If you ask most people who are opposed to gay marriage, or simply homosexuality in general, why they oppose it they with inevitably say that homosexuality is somehow ‘not natural’.
This has always baffled me as it seems patently false on several levels, which I have yet to hear an adequate refutation from those who claim it.
Firstly, humans are part of nature and therefore anything we do is by definition, natural. Drawing an arbitrary line between us and the rest of Earth’s lifeforms based on our niche as the most intelligent is of itself no value in determining what is moral conduct.
Secondly, even if you reject the first premise, homosexuality has been observed to occur in the animal kingdom, including our close primate cousins. Its conduct is therefore natural, it occurs in nature.
Thirdly, if you reject the first two premises; why is something that is unnatural automatically bad? Flight, for example, is completely unnatural for humans, yet I don’t see those opposed to homosexuality campaigning to close all airports; special pleading if ever I saw it. Hemlock and anthrax, totally natural yet not as good in my opinion as, say, the automobile which doesn’t occur in nature.
I’m normally quite good at playing devil’s advocate but for the life of me can’t figure out why opponents use an argument so obviously without worth. Is it simply lack of imagination that ‘anything not like me = unnatural’? Do you think it’s unnatural and can explain why, or help me understand why this argument is trotted out so often?
Just to play Devil’s Advocate here, homosexual acts are common in the animal kingdom, but I’m not aware of homosexual pair bonds being formed by animals other than humans. Perhaps some birds, but not any mammals. I could be wrong about that, so someone can correct me if I am.
But I think when people use the “it’s not natural” argument, usually they mean “not as God intended”. How one determines what God intended is beyond me, but I guess you can hang your hat on a few phrases in the Bible. But then, Leviticus is full of laws that almost no one pays attention to anymore.
I agree with your first and third points, and no issue with homosexuality in general.
But I do sometimes wonder about examples of “homosexuality” in the rest of the animal kingdom. Is it comparable to humans? When we see an animal trying to mate with something other than a member of its own species, or an inanimate object, do we consider it comparable to bestiality, or some kind of fetish? Or is it simply that the instincts that lead to a desire to mate with something are not especially specific or based on specific rules? When animals jump off cliffs, or run in front of cars, are they truly “suicidal”, or do they just fail to fully understand the situation? It seems to me that other animals act based on a much less complex mixture of impulses and thoughts than humans. We have no doubts as to what is a member of our species, and (almost all the time) which sex that person is. Does a “homosexual” mallard really understand the difference between a male mallard and a female mallard? That’s not to say I don’t think most mallards can tell the difference and act accordingly, but it seems to me that there’s a fundamental difference between a flaw in the way a mallard processes a simple rule on mating and the complex relationships and emotions of humans.
I don’t think the rest of the animal kingdom really has anything to say either way on the rightness, wrongness or validity of human behaviour.
Anyway, I suspect John Mace is right, and “unnatural” is considered relative to God’s wishes.
Most animals don’t form homosexual pair bonds, but then, most animals don’t form heterosexual pair bonds, either. The animals that do form heterosexual pair bonds (mostly among the birds) have also been observed to form similar homosexual pair bonds (a quick Google reveals pairs of gay penguins in at least New York, Denmark, and Madrid, for instance).
What gets me is the shear goalpost-moving of the arguments.
Person A: Homosexuality is unnatural, and therefore wrong.
Person B: What do you mean? How do you know whether an act is unnatural?
A: You can tell it’s unnatural because animals don’t do it.
B: But they do. Homosexual acts are fairly common among bonobos, for instance.
A: Who said anything about bonobos? That’s irrelevant. Humans are not bonobos, and we should not act like them. Homosexuality is wrong.
Swans will also same gender pair bond. They’ll even steal eggs to “adopt” chicks. Apparently some sheep are exclusively homosexual - but sheep don’t pair bond.
Don’t many animal species not form pair bonds at all? The Wikipedia article on Monogamous pairings in animals says that socially monogamous pairings are found in 90% of bird species but only 3% of mammal species. (Social monogamy basically means the pair acts like a couple, shares a nest, etc., but are not necessarily sexually monogamous – see also the article on Monogamy.) I know there are people who argue that monogamy is unnatural, and they may have a better case than those who say homosexuality is unnatural.
The mammal section of the Wikipedia article on Homosexual behavior in animals notes that while elephants do not form heterosexual pair bonds, male elephants often form long-term “companionships” that include sexual behavior. Lions and Japanese macaque are both described as forming short term same-sex pair bonds. The article also says that around 10% of rams are exclusively homosexual in their behavior, something I’d heard before, but it’s not clear to me from the article whether these rams (or any sheep, for that matter) form pair bonds.
Do you mean for the purpose of procreation? Because lots of species have members which do not procreate. Ants, coyotes, and deer are some examples of creatures which either postpone procreation and mating or don’t do it until social pressures within a group allow them the opportunity. Here’s a relatively well-cited Wiki page of mammals which display homosexual pair bonds or have same sex relations for fun or as a social lubricant: List of mammals displaying homosexual behavior - Wikipedia
I mean for the purpose of procreation an/or pleasure. Regardless of what one thinks of homosexuality (and I do believe it is naturally occurring) one cannot ignore the complementary nature of a penis and vagina.
Sex is pleasurable, and you could argue that this is natural - that is, that organisms like mammals are more likely to procreate if the act of procreation produces immediate pleasure (and if the less pleasant consequences are much farther down the road). Therefore pleasure in doing sex is a characteristic that was selected for through natural selection (there is probably a more scientifically accurate way to say that, but you get the idea).
Now, natural selection being inexact in how it accomplishes things, the pleasure comes not only from procreational activity, but from many different uses of the procreational equipment, in addition to procreation. I imagine this is one of the reasons that males seem to have an inexhaustible supply of sperm, since they use up so much of it on non-procreational activities. So natural selection balances out the wide arena of pleasure with a large reservoir of pleasure’s outcome that is also needed for procreation.
So strictly speaking, any pleasurable activity that involves the procreational equipment is, by definition, natural*.
QED
Roddy
*This is assuming that “natural” is not congruent to “what God wants”. The second view cannot be argued with, so save your breath for your soup.
