So, the strategy chosen by 1980s gay men seems to have paid off in producing a more rational discussion.
You haven’t shown this. You’ve shown it achieved their aims, so might have been instrumentally rational for them, and that it was vindicated by subsequent value change/drift, but not that the new discourse is more rational. It can be instrumentally a good idea to make discourse more irrational in some specific way, or to change others’ values, against their will.
I was assuming that everyone agreed that the 1980s discourse about homosexuality was nuts, since it was strongly influenced by Christianity—I guess if you take Christianity seriously, we would need to have a different discussion, but the assumption is that almost nobody here does.
It was nuts, simply by virtue of being strongly influenced by christianity? The abolishion of slavery was (very) strongly influenced by Christianity—was it also nuts for the same reason?
I can think of other good arguments for the 80s being nuts, but “being more strongly influenced by Christianity” is not.
Are you intentionally picking the stupidest possible interpretation of what I wrote? Surely you can think of a more charitable interpretation than that.
[edit]
The abolition of slavery was (very) strongly influenced by Christianity—was it also nuts for the same reason?
Yes. Abolition was a good thing; but it’s insane to think that it was good because the Bible opposes slavery.
You haven’t shown this. You’ve shown it achieved their aims, so might have been instrumentally rational for them, and that it was vindicated by subsequent value change/drift, but not that the new discourse is more rational. It can be instrumentally a good idea to make discourse more irrational in some specific way, or to change others’ values, against their will.
I was assuming that everyone agreed that the 1980s discourse about homosexuality was nuts, since it was strongly influenced by Christianity—I guess if you take Christianity seriously, we would need to have a different discussion, but the assumption is that almost nobody here does.
It was nuts, simply by virtue of being strongly influenced by christianity? The abolishion of slavery was (very) strongly influenced by Christianity—was it also nuts for the same reason?
I can think of other good arguments for the 80s being nuts, but “being more strongly influenced by Christianity” is not.
Are you intentionally picking the stupidest possible interpretation of what I wrote? Surely you can think of a more charitable interpretation than that.
[edit]
Yes. Abolition was a good thing; but it’s insane to think that it was good because the Bible opposes slavery.