On the Reform Taoism forum a question was raised about what Taoism tells us about homosexuality and legal gay relationships. For what it's worth, here's my answer...IMHO there's a few points here.... The first is that the Tao Te Ching is not a religious text in the same way as the Bible or Qur'an. It does not claim to be the "word of God" or some kind of infallible reference, but rather is the observations of either one or a group of people depending on what you believe. I like to think of it as a travel book, where the writer says "I did this to get where I wanted to go", and you can take from it what is useful to get you to the same destination, but it is not something to be blindly followed. If other texts pass any comment I don't know, but it would only be an opinion not a law. At the end of the day you are your own guide to the Tao.
Secondly Taoism is about finding your own way to live rather than telling others how they should live theirs. I see no way that two people having a consenting relationship affects me finding harmony with the Tao, so I don't see why what they do should be any of my business.
Finally, one of the foundations of Taoism is observation of nature. Apparently homosexual behaviour is common in nature and, while one should be cautious about reading too much meaning for humans in the behaviour of other species, it does make it difficult to claim that gay humans are "unnatural".
2 comments:
Superb answer! I particularly like the description of the Tao Te Ching as a travel book. That is such a useful description -- I may borrow it (with a proper citation, of course).
This is a great blog! I found you through the Rambling Taoist. I'll be reading and be back to comment too, I'm sure. Thanks for this Taoist resource.
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