I am not sure what the statement that there is homosexuality among animals attempts to establish by argument.
On the face, animals are not considered moral agents by any major religion, so it is difficult to establish moral and religious conclusions from their behavior.
Similarly if taken as stated it proves too much. Most animals are not monogamous or engage in any relationship that would be recognizable as marriage, so to look to animal sexual activity as the guideline for human sexual activity would tend to undercut marriage by any definition of that term, including homosexual marriage.
Lastly, many deviations from the norm exist in all species, but that does not necessarily establish them as "natural" qualities of a species. Hyper-aggressiveness also occurs in animals, but I think few religious people would take that as a compelling argument that God had made it natural, and therefore morally permissible, for men to abuse their wives.
The situations do not have to be morally identical for persons; the problem is that the form and content of this particular "natural" argument proves a much one as the other.
Posner writes, "It seems that the only remaining basis for opposition to homosexual marriage, or to legal equality between homosexuals and heterosexuals in general, is religious."
Many advocates of same-sex marriage subscribe to that claim, but how does someone reconcile that belief with the reality that many non-religious people oppose same-sex marriage? Japan does not accept homosexual marriage and neither do many other countries where the Abrahamamic religions have very little influence (perhaps Posner was only referring to the United States in the aforementioned quotation). The belief that homosexuality is innate does not seem to decide the issue as decisively as Posner seems to argue.
And why should it? If evidence suggested that pedophilia and polyamory are innate characteristics for a certain segment of the population, how much would that blunt society's revulsion or the concomitant desire to regulate?
An earlier comment stated: "30 years of studying homosexual parenting (yes, gay people have been raising kids for that long) has uniformly shown that children are no worse off with 2 daddies, and in fact statistically turn out marginally better. These children are also no more likely to be gay. So I don't quite see why you "expect" a heterosexual couple to be better, but I assure you it has no factual basis."
"The small bit of research that exists suggests increased rates of same-sex orientation among the children of such couples; my informal synthesis would be that gay parenting approximately triples or quadruples the rate of same-sex attraction. It may be technically true that “the vast majority of these children eventually grow up to be heterosexual,” but only because if being raised by same-sex parents increases the occurrence of same-sex attraction from 2 percent to 8 percent, 92 percent are still heterosexual. But a fourfold increase is still a sizable effect statistically."
I disagree with both Judge Posner and Professor Becker on their stance concerning the legal right of homosexuals to receive public recognition of their sexual union. I do agree that it is a "puzzle" why so many people have climbed aboard this bandwagon. First, contrary to Judge Posner's claim that homosexuality is natural, throughout history all cultures have found something amiss about homosexuality. On this claim, consider the research of sociologist Steven Goldberg. All world religions today condemn homosexuality, not just the Abrahamic ones. Furthermore, when the vast majority of people, including left-liberals, are presented with implicit tests on their reaction to homosexuality, they are negative. For example, consider MC Steffens, J Homosex. 2005;49(2):39-66, "Implicit and explicit attitudes towards Lesbians and Gay Men." Anyone can take similar tests at:
What these universal and enduring visceral reactions to homosexuality reveal is that there are good reasons, even if they cannot be fully articulated, to be careful about proceeding with normalizing behavior that has long been viewed at odds with a stable, thriving community as well as a healthy individual.
Even then, we can articulate some of these reasons and explicitly object to defenders of mainstreaming homosexuality. One consideration that we can document is that as society has become more permissive, people's happiness has decreased. There has been a significant drop in the level of happiness in developed countries since the early 1970's. See "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness" By Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers--available online. There might be a host of reasons for this fall-off, but one might very well be the Sexual Revolution. And one reason to come to this conclusion is that people who practice more traditional sexual mores are more likely to be happy. For example, people who are married (I mean heterosexual marriage) and are faithful to their mates are much more likely to be happy. Homosexuals and others who engage in sexual misconduct are less likely to be happy. This is true even in "gay friendly" countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark. Homosexuals are also much more likely to suffer from psychological problems such as depression and anxiety disorders. Consider J.M. Bailey(1999): Commentary: Homosexuality and mental illness. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry. 56, 876-880.
Male homosexuals are much more likely to suffer from a variety of physical ailments due to the nature of the male homosexual sex act. HIV/AIDS, anal cancer, and a range of related diseases grouped under the term "Gay Bowel Syndrome" are much more likely to occur to those practicing gay sex. Hepatitis B is much more prevalent among homosexuals than the general population. Homosexuality is a health threat, and it is because the human body is simply not designed for homosexual sex. This is one reason people have traditionally viewed homosexuality as unnatural.
As for the claim that conservative Christians and Jews should have no voice in this matter, one cannot reasonably embrace the view that all perspectives should be considered in discussing public policy as Judge Posner does in his defense of democracy, and then disqualify millions who take a traditional view of sex and marriage who base their stand on religious belief. It is also inconsistent to embrace a theory of natural rights, which the American political and legal system is based upon, and then flaunt what that same metaphysical/religious paradigm defines as unnatural.
"If homosexuality is innate, it becomes difficult to see why it should be thought to require regulation."
I think this line of argumentation is problematic and I've never understood it. The mere fact that something is biologically determined does not mean the state gives up its right to regulate it. Witness that the state decides that blind people and children (e.g.) can't have driver's licenses. It's not a good response to this to say, "my blindness is innate therefore the state can't regulate it." The state regulates all sorts of biologically determined behaviors for legitimate reasons. So, it seems to me, the issue is really whether the state should have the authority to regulate a particular behavior (innate or not). And here the relevant issues are how does this behavior affect others? is the behavior moral? what consequences does this behavior have for the individual? etc. All of this is independent of innateness and makes homosexual marriage an issue of rights/ethics. It seems to me this is where the fight should take place, and not in the biology classroom.
I suppose this sort of perfunctory wikipedia analysis is a good starting point, but the conclusion that there can only be religious (i.e., irrational) reasons for pursuing anti-homosexual political policies belies the very obvious truism that collectives have an array of secular interests in the regulation of innate and sexual behaviors; e.g., there seems to be a consensus that there are legitimate secular reasons for sanctioning pedophilia and consensual, non-reproductive adult incest.
There is also a tacit consensus that there are secular reasons for regulating non-heterosexuals and deviate heterosexuals to the extent that their innate sexual behaviors are accompanied by other inefficient consequences unrelated to the sexual behavior itself. Thus, for example, homosexuality is partially regulated by proxy through the government's strict policy toward the use and distribution of illicit drugs. The private sector also engages in proximate regulation of homosexuality through the insurance industry's policies toward illicit drug use and preexisting sexually-transmitted diseases, both of which have heightened profiles among homosexuals.
One may even suggest abstract-conceptual secular reasons for regulating homosexuality. If it is permissible to engage in speculative evolutionary psychology with respect to the benefits and persistence of homosexuality among humans, then it must also be permissible to engage in speculative psychology with respect to the negative consequences of homosexuality. For example, while homosexuals now have a far greater ability to reproduce or procure offspring, this was not the case for the vast majority of human history. Consequently, it is just as reasonable to assume that homosexual psychology evolved with a shortened time horizon because there was no reason to orient behavior toward goals that superseded the individual homosexual's lifespan. Moreover, if such a psychology did exist among homosexuals, one would expect to see fatalistic and shortened time-horizons punctuated by risky behavior among homosexuals (drug use and anonymous, unprotected sex) as well as increased focus on immediate gratification and expenditures(self-definition in terms of sexual preference, drug-use, risky sex practices) etc. Obviously a state would have an interest in regulating these tertiary effects of homosexuality, if not the actual sex act itself.
Finally, the conclusion that homosexuality is innate cannot be the end of the question of whether homosexuality can or should be regulated. Narcolepsy, for example, is both innate and caused by a pathogen, therefore it is an innate trait that can be prevented or regulated. Greg Cochran, author of the _10,000 Year Explosion_ has actually posited a pathogen theory of homosexuality on his blog(http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/depths-of-madness/) and elsewhere.
Excellent post, thanks!
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