Chris

I'm afraid this is what you get when you abandon absolute morality in favour of relative, localised community morality. The absolute morality that made homosexuality 'wrong' in our culture actually still says it's wrong. It's the non-absolute morality of our society that has changed. In that context - and that's the context I was using in my post - homosexuality was wrong then but is probably not wrong now. I say probably because I'm talking about public mores, not the law. There is no guarantee that acceptance of homosexuality is as widespread in our society as some campaigners would like us to believe. But that's another subject entirely.

It's interesting that you choose homosexuality for your illustration. Perhaps you believe it's a powerful example because you think everyone's opinion has completely changed and nobody would these days dream of speaking against it? Even if that were the case, all you're doing here is reading your own moral outlook back into history, which is a bit pointless because to do that is to completely ignore the context in which people were living. As I have said, in any discussion about the relative morality held by a community that does not particularly ascribe to any notion of absolute authority (i.e., God), all you have is what is right and wrong in the here and now.

Quite easily. You're comparing apples and pears here, so it's not surprising you're confused. Puritanism is one specific moral outlook. It is possible to have a moral outlook without being a Puritan. Of course Puritan has an alternative meaning, which is the one Matt used in his post, that of someone who is in some way obsessive about their morals. In that sense - as Matt conceded at the time - it was intended as a caricature of someone who opposes liberalising of drug policy. It's easier to argue down a caricature because you can pretend their point of view is somehow less valid than yours from the outset.

Ah, the age-old argument from personal experience. Well, I note at least that you're not claiming they all want policy to be liberalised. That's a start I suppose. It also begs the question, why did you mention it? Nutt, after all, clearly wants some restrictions relaxed. Do your contacts all want the same, or do some of them think that the current policy, which is 'not working' would be best remedied by being made more severe?

This sounds like an attempt to draw parallels between our current drugs policy and US policy on alcohol in the early 20th century. Interesting, but I've gone on long enough for now.