[sarcasm]Alright. What sin would you like to talk about? I mean, this is a thread which is ultimately about homosexual "marriage," but hey, I'm sure that other sins would be a more appropriate topic of discussion, so why not?[/sarcasim]
lain:
I'm not talking about sin at all, except to note the problem bringing it into the consideration. We both agree it's a sin.
We're likely talking past each other in terms of what does and does not constitute a "right." By "right," I understand what the Latins meant by "ius," i.e., "the right." Thus, even a parricide has the right...i.e., to be tied up in a sack full of vipers and thrown into the river Tiber. [I draw this example from an article I read a while back, the author of whom I forget).
I got that, but I'm using the form that applies to the question and the law controlling the Kentucky dispute. I'm not trying to argue you out of your position in terms of a religious model. That's your business.
Except, you don't really believe that, at least, not simply speaking. There's all sorts of contracts that you don't have a "right" to contract. Gambling, e.g., is illegal outside of Indian reservations and and Nevada (to my understanding).
I've always held that no right is absolute. In fact, I've spent a not inconsiderable amount of time speaking to necessary, justifiable discrimination and the failure of our present consideration along the line of standard for justifying it.
So, if you'll refer back to my previous points to Jose Fly about positive vs. negative right, I think that you are in error.
If you read this: I differ. That was easier, wasn't it.
If there is a positive right (i.e., one which necessitates State intervention), then the State is endorsing the claim. To use Catholic moral terminology, there is formal cooperation on the part of the State in what you are doing.
I'm not using Catholic metrics. You might as well suggest that in endorsing free speech the state is endorsing any bigoted use of it. A positive right may simply permit. Intervention? In what sense? Any right may lead to some form of that when you or I overreach and impinge on its exercise by another who is entitled to their own use.
By "sin," I understand any thought, word or deed (or omission thereof) which violates the law of God (whether the Natural Law or the Divine positive laws).
Seems fundamentally sound.
Moving beyond that is pointlessly moving into a series of differences even more tangential to the point of consideration and ones that won't be resolved between us.
Not all violations of the Natural Law are equal in gravity. Murder is worse than fornication.
No, it isn't. Murder is worse in a secular sense, given that it denies access to every right in every discernible sense. As a moral proposition all sin is the enemy of the perfect moral good and any sin carries death with it.
That some actions are worse, more deformed, more contrary to reason, more deserving of censure, blame, punishment, etc. than others? No, I can know this by reason alone. There is such a thing as a philosophical ethics.
I don't believe you can. I believe you can rationalize and justify it, but that at its foundation it is a capitulation to empiricism as a model for every measure and not an actual and absolute truth.
Would you please briefly summarize/paraphrase what you think my initial point was?
No. And I won't ask you to do it either (either).
