. I’m not sure though! I want more debate. So, please, don’t scare any dissident philosophers away from the podium. ...  

I ask this not because views like Swinburne’s are without cost. When I read arguments like Swinburne’s, my heart sinks a bit because I worry that they might be sound. I miss my last boyfriend and sometimes regret telling him I couldn’t ever marry him in good faith because I suspect gay marriage to be incoherent and gay relations immoral. It’s f*cking rough. But, for all that, please don’t protect my feelings. For, as philosophers, our vocation is the pursuit of truth and the virtuous life—and that’s surely worth the sweat and tears.

I can't fathom the stress of having something as powerful as your sex drive be exclusively oriented in a way that conflicts with your deeply-held religious views. I say "exclusively" because of course I experience the occasional temptations to propagate my genetic material more widely than Christian morality dictates. But to have no legitimate sexual outlet would be terrifying. And I'm amazed at this man's willingness to unflinchingly pursue the rationale behind both sides of an issue, his willingness to follow the arguments wherever they lead, when one side of that issue would completely devastate him if it's true. So I am frankly in awe of the man who wrote the above quote. I want to sit at his feet and learn virtue from him. I can't even imagine having the inner strength necessary to choose celibacy as he did.

Incidentally, he goes on to say that, while he's accepted at his current institution, if he moved to another one, he would not come out of the closet -- about his Christianity. Not until he earned tenure. That reminded me of a recent comment by a Christian sociologist: "Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black. But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close."

Please pray

for the victims of the terrorist attack in Orlando. Fifty people created in the image of God were murdered, targeted specifically because they were gay, and more than that were injured, some severely. Pray also for the families of the victims, especially those whose loved ones were killed. "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister." (1 John 4:20-21)

...and on the topic of Ender's Game...

Here's an interesting article on Ender's Game and Maneuver Warfare (subtitle: How the famed sci-fi novel reflects a revolution in military thinking). When I was in the Marines, we had to read a certain number of books per year, which surprises a lot of people. In order to count, the books had to come from an approved list, most of which were pretty basic biographies of people's experiences in war. I owned Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor by Bill Ross, and had read it several times (I wrote about another book by Ross here), so I submitted that. It was on the list for Colonels and above, and it gave me enough points for my entire tour of duty. Anyway, my point was that Ender's Game was on the list of approved reads because of its detailed accounts of military strategy.

There's also a boycott of the Ender's Game movie, apparently because Orson Scott Card, the author of the book, is opposed to gay marriage. Read one person's reasoning here. I have to say, I'm unimpressed by her account. She says that Card took her under his wing, and went above and beyond in helping her become an author, never expressed any political or social views to her, and didn't give any indication that he gave a fig that she is gay. But he's opposed to same sex marriage, and that means he's a bad person. I have to agree with what this guy says about her article: she thinks the fact that Card does not support gay marriage indicates homophobia, which in turn indicates hatred for gay people, which she (falsely) equates to racism and advocating violence against gays, and finally to being an inhuman monster. Of course, none of these steps follows from the previous premises, so it's just an exercise in justifying her own hatred of people who do not agree with her politics. At any rate, if I only read books and saw movies that advocated positions I agree with, I'd read and see a lot less.

Gay Marriage and Infertility

An objection often made to gay marriage is that such a marriage could not produce any children. The counter-response is that this would mean that heterosexual couples who are infertile or who simply do not want to have children should also be excluded from marriage. I addressed this claim in this post, but Keith Burgess-Jackson has a much simpler and shorter refutation.

I wrote the other day that "marriage is about children." It might be objected that if this were the case, then childless or infertile heterosexual couples would not be allowed to marry. Here is the objection:

1. If marriage were about children, then neither infertile nor fertile-but-childless heterosexual couples would be allowed to marry.

2. Infertile and fertile-but-childless heterosexual couples are allowed to marry.

Therefore,

3. Marriage is not about children.

This argument is valid, but the first premise is false, which makes the argument unsound. Compare the following argument, which has the same form as the first:

1a. If drinking alcohol were about maturity, then immature individuals who are at or above the legal drinking age would not be allowed to drink alcohol.

2a. Immature individuals who are at or above the legal drinking age are allowed to drink alcohol.

Therefore,

3a. Drinking alcohol is not about maturity.

The first premise of this second argument is false, as even proponents of homosexual "marriage" will concede. There are many reasons of a practical nature, and some of a moral nature, for not disallowing the immature to drink. The drinking age is a bright-line rule that obviates the need for agents of the state to inquire into maturity. Perhaps in an ideal world the law would say that all and only mature individuals may drink alcohol, but our world is far from ideal.

Read the whole thing.

Homophobia and Racism

Gay rights advocates often claim that gay rights are simply one more type of civil right; or conversely, homophobia is the same kind of thing as racism. To think homosexuality is immoral is as illogical as saying that being a certain race or ethnicity is immoral.

But what exactly do some say is immoral? Homosexuality? Homosexuals? Or homosexual acts? Traditionally, the Judeo-Christian claim is that only the last of these is immoral. Homosexuality is the ongoing temptation to engage in homosexual acts, but temptation is not immoral even if what you're being tempted to do may be. Moreover, the Christian is commanded not to condemn the person (the homosexual) but only the act. This is the meaning of the proverb "Love the sinner, hate the sin." (Admittedly this proverb is not in the Bible, but it summarizes the biblical position well.) Both of these are in some sense dependent on the third category, homosexual acts or behavior. To say someone is homosexual but is not tempted to perform homosexual acts is a contradiction in terms. Similarly to refer to homosexuality without any concept of same-sex attraction simply doesn't make any sense. The temptation to perform homosexual acts is what "homosexuality" means.

Now the problem with claiming homophobia is the same sort of thing as racism is that these categories do not transfer to race or ethnicity. This is most obvious with the third category. We all know what homosexual acts are: they are sexual acts between members of the same gender. They are not merely acts performed by homosexuals; when a homosexual washes his car, he is not engaged in a homosexual act. A homosexual act is one which defines the act as homosexual inherently, that is, by its very nature.

If homophobia were the same sort of thing as racism, there should be corresponding acts or behavior that are particular to different races. Just as there are homosexual acts, so there should be Chinese acts, or Hispanic acts, or white or black acts. This is obviously absurd. Therefore, homosexuality is not the same sort of thing as race or ethnicity. As I argued in this post, homosexual behavior involves an element that is simply not present in race: namely, behavior.

The first and second categories are problematic as well, since they are dependent on the third. A homosexual is someone who is tempted to perform homosexual acts. But a white person is not someone who is tempted to perform "white" acts, since there are no such acts. To say someone is homosexual but is not tempted to engage in homosexual acts is to redefine the word "homosexual." A homosexual is a person who is tempted to perform homosexual acts by definition. Similarly for the first category: the equivalent of homosexuality would be "whiteness" or "blackness" or whatever. But "whiteness" is not the temptation to perform "white" acts because (again) there are no such acts. Thus to treat homosexuality as the same sort of thing as race or ethnicity -- and homophobia as the same sort of thing as racism -- is simply invalid.

Abortion and Gay Rights

{Caveat}
1. Last week, a poster at the Jury Talks Back asked a good question: "Suppose the technology existed to safely remove a fetus from a womb at any gestational stage for incubation elsewhere until birth. If such “no-death abortion” was available to any woman who wanted it, would most abortion rights supporters stand down?" Patterico followed it up with a post on his own blog, saying that a pro-choice person he posed the question to was adamantly against it. JTB had a follow-up to the original post as well. I found it an interesting question, partially because I had the same idea when I was a teenager (again!) and toyed with the idea of becoming a doctor in order to pursue it -- of course I would have had to be a medical technologist instead, but I didn't think about it hard enough to realize that. The objections to this scenario on the blogs linked to above strike me as contrived: the baby might come to the mother 40 years later looking for a kidney transplant; it would allow rapists to propagate themselves; etc. The primary argument in favor of abortion has been that women shouldn't have to go through pregnancies when they don't want to. The above scenario would allow women to end their pregnancies. If a pro-choice advocate is still against it, then their real goal is not to allow women to end unwanted pregnancies. Their real goal is to kill unwanted fetuses.

2. The Volokh Conspiracy reports (from the Religious Clause blog) on an interesting case: a black woman, an administrator at the University of Toledo, took umbrage at an op-ed in her local newspaper arguing that gay rights are a type of civil rights and that homosexuals are equivalent to black people. She wrote a very respectful but dissenting op-ed of her own, a large part of which expressed the traditional Christian belief that homosexual behavior is a type of rebellion against God. Here is her op-ed. She was promptly fired. The university defended their action by saying her views on homosexual behavior make it impossible for her to fulfill her role as an administrator. She has pointed out that it has never prevented her from hiring gay people before during her 25-year career. Instapundit calls it a political firing, but it seems to be a religious firing to me.

On Gay Marriage

{Caveat}
The Connecticut Supreme Court has just legalized gay marriage (the decision is here). Obviously this subject is very controversial; not only does it address political issues, but ethical and religious issues as well. Before getting into this, though, let me just point out that Christians are not called upon to change the world through social legislation; we are called upon to change the world by reflecting Christ. If you're concerned as a Christian about the state of marriage in society, the best thing you can do is reflect Christ in your marriage. This doesn't mean you should ignore social issues, much less that you should refrain from voting on them; it's just an appeal to get our priorities in order.

Those in favor of gay marriage see it as just allowing homosexuals to have the same rights as heterosexuals. To oppose it, then, is to oppose equal rights for all people, parallel to opposition to mixed marriages between people of different ethnicities.

This argument makes three assumptions that are, to my mind, dubious: first, that homosexuality is the same sort of thing as race or gender (perhaps because it's genetic). Second, that heterosexuals have a right that is being withheld from homosexuals. And third, that the traditional understanding of marriage as between men and women is arbitrary and can thus be changed. I've addressed the first assumption before, arguing that while race and gender are brute physical characteristics, homosexuality involves behavior, and behavior involves freedom. Of course, genes can certainly predispose us towards certain types of behavior, but they cannot predetermine us. If they could, it would lead to self-refutation. So to put homosexuality in the same class as race or gender is simply to make a category mistake.

The second assumption is also problematic. If I ask what right a heterosexual has with regards to marriage that a homosexual doesn't, the response is that the former can marry whoever he/she is in love with. But this is obviously false: there are limits to who someone can marry. You cannot legally marry a close relative or a minor, for example. So if someone were to fall in love with a close relative or a minor (there are many cases of both), then they would not have the right to marry that person in Western society, regardless of the gender(s) involved. The point being that we all have restrictions on who we can marry, and one of the restrictions for everyone is that the person you marry must be of the opposite gender.

This leads directly to the third assumption that defining marriage heterosexually is arbitrary. Of course, it is insufficient to say that the traditional understanding of marriage should be maintained merely because it is the traditional understanding. After all, traditions can be wrong. Traditions can be morally bankrupt. To simply say "that's how we've always done it" is not a good enough reason to keep doing it that way.

But there's a little more depth to it than this: it's not just a matter of our cultural tradition. Marriage is a trans-cultural phenomenon. Virtually all societies in human history have had marriage, and they've always defined it as between one man and one woman. There have been plenty of differences of course: some cultures allowed people to marry close relatives. Many only allowed marriage between members of the same ethnic group. In some, marriage was "arranged" so that people didn't have the right to choose the individual they married. Some have not viewed marriage as exclusive, and have allowed polygamy. (On this subject, I once told a friend of mine that the practice of polygamy proved that marriage hasn't always been defined as between one man and one woman. He corrected me: if a man marries a woman, that's one marriage; if he marries another, that's another marriage. His two spouses are not considered married to each other. So marriage would still be between one man and one woman, but people would be allowed to be in more than one marriage at a time.)

So while there have been differences in how societies and cultures have understood marriage to some extent, they have universally understood that, in principle, it is between one man and one woman. But these societies also had homosexuals in them, and this never led to gay marriage.

This should give us pause, for two reasons. First, if a concept has one universal aspect to it, to remove that aspect is essentially to empty the concept of meaning. If the one universal aspect of marriage throughout human history has been that it is between one man and one woman, then to remove that aspect is to simply void the concept of marriage altogether.

This is a big deal. If this analysis is correct, then allowing gay marriage would effectively nullify marriage. Bearing in mind that marriage has been one of the central pillars of society throughout human history, this could be disastrous. Moreover, if I may slip into libertarian mode, it would not merely be a case of the government changing social institutions at its whim, but of abolishing social institutions at its whim. I don't want government to have that kind of power.

The second reason this should give us pause is simple humility. If we can't understand why the entire history of humanity would define marriage heterosexually, we should stop to consider the possibility that we may not be seeing something that they did. Of course it's possible that they were all wrong and we're right, but that would be a pretty radical, frivolous, and self-righteous statement to make. I've never heard anyone make such a comment without doing it dismissively (which demonstrates that they're simply unwilling to think about the subject, and so aren't justified in having an opinion on it). At the very least, one who makes such a statement has to shoulder the burden of proof. Insofar as gay marriage contradicts the universal concept of marriage, it goes against the collective wisdom of the human race.

Now I think it's significant to point this out, but we must go on to ask why marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman. Sure, perhaps our social and cultural setting has blinded us to something that all other cultures saw; or perhaps it has given us a better perspective. The former is a much stronger possibility, since all cultures have thought that they had the perspective from which they could judge all others. We can't all be right. But it doesn't follow from this that we're all wrong either. So is there any logic as to why marriage has been universally defined as between one man and one woman?

Well, I think so. Marriage has always been about the perpetuation of the human race by means of the family. In principle, marriage is to take place between those elements which allow for the reproduction and nurturing of new people. In other words, marriage is about 1) creating new people 2) in a small close-knit community (the family). The purpose of part 1 is to bring new people into existence. The purpose of part 2 is to give them continued existence via a community of mutual love. This is partially so that they can start their own families and go through parts 1 and 2 themselves.

These two parts go together. Parents identify strongly with the children they produce, and so are usually going to be the ones most concerned for their welfare. (Note that this is not a statement of how things should be, but a statement of how things are.) Thus to separate these two aspects -- the reproduction of new people and their nurturing -- is simply unwise. This is how the human race has propagated itself for as long as its been around, and the only alternative I've ever heard of is Brave New World.

The problem this poses for gay marriage is that the first part -- the reproduction -- can only be done with one man and one woman. But gay marriage excludes the reproductive aspect of marriage in principle. Thus it separates the two aspects of marriage into different compartments.

The first objection to this that comes to my mind is that there are plenty of married couples who do not reproduce, either by choice or because one or both of them is sterile. But this objection is misguided: men and women (and only men and women) are capable of producing offspring. Marriage, in principle, involves the two elements by which the human race reproduces itself, namely, men and women. But it does not require that particular couples reproduce. For each married couple to be required to reproduce would essentially require people to prove themselves capable of producing offspring before allowing them to marry. This is absurdly unrealistic. Many couples have difficulty getting pregnant at first, but are able to after a while. So they would fail such a test, even though they would be capable of producing offspring. And as for people who choose not to have children, well, they may change their mind later. Again, the perpetuation of the human race requires men and women to reproduce, and the family is the best setting for this reproduction to take place in, but it does not depend upon particular couples reproducing.

An analogy to this is voting. Democracy does not require that a particular citizen vote, but that citizens in general vote. If I don't vote, either because I choose not to or because something prevents me from doing so (a butterfly ballot say), it doesn't invalidate the entire electoral process. Nor -- and this is an important point -- does it make me a second-class citizen because of it. But a democracy in which there is no possibility of voting, where voting is ruled out in principle, is simply not a democracy. It's a contradiction in terms.

The second objection that comes to my mind is that I'm focusing on the reproduction of the human race to the exclusion of the nurturing of the human race. But of course I'm not excluding nurturing at all: marriage involves both reproduction and the nurturing of those produced. By contrast, gay marriage does exclude one aspect of marriage, and it excludes it in principle.

There are plenty of organizations and ministries in favor of gay marriage which argue that the bonds which draw people into a loving community are hugely significant, that a family without love is a family in name only. I do not dispute this. But I don't think the concept of the family should be divorced from the concept of reproduction. No one loves a child more than a parent, and so no one is more disposed to pursue the child's best interests. (Again, this is not a statement of how things should be, but of how things are.) Not to mention the more basic fact that in order for people to be drawn into a loving community, they have to first exist; and in order for them to exist, you need a man and a woman to produce them.

Think of the analogy of a democracy again. Just as marriage is about 1) reproduction and 2) nurturing, a democracy is about 1) voting and 2) good citizenship. There will always be exceptions: some people won't vote, some won't be good citizens. But to redefine democracy so that voting has nothing to do with it and good citizenship is the only necessary aspect, isn't to change democracy; it is to abolish democracy.

But aren't there exceptions to this? Some parents abuse or abandon their children. Others give their children up for adoption, while still others adopt children they didn't produce themselves and include them in their family. Of course. If circumstances prevent a child from being nurtured, then he or she should be accepted into a family they were not born into. But we don't prefer that children be raised by people that had nothing to do with their production unless extreme circumstances demand it. It's only under such circumstances that nurturing is delegated to others. Again, parents identify strongly with their biological offspring, and so are strongly predisposed to look out for their offspring's best interests. At the very least we can say that they are more likely to be so disposed than anyone else. And so, biological parents will generally be those most likely to succeed in caring for and nurturing the children they produce. This is a general description of how things are, and the presence of occasional exceptions does not invalidate it.

Moreover, once the reproductive aspect and the nurturing aspect of marriage are separated, there is no reason why people should have any particular right to raise their own children. Gay marriage, by excluding one of these aspects in principle, puts them into separate categories that don't have anything to do with the other. It erects a barrier between them. Why should the man and woman who sired and birthed a child be the ones to nurture it as well? If there is no link between reproduction and nurturing, what right would they have to raise their child? What right would the child have to be raised by those most disposed towards its own welfare?

I realize that for many people these arguments will sound alarmist. They view gay marriage as simply an issue of allowing homosexuals to have the same rights as heterosexuals. Claiming that it strikes at the very heart of civilization, that it undercuts the only plausible way for the human race to propagate itself, and that it would remove any grounds for parental rights seems implausible, to put it mildly. To respond, I would simply return to a point raised above: our social and cultural setting can easily blind us to issues of great import. This is true for all of us, on both sides of this issue. We need to step back, take a deep breath, and look at it again with fresh eyes.

Prolegomena to Gay Marriage

The California Supreme Court has just legalized gay marriage. Here's the 172-page decision. Rather than address gay marriage itself, I would like to look at one particular argument that is often given in order to show that homosexuality is amoral -- neither moral or immoral. The argument is that homosexuality is genetic, and is therefore beyond the control of any given individual. In other words, their attraction to the same gender is not something they choose, but rather is just the situation they find themselves in, and therefore homosexuality cannot be considered immoral.

Before I critique this argument, please bear in mind that I am not arguing here that homosexuality is immoral, I'm merely addressing an argument which claims to prove that it is not immoral. If this argument turns out to be false, it does not follow that homosexuality is immoral, only that the argument fails to demonstrate otherwise. To put it syllogistically, if A is false in the equation "If A then B", it doesn't follow that B is false as well. B might be true for other reasons.

At any rate, there have been some genetic studies which seem to support the claim that homosexuality is genetic. My understanding is that none of these studies have been conclusive. Personally, however, I would be surprised if homosexuality didn’t have some kind of genetic aspect to it. Genetic links to various kinds of behavior have been discovered, and I don’t see why homosexuality couldn’t be as well.

We must also make a distinction between being attracted to the same gender and acting upon this attraction. Christianity maintains that some actions are immoral, but the temptation to perform these actions are not. Since we all have different temptations and different degrees to which we are tempted, we are called upon to not judge the person who sins because we can't know how difficult it is for him or her to refrain from such behavior. For all we know, the person who sins exerts much more self-control than we do. However, we are also called upon to judge the actions themselves. Leviticus 19:17-18 has both sides of this right next to each other: "Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself". This is the idea behind the saying "love the sinner, hate the sin".

(As an aside, our society equates not judging people with not judging their actions either. So to condemn certain behaviors as immoral is to judge the people who perform them. This is the same error that was made in the Spanish Inquisition, but from the other direction. Our society and the Inquisition both identify the person with his or her actions. The Inquisitors recognized that the actions were not good, and so considered the person not good. Our society recognizes that the person is not bad, and so considers the actions not bad.)

The argument I have heard claimed in this context is that if something is genetic, it is a physical characteristic, since genes are made up of matter. To condemn actions that are simply the outworking of a physical characteristic is just as inappropriate as racism or sexism. Since they are physical attributes, it is just as illogical to call homosexuality immoral as it would be to call a certain skin color immoral.

I don't think this argument works. Behavior is simply in a different category than skin color or gender. When it comes to behavior, genes can only predispose us towards certain actions, not predetermine them. We still have free will. If it was possible for genes to predetermine some acts, then they may predetermine the acts of deciding or believing things. But if it's possible for our beliefs to be predetermined, then this could apply to our belief that genes predetermine our beliefs. It's a Catch-22. If the belief in genetic predetermination may be genetically predetermined itself, then it's not believed because of any actual evidence or reason. It undermines itself. The only way to avoid this is to reject the possibility of predetermination.

One of my ethics professors put it to me this way: if you take, for example, the freaks who run ultramarathons of 100 miles or so, you would probably discover that they share certain genetic traits. But this is not even remotely the same thing as claiming that they are unable to refrain from running these races.

Moreover, just because particular actions are easier for some people to engage in (or harder to refrain from), it doesn't follow that there is nothing wrong with the behavior in question. Alcoholism and depression, for example, are often genetic. But we recognize that they should be treated.

Again, don't misunderstand me: I'm not arguing here that homosexuality must be the same kind of thing as alcoholism or depression. All I'm saying is that the claim that homosexuality is genetic does not prove what some people seem to think it does. Genetics simply cannot tell us whether a given action is immoral or amoral. To answer this, we have to look elsewhere.

(reposted from OregonLive)