Natural Selection

The "unnatural" argument against homosexuality is truly the cleverest of all the stupid points raised by anti-gay forces. I believe it is so clever because the argument really summarizes homophobia at a very visceral level: we hate you because you are not like us.

To a person who does not really analyze his or her culture, homosexuality may actually seem unnatural. There is even a twisted logic to the argument. They say Men and woman are biologically complimentary, therefore heterosexuality is proper. They also make the claim that most people are heterosexual, so then it must be nature's norm. Finally, they point to Western Culture and how it has been built around Judeo-Christian values, the traditional family unit and a basic definition of a given individual that is inherently based on the man/woman divide. You are given a name at birth, and it is either intended to be masculine or feminine. In short, being heterosexual is just expected.

So if a person is not heterosexual, then he or she is falling short of traditional cultural expectations and is not following the natural order of things. But when a person really thinks critically of what constitutes the natural, this mentality should rapidly fall apart.

After all human behavior is not unchanging. By which standard to you measure a lifestyle in order to call it "natural"? A life of mansions and plastic surgery must surely be as unnatural to a nomad as a life of collapsible huts and fur skins would be to an heiress. they have different lifestyle standards. Or are both of their lives equally natural, as any anthropologist would claim?
Is the meat heavy diet of the paleolithic hunter-gather unnatural, or is the neolithic farmer, with his diet of mostly grains, truly representative of the natural human diet? Which invention is more natural, the Ipod or the hammer, and which paint colors are closer to nature, pink shades or earth tones?

Since there is not one universal measurement, when we start to pick and choose which aspects of human life to consider natural, we can easily start sounding absurd.

Some people actually believe that nature itself is that one universal standard. They go to great lengths, and spend a considerable amount of money, on trying to prove that homosexuality does not exist in the animal (even insect!) kingdom. Well it doesn't. How could it when the very word itself describes a group of human beings? However, Same-sex behavior is recorded among animals and yes, insects too (Still, these cases are purely in terms of mating because life forms obviously can't experience true love, a human emotion). In any case, nature is value-neutral and should never become the standard by which human beings judge others. After all, there is no constitution, or Bible for that matter, in the middle of the jungle.

And besides, why would human beings want to restrict themselves to behaving in ways that are defined by arbitrary social or biological norms. Isn't the sentient ability to overcome the confines of our environment and become more than the sum of our parts what really makes us human in the first place? Our very ability to grow to be more seems to be in our nature.