It’s the principle that most legal systems are founded on, just with different definitions of harm. Basically, you can do what you want as long as you aren’t hurting anyone. That would be trampling on their God-given rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A similar version of this saying that is much clearer is Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. We would never ask that of the people of Texas. Compare that minor, barely palpable discomfort with the shocking, invasive horror of placing a damp strip of fabric across your nose when you enter a business establishment for three to five minutes.
Except this one minor thing that is obviously not a big deal, where you have to use your body to build another body from whole cloth, give it eyeballs and a circulatory system, undergo months and months of creeping bodily horror as your torso becomes unrecognizable to you, familiar smells become off-putting, and the recently fired “Jeopardy!” man threatens your livelihood, and then at the end of this process you have a human being for whom you have to arrange a life. Your fist must stop where my nose starts, the Alamo, pew pew, etc. The legal and social precedent you have allowed will not protect you.We believe in freedom. But that’s not where we agreed to draw the line in the sand, and that agreement applies to all of us, not just some of us.Ĭould you imagine if someone denied you service, medical care or an adoption because they were offended and morally opposed to the Christian lifestyle? Would you not call that kind of inequality in society bigotry and oppression?Īnd to those who might not care that they justify political and social inequality and violate the harm principle merely because they are offended, I hope you never find yourself part of a hated or disliked minority. To have the same rights as you.Īnd the saddest part is we want to deny these rights not because there is evidence that allowing them is harmful, but because enough of us feel personally uncomfortable, offended or disgusted by the idea. To be able to get lifesaving treatment when it is ordered by your doctor. To be able to adopt and love a baby just like you can. To not be denied services at the same public store you shop at. An individuals’ rights end when their fist meets my nose, and queer people aren’t asking to punch people in the face. Remember people’s rights don’t end when you and I feel personally offended or disgusted.
So when we do not allow queer parents to adopt children or a business tries to deny them service we violate their rights. There is no substantial scientific evidence that queer relationships are at all harmful for society and they certainly don’t harm you or me as individuals. If you agree that the harm principle draws a line in the sand we cannot cross, then even if you morally disagree with gay relationships, you cannot bar them of equal social and political rights.
#Your freedom ends at the tip of my nose free#
This is a rough-and-ready metaphor for the harm principle, a principle that draws a line in the sand and says individuals are not free to harm others or, in other words, I as an individual am free to do anything that doesn’t harm others.
#Your freedom ends at the tip of my nose how to#
I don’t know how to reconcile my feelings of the spirit with the teachings of church leaders, but I know I can’t deny it.Īnd while many members do not share my experience of the spirit, and many others might even see my experience as heretical, I think one thing they will agree with me on is the idea that, “Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins.” I am confused about the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on queer people, as I am sure many were during the priesthood ban on those of African descent across the world. I feel in the same way that I feel the spirit that their relationship is good, and when I think of the character of Christ and the nature of an all-loving, all-good God, I can’t see that person not seeing the goodness in my friends’ love as well. And when I look at them I see the same goodness in their love as I do when looking at my parents or at my own wife. As Oliver Wendell Holmes or someone like him once said, your freedom to act ends where my nose begins.
And they live in happy, rewarding and, from my perspective, admirable homosexual relationships. I have friends, close friends, good people, people I love dearly who are queer.
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