Can Animals Be Gay? asks the New York Times, in a long and rather interesting article, which treds carefully on the question of whether such terms as “gay” can be used of animals and whether their behavior provides any insight into or guidance for human behavior.
Conservative activists had at one point used the supposed absence of such actions among animals as a moral argument against such actions by humans, which seemed unwise, and has proved to be so. Their understanding of the Fall was deficient, and their identification of “natural” as a way of thinking about who we really are and how we ought to act and “natural” as the life we observe in nature therefore dangerously naive.
So, using that logic, homosexualist activists are now using these actions as a moral argument for the good of human homosexuality. Some are quoted in the article. It isn’t any better an argument than the conservatives. As a friend, Gregory Laughlin of Samford University’s law school, the Cumberland School of Law, noted:
Duh. Any farm kid could tell you about such behavior. [Greg was a farm kid.] I’ve seen two boars “together.” So what? Animals also viciously kill one another, even their own kind. Does that make murder “natural” and, therefore, licit among humans?
Many animals have multiple sex partners and the male is often uninvolved in caring for his offspring. Does that make adultery, promiscuity and paternal abandonment “natural” and, therefore, licit among humans? Animals go into a frenzy when fed, pushing others out of the way and even trampling others to get to the food. Does that make greed, gluttony, covetousness and theft “natural” and, therefore, licit among humans?
It used to be that saying that someone was behaving like an animal was a put down, now we have folks seeking to justify their sins by saying that they are just behaving naturally, like an animal.
April 7th, 2010 | 1:06 pm
Certain varieties of fly gang-rape female flies as they emerge from their pupae. I suppose everything natural must, therefore, be moral.
April 7th, 2010 | 1:40 pm
“Animals also viciously kill one another, even their own kind. Does that make murder “natural” and, therefore, licit among humans?” Much like asking “Have you stopped beating your spouse?” The logic used in this quote, which then follows throughout the remained, conflates two issues: What is natural, and what is Legal. For the first, all the examples given establish that they are natural. Nothing, however, provide support for their legality. The argument that was used against homosexuality is: Animals don’t do it, therefore only Man does! Sadly the people that now reject the natural argument, based in fact, have even less to support their rejections on!
April 7th, 2010 | 1:43 pm
Ahem said “Certain varieties of fly gang-rape female flies as they emerge from their pupae. I suppose everything natural must, therefore, be moral.”
No, Ahem, that does not follow but it is understandable that you would think so, after all the converse argument, that something that is “unnatural,” being not found in nature, is therefore immoral. Since it has been established that homosexuality is natural, the discussion of its morality con comise.
April 7th, 2010 | 1:47 pm
Nowadays saying someone is behaving like an animal is still an insult – to the animals.
April 7th, 2010 | 3:18 pm
One correction (made): the law school at which Gregory Laughlin teaches is Samford University’s not Beeson’s. Beeson is the name of its divinity school (whose dean is Timothy George, a member of First Things’ board). My apology.
April 7th, 2010 | 3:33 pm
Reverend: You have a tin ear for sarcasm.
April 8th, 2010 | 11:18 am
I think we’re on better ground if we couch these questions in terms of “natural law”, not just “nature” as in the behavior apparently natural to the animal world.
Natural law has to do with what is, or should be, natural to beings who are created in God’s image. In a fallen world, it’s not a slam-dunk that anyone could, without sufficient reflection and guidance, come up with natural-law principles. However, as St. Paul points out, there is a common-sense principle that certain standards are written on the human heart. With sufficient honest good will, the pure of heart can discern these things.
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