There’s Natural and There’s Natural

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.