A Defense Of Homosexuality By John Corvino

Eric Tseng

Class

Professor

October 1 2015

The essay, Why Shouldn’t Tommy and Jim Have Sex? A Defense of Homosexuality by John Corvino addresses a topic that has long been controversial for more years than people can count. This topic, like a never-stopping debate, often brings various opinions onto the table, including religious morals, human future and procreation. Homosexuality has been seen as a serious sin through many people’s eyes and is often accused by others of being “immoral” and “unnatural” (Corvino). People often have a hard time accepting couples who practice relationship with the same sex. In the article, Corvino rejects the idea that homosexual sex is unnatural and immoral. He defended for his gay friend’s rights throughtout

his writing by responding directly to the “four most popular kinds of arguements that seeks to establish the immorality of homosexuality” (209). He sheds light on each objective with critical thinking and gives back-ups evidences for his statement so those words are more valid arguements that stimulate opposite party to think. Corvino challenges the most common arguments against homosexuality to include thoughts that it is unnatural, immoral, and harmful to where it stands biblically and the concept that homosexuality leads to the acceptance of other immoral activities.
At the beginning of the essay, Corvino introduces his friends, Tommy and Jim, who are sexually attracted to each other.

He thinks that there are many good reasons for Tommy and Jim to have sex. First, they are in a relationship. This one is a simple thinking. A lot of staticits have proven that there are many benefits of a healthy sexual relationship for couples who are in love. Second, the no-brainer answer, “sex is pleasurable.” (210). Corvino thinks that sex is even “much more than that: a sexual relationship can unite two people in a way that virtually nothing else can. It can be an avenue of growth, of communication, and of lasting interpersonal fulfillment” (210). He states that these reasons listed above are exactly why heterosexual couples have sex, too, even when they don’t plan on having children, don’t want children yet, or are past the child-bearing age. So if Tommy and Jim having sex is immoral, then there must be some “better” reason for Tommy and Jim to not have

sex.
Here comes in his first arguement, defining what is “unnatural.” In this section, he emphasizes the definition of “unnatural” and what makes homosexual sex unnatural?

He believes that a lot of thing that people value in life, such as clothing and medicine, “are unnatural in some sense” (211). Yet, no one suggests those being immoral. On the other hand, disease and death, for example, “are ‘natural’ in the sense that they occur ‘in nature’” (211). So being unusual isn’t enough to be called as immoral. The arguements of abnormal, offensive or disguesting do not make things “unnatural” either because there are activities such as eating snails or cleaning toilets that disguest people but aren’t listed as immoral. Moreover, arguements such as animal practice and moral innation do not label homoseuality unnatural because after all, what is normal can't in any way, shape or form be characterized. By the end of this section, he concluded that “homosexuality is either perfectly natural or, if unnatural, is not unnatural in a way that makes it immoral”

(211).
The second argument Corvino discusses is that homosexuality is harmful because it can leads to depression and suicide. This not only is harmful to the participants, but also to the human society since it increases the risk of getting HIV/AIDS and raises the chance of getting one of this disease. However, Corvino states that “correlation does not equal cause” (213). When the numbers and statistics turn against gay couples, Corvino argues that it is because gay couples cannot admit that easily, nor can they expose themselves to the society because there are too many people/factor that are against them. So much frustration and stresses often cause people to be suicidal and depressed. Moreover, negative results of health’s statistical data couldn’t possibly give any measurement to the theory since so many gay couple “come out” until their late fifties, there is not enough “representative population smaples for statistical study” (215). Nevertheless, same-sex couples don’t share those thought. They considered their relationships just as healthy and normal as one of the heterosexuals. They have desires, they seek love, they want to build a future, settle down and live a fulfilling life. In other words, it doesn’t matter who the other half is, Corvino states, relationships that make two people happy create more productive and less stress people in general, homosexuals are no exception.
The third arguement -- Religion morals -- can be seen as the the most controversacy one since it is against people’s religion and it violates Biblical teaching. However, Corvino states that time changes, and the values nowadays are not as same as that of Biblical time. So people believe in the bible shoud acknowledge those factors and rethink if they should take every word in bible literally. Corvino thinks that Bible should be a guidance in terms of making decisions when face obstacles or confused. Therefore, people shouldn’t possibly hold against homosexuals since it is hard to literally interpret everything on the bible.