Religious people usually claim that homosexuality is a choice. If this is true, then how does one account for the Bonobo chimpanzee? These close relatives of ours use sex as a social lubricant (no pun intended), with both sexes engaging in frequent homosexual activity. Is this a lifestyle choice? Do they have “free will,” or is their behavior natural?
If it is natural in the Bonobo, then there is good reason to believe that it is natural in humans (not to mention the other species that exhibit the behavior). This would refute the “choice” hypothesis. It would also mean that God, as the creator of all things, must have created homosexuals and intended them to be that way.
If it is unnatural, then it must be the opposite of natural, since a behavior cannot be both natural and unnatural. The opposite of natural is supernatural. This, too, would mean that God created homosexuals and intended them to be that way.
Which position would the religious prefer to deny? Unless they wish to present some other hypothesis, they must decide if homosexuality is natural or supernatural. The only solution to this riddle, as I see it, is to grant free will to those other species, which raises a whole new set of questions that will need answering.
June 24, 2008 at 5:59 pm
My personal opinion about homosexuality is hard-wired, that it is a “natural drive’, for lack of better words. I agree with Alfred Kinsey, who theorized that all humans fall somewhere on a scale between 0 and 6 – 0 being exclusively heterosexual, and 6 being exclusively homosexual; additionally, I agree with his assertion that those humans who are either a 0 or a 6 are rare.
Very interesting and thought-provoking post, once again, DD! I hope some religious folks will respond with their .02 worth.
June 24, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Thanks, I hope so, too!
June 27, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Yes, mindserased, that sums it up: all humans are on that scale from 0 to 6 with very few at the extremes. With Bonobos, the distribution may be bell-shaped with strong peak at the middle, whereas with humans there may be maxima closer to each end caused, perhaps, by cultural conditioning. Who knows? Maybe our natural state is more like the Bonobos.
:-)
One could also say that what religious types mean by unnatural is simply that certain acts are against god-given nature and thus evil, rather than supernatural as such, unless ’caused by the devil’ could be called supernatural. So maybe this is what you mean, DD.
I might mention that I know basically non-religious types who hate homosexuals, and also strong religious types who completely accept them. See MadPriest for an example of the latter.
June 27, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I agree that cultural conditioning plays a role in human sexuality, or at least how it is expressed or realized.
At the risk of clarifying the obvious, when I ask if homosexuality is natural or supernatural, I’m intentionally giving religious people an impossible choice: whichever they choose, they must credit homosexuality to the will of God.
June 28, 2008 at 2:13 pm
OK, by definition a religious person must credit homosexuality to the will of God. Or maybe to a universe which includes evolution and the big bang but which was ultimately created by some kind of God-like force or unknowable Mind (unerased). (I’m making distinctions between various “religious people”.) In other words, the religious person is forced to attribute homosexuality to either a personal olde guy called God in heaven or an unknowable force or mind which set the universe, all that is, in motion. It’s easy to be an atheist if all you are disproving is that the olde personal God in heaven exists. It’s a little harder to be an atheist in more general cases. But I digress. The point is of course to accept homosexuality whether a person is religious or non-religious. The olde-personal-God-in-heaven types might be more likely to condemn homosexuaity, the other types, less likely. Well, those are my views anyway, for whatever they’re worth. Thanks for bringing up the topic, DD.
June 28, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Yep, you got the point exactly. :-)
June 28, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Thanks, DD!
Incidentally, my copy of New Scientist arrived yesterday and the lead editorial is Why homosexuality is not unnatural. The editorial points out how the animal kingdom is replete with same-sex action. Male penguins do it, rams do it, even female macaques pair off to do it. Nine years ago, Bruce Bagemihl counted 470 species that indulge in same-sex activity, ranging from male anal penetration by males to … They point out further how the recently identified “gay gene” might increase a woman’s chances of having more children, which ensures persistence of the gene. A very recent finding found clear differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals in brain symmetry and wiring fixed at birth.