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Homosexuality in AnimalsFrom: Steven
Subject: Philosophy
Date/Time 2010-08-09 22:48:00
Remote IP: 76.247.139.135
MessageLet me respond to this article "The Animal Homosexuality Myth"
and a variety of its claims:
ARTICLE CLAIM: You can't observe animal behavior and say that
similar behavior in humans is "natural"; in particular, same-sex
sexual intercourse between animals does not legitimize same-sex
sexual intercourse between humans
MY RESPONSE: I couldn't agree more.
Same-sex sexual intercourse in the animal kingdom does not justify
the "naturality" of human samesex sexual intercourse.
HOWEVER, what it does show, is that--at least in the animal kingdom--
sex of a variety of forms is used for more reasons than just procreation.
This gives *plausibility* to the idea that sex outside of the realm
of heterosexual sex for procreation should not be surprising in the
human realm.
/////
ARTICLE CLAIM: Animals use sex for a variety of reasons that have
little to do with actual sex: dominance, avoiding conflict, etc.
MY RESPONSE: And humans don't? Humans do the same thing.
/////
ARTICLE CLAIM: Homosexual animals don't exist.
MY RESPONSE: This is false. My whole family as an eyewitness
owned two male beagles about 15 years ago. These two were
completely inseparable, and could not stand being apart from
one another. They had sex with each other constantly. Several
attempts were made to try to breed the dogs with other variant
female beagles that were in heat and introduced the females to them.
The two male beagles wanted nothing to do with the introduced
females, preferring to ignore the females and just mate with each other.
This was NOT a dominance issue. Anyone that saw the two beagles
could see exactly what was going on.
/////
ARTICLE CLAIM: The following argument is invalid: "Scholars reason from the premise that if animals do it, it is according to their nature and thus is good for them. If it is natural and good for animals, they continue, it is also natural and morally good for man."
MY RESPONSE: I agree it is invalid. It does not provide justification for
human behavior, BUT as I mentioned above, it provides plausibility that
humans may also deviate from procreative-driven sexual intercourse.
/////
ARTICLE CLAIM: The definition of man's nature belongs not to the realm of zoology or biology, but philosophy, and the determination of what is morally good for man pertains to ethics.
MY RESPONSE: Wrong. Mental ideas and constructs of the mind of one person or
one group of people have no business dictating the propriety or impropriety of
others SO LONG AS their actions do not interfere in the actions of others to
their pursuits of life, liberty, and happiness. [Can you tell I'm a libertarian?!]
Such actions have no business being *judged* by the mind; they are the
domain of the heart. Matters of the heart are not elucidated by the
cold calculation of science.
CONCLUSION: While the appropriateness or inappropriateness of human behavior
can not be determined from examining animal behavior, the observation of
diversity in animal sexual behavior demonstrates that simple procreation
is not necessarily the measuring stick by which human sexual behavior
should be measured. And as to human sexual behavior, what takes
place between two consenting adults is the only the business of the
two adults in question--not the business of others. Despite objections
raised by certain people to the appropriateness of same-sex marriage,
it is not their business to judge it. After same-sex marriage was
legalized in certain states, you know how it affected the
"standard" heterosexual marriages? It didn't. The stability of the
heterosexual marriages is only dictated by the people involved in them.
People need to spend less time worrying about what other people do, and
instead spend time looking at themselves. If someone doesn't like
homosexual sex or homosexual marriage, the solution is simple:
don't have one yourself . . . and let other people live their lives.
S
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