February 16, 2010
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Why on earth does it MATTER whether or not being gay is natural?
Constantly the arguments over gay rights get bogged down on this question of whether being gay or gay behaviors is natural or normal or genetic or conditioned or what have you. People will argue for days about the nuances of this question. Parsing words and definitions and examining studies and individual testimonies and surveys. Is it partially genetic? Do animals exhibit homosexuality? Does the Bible say it’s natural? Blah blah blah blah blah.
But you know what the more I think about it, when these kinds of issues are brought into discussions of gay rights such as when we’re discussing DADT or Gay Marriage or Employment Discrimination or Hate Crimes laws, it’s done for one and only one reason. To piss off gay people.
Because in reality whether or not being gay is natural doesn’t make a lick of difference in terms of whether or not it is okay for our society to discriminate against them. It is certainly not the defining factor. If it were, then it’d be okay to say that people who die their hair purple are also not allowed to marry or that people who own a foreign made car should not be allowed to serve in the military. We don’t ask first whether ADHD is genetic or conditioned before we decide that your children with adhd are entitled to exactly the same high quality education as children who are not. We don’t treat someone who lost a limb in a war any different than a person who was born without a limb or from a person who lost their limb in a work place accident.
Geez. Do people really think that the reason black people should be granted equal rights to whites is only because they can’t help being black? Guess what. If every black person decided on their skin color at some point after birth that STILL wouldn’t give anyone the right to deny them the right to vote or to marry or to a serve in the military. We don’t allow people to discriminate against people because they happened to get a tan either for obvious reasons. Nor is someone who has had a sex change from a man to a woman any less subject to potential gender discrimination than someone who happens to have been born a woman.
So these kinds of arguments are just complete nonstarters to me. They serve no purpose that I can see for deciding the questions of natural rights that should or should not be granted to someone who is gay. So if it has so little argumentative value, why do people bring it up so much?
Of course telling someone that the way in which they love is unnatural and disgusting and against the will of God Himself might not be any good way of proving any salient points to that person, but it definitely is a very effective way of provoking that person. And why wouldn’t you be provoked? Think of any person you love, what if someone told you that the emotion you feel for that person is because of a psychological disorder that ought to be conditioned out of you so that you don’t act on it because acting upon it is a SIN and is EVIL. How many of you, whatever your orientation, would NOT be pissed off by that kind of proclamation about your lives?
But it’s all just a big stupid distraction that has absolutely nothing to do with the real fight at hand. What we ought to care about as a society is that people are treated fairly no matter how they lead their lives and no matter what the ultimate reason is that they lead their lives in the way that they do.
People don’t have to be “normal” in order to earn equal rights and protections under the law. In fact many of our most heinous historical crimes resulted from this idea that you had to fit some standard of normalcy in order to earn proper consideration by the majority. Such attitudes are archaic. We need to move beyond them.
But perhaps I’m being unfair. Maybe there IS a very important reason why this naturalness question is relevant when considering gay rights propositions that I’m just not getting? So ok then, let’s suppose you’re right. You’re NOT, but let’s presuppose it anyway. Let’s say being gay is unnatural and totally a choice and not at all genetic or whatever you want. So take it from there. Spell it out for me. Tell me the story that gets you from that to the idea that it’s okay to fire someone because they are gay or deny someone the right to marry because they are gay, or murder people in Uganda because they are gay, or torture and terrorize people in Iraq because they are gay. Give me the logical connection that in your mind takes you from gay isn’t normal to gay people are less valuable human beings than you are.
Because if you can’t, then you should probably just shut the hell up about this naturalness bullshit and stop getting in the way of gay people and their rights.
Comments (19)
Yes.
*Cheer*
I never was a supporter of gay rights. I’m a supporter of human rights.
I think it’s the pilot error concept that makes a difference in the discussion about rights and whether things are natural. For example, it certainly isn’t natural for animals to be cloned, or human organs to be generated from stem cell tissue or for a fetus to be aborted (wire hanger or needle makes little difference). I think the concern, at least the only concern on which I can make a reasonable case for devil’s advocacy, is that we’re still screwing stuff up. Like when we dumped toxic waste in the water because it was convenient. Like when we destroyed entire environments to make ikea furniture. Like when we hunted several species out of existence. Like when we pumped smog into the air, so much so that in certain select areas the chemicals build up and come down in the form of burning acid rain. Like when we tapped into underground reservoirs of the liquid remains of dinosaurs to power our cars and our machines, burning massive holes in our shield from the scalding unfiltered sunlight. Like when we imported species from one place to the next, generally with cataclysmic effects on the local ecosystem, like the Asian long-horned beetle. Man doesn’t have a great track record of doing what nature does, better than it. If anything, we have a history of 1) thinking what we’re doing won’t have any real impact (and/or telling the public that) 2) underestimating any real impact that may be projected and 3) failing to completely grasp the complexity of what we’re dealing with when trying to subtract (in the case of pest control) or add (importing species) to pre-existing systems.
So, for that reason it makes sense that people would place a value to the natural order, whether they be religious or not. Nature is a pretty beautiful, pretty complex and fully operational system. Maybe we should leave it alone?
*clap clap clap*
All VERY TRUE. Unfortunately the gay community does itself a disservice by getting just as distracted by peripheral issues. If I were anti-gay these are the issues I would keep stirred up, since they generate such a distraction from things that matter.
Nothing to add but a bravo.
Actually, this particular argument is at least as often brought up to advance the cause of gays as a way to attack them.
People are more likely to be accepting of something they believe is not a choice. If it’s natural, it must be okay (goes the reasoning,) must be the work of God, whatever. And people buy it. In droves.
The conservative “It’s not natural.” argument is designed to do two things, really. First to rob this argument of its power. Second, to preserve God’s undeserved reputation for perfection in creation and fairness in judgement.
This point shouldn’t matter, but don’t fool yourself into thinking the whole debate doesn’t hinge upon it.
It does.
No matter how disgusting you or I as men of reason might find that.
That argument is more a desperate attempt to get anti-gay people to actually empathize with gay people.
Awesome post.
@striemmy - It’s an interesting argument. I’d answer in several ways.
1. All of the examples you’ve given of man-made harm are all fairly modern events. But we know homosexuality has existed throughout recorded history so it isn’t directly comparable. Really pre-industrial man-made interventions don’t have nearly as bad a track record.
2. Nature isn’t all that great as people make it out to be. Ask the people of Haiti how great natural Earthquakes are. Or the people of Pompeii how great natural volcanoes are. Nature produces some really devastatingly bad outcomes too. Plagues are wholly natural but not particularly praise worthy. And one day a giant asteroid could hit Earth and wipe out all life on it. That too would be “natural”.
3. So called unnatural stuff aint always bad either. We create vaccines for killer viruses. We develop new knowledge of nutritional that causes everyone to lead healthier life styles. We build sturdier buildings that resist earthquakes. etc. etc.
4. Just because something is unnatural doesn’t mean we should stop doing it. Bicycles are unnatural. They’re man made. Should we stop riding bikes? No. Obviously simply saying that something is unnatural is not enough to say that it should be restricted.
Putting those together, you have to show that allowing gay people to exercise their rights is a thing that leads to some kind of real measurable harm to individual people or to society as a whole. And if there were a case for that to be made, you could make it whether or not homosexuality was natural.
So at best the argument you make just means that people are bringing up the naturalness question to either pacify or inflame irrational emotional attitudes toward natural things depending on the side of the puzzle you happen to be on. That’s probably true, but it’s just plain idiotic.
Last thing I’d put forth is that the natural/unnaturalness dichotomy is actually totally meaningless. Everything that exists is a part of nature including humanity’s crazy destructive behaviors.
@nephyo - 1. All of the examples I gave also pertain to externally occuring phenomena. Although, I kind of also meant internally occuring phenomna, as in within our species rather than out there in the world. For example, social constructs forced into existence through human interaction, possibly influenced by social and psychological conditions created by humans moving away from the naturally occuring social and societal structure. Many people see religion as one such social construct that has had a particularly negative impact on human history and on the world as a whole. How long has religion been around?
2. Who told people to settle on that island? lol.. I know that probably comes off harsh but there are plenty of places on the planet where earthquakes don’t occur. No one told anyone to inhabit regions of the world where it does or to create circumstances (architectural, technological, etc) that would suffer as a result of that location. I wouldn’t judge natural occurences from a strictly human perspective. Is the world going to be fine? Is nature going to be fine? How bad was it really then?
3. We create vaccines. We also suffer from overpopulation and proxy effects such as famine and a little further down the logical chain of events, wars over limited resources such as land and oil. We recognize that not properly limited populations in nature have potentially negative consequences, which is why when we see it happening we generally try to balance populations out via hunting. We dont do that for humans though.
4. Saying that it’s unnatural isn’t reason enough for it to be restricted. However, it is reason enough for inquiry into the matter of longterm impacts of it. If it was suddenly discovered that biking was destroying as yet unidentified microscoopic organisms that contribute in a significant way to local ecosystems that would be a problem Something not being natural should be a warning sign for all of us to closely investigate it before proceeding to make any judgements about whether it should or should not be allowed.
Well sort of. If there was a real measurable harm to indivdual people or to society as a whole and homosexuality was natural then society would have to adjust to a naturally occuring phenomenon. If it was discovered to be unnatural they would probably be likelier to attempt to remedy homosexuality rather than society. Smoking for example. It’s still legal but now they are coming up with healthier alternatives (like that vaporizer thing). Trying to remedy smoking rather than society.
I dispute that everything in humanity’s nature and behaviors is still of the realm of nature. There are conditions of interpersonal interaction and individual psychology that arise solely from the unnatural circumstances that we’ve created for ourselves in the world. There’s nothing natural about them. If anything, these behaviors and psychological conditions would be our natural programming attempting to adapt to unnatural circumstances and failing. Like cows eating meat because it’s being fed to them. Anything natural about that?
I agree…plus, (not that I think it’s wrong) even if it was wrong…PEOPLE ARE STILL GAY….There isn’t much they can do exactly because of the reasons you said..Great post
“My girl, why on earth would any person CHOOSE to be gay? It’s like choosing to be a steak in a lions cage. Don’t you think that it would be much easier to just give into societies pressures and just be straight? I already tried when I was younger, and THAT was a choice. Now, I’m too old to be rebellious. I’m not being part of a ‘fad’, I’m just me. I’m gay.”
-My Grandfather
Nicely done!
Is it really so hard to say that gay people deserve the same rights as straight people on the basis of simply being human? Regardless of one’s nature people shouldn’t be deprived of such rights and freedoms.
Love the topic…
Great post! Really great post!
Well said.
You’ve been rec’d.