I'm pretty sure animals don't have sex with their young.

 

Just because something happens in nature doesn't mean it pertains to humans.  I had a rabbit that always killed her babies.  I found out that that wasn't unusual and quite common.  So what does that tell us? 

We should be allowed to kill off our offspring as well?  

I think it's rationalizing when we point to nature and say...well there's homosexual sex in animals so that makes it right.  We are not animals, we are rational, thinking, emotional, human beings...although I have to admit sometimes it's hard to tell the diff. 

Men having sex with men and women with women is NOT natural nor is it how we we were created.  We are going outside the natural for self gratification and we do so in many ways not just homosexuality.   

Some eat their young.

I wouldn't rule it out.

Nevertheless, not everything that is natural is also normal. And not everything that's normal for one species is also normal for another.

 

...

What would be the point? Animals only mate to produce offspring, not for pleasure.

It tells us that killing once babies is natural and normal in some species.




The Romans did it. For them it was natural and normal.

For us it isn't.




Nevertheless, homosexuality is quite natural and normal. It's even normal in our species (even though killing our young is not).

A lot of things are natural and normal for our species and therefor forbidden by various laws. Other things are not natural and not normal and also forbidden. The mere presence of some law, in the Bible or elsewhere, that prohibits a certain act doesn't mean that the act is unnatural or not normal.

Ask a German or Englishman whether eating pork is natural or normal.

No, it is natural. If it weren't, those urges wouldn't exist in so many people. It's not a disorder affecting a small minority, it's programmed into a very large minority (my guess was 10%). It's very normal.

In contrast to incest and pedophilia it is also victimless. You can claim that it creates victims but then that is the same type of victim as created by heterosexual relations.

If that were true we wouldn't have the discussion about the benefits of homosexuality.

 

Leuki, so if a pedophile lived in a society where it is not taboo, would that mean that sex with kids is normal for that person?  If the society was one where people start having kids shortly after puberty, would sex between the pedophile adult and adolescent be considered harmful?

Do animals know that mating with the same sex won't produce offspring?

That's what it was like in ancient Greece.

 

You are asking two different questions.

Pedophilia is always harmful, like cannibalism. But in some socities it was normal. And both are normal for many species.

Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is both natural and normal in many species and societes. The only difference is that there is no society I know for which homosexuality is normal but heterosexuality is not (unless you count gays as their own subculture).

Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, does not produce victims except in the sense that people who practice it voluntarily or or hear of it can be said to be "victims" of either.

Table:

Subject                                    Natural?                                Normal?                                 Harmful?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Murder  per se                          no                                           no                                           yes

Cannibalism                           yes, for some species            yes, for some cultures           yes

Pedophilia                               no                                             yes, in some cultures           yes

Heterosexuality                      yes, in all relevant species   yes                                          no

Homosexuality                      yes, in many species              yes, in some cultures            no

 

By "Harmful?" I mean the question whether it harms people without their consent. By "in all relevant species" I mean all species that reproduce sexually except the one species of lurch that lives somewhere in Utah (if memory serves) where the males died out and the females keep reproducing by producing clones of themselves after engaging in mating rituals with other females. By "Murder per se" I mean murder for reasons other than cannibalism or getting rid of a competitior. (Note that most animal species will not actually kill a competitior. It's not normal to kill.)

 

Probably not, but neither do our urges.

You can probably explain to a very intelligent ape that homosexual sex won't produce children. But he won't care when the urge hits him. The same is probably true for humans. While we are all, I think, clever enough to understand that homosexual sex doesn't produce offspring, certain body parts in some people are not convinced.

This is true for heterosexual sex as well. While everybody knows (or perhaps hopes) that sex with a condom doesn't produce offspring, the body is still very much in "go and create offspring" mode.

 

Nothing wrong with acceptance, did I imply that?

Also never suggested homosexuality was un-natural, I know it occurs. Still IMO that doesn't make it normal. A person could have a 104 degree fever, it happens, it occurs naturally, 10% of the world (figuratively) might have a fever at any given time, but that hardly makes it normal.

Here's my opinion of what makes homosexuality "normal". It is the persons desire to be considered normal and the political correctness of a large majority of the world community to oblige them. People deiced what constitutes normal and homosexuality has been accepted within the circle of normalcy. Pedophiles have not due to more extreme social stigma.

Believe me I'm not passing judgment when I use terms such as normal or abnormal, it's not meant to be derogatory. IMO any life form that fails due to neurological reasons to use the hard-wired instinct to attempt procreation with a mature, and willing opposite is abnormal. I personally don't have a problem with it. There are plenty of abnormalities out there, by birth and by physical action. But, just don't expect me to believe it's normal just because others wish it to be so. IMO this position prevails more than the religious one that the gay community likes to place in the position of enemy.

That would be a great argument if we where discussing physical features. If you can point to a study where the black sheep mates only with other black sheep or juvenile sheep, you may have something there. We are talking about something that for all apparent reasons occurs within the brain since anatomical features are not affected.

BTW I believe your numbers are high. 10% (30 million) would almost equal the entire Black population of the US. Just in my travels, I doubt that 1 in 10 people are gay (I could be wrong, but many would be hiding it well with opposite sex spouses and children). We may never know unless it becomes a census question.

You're lumping murderers and thief's into the mix and I believe these to be effects of environment and upbringing. If you put Homosexuals into this category (or even pedophiles) then you might as well blame society for their existence. Kleptomania is a mental disorder of course and differs from common thievery.

You bring up something here that begs another interesting question here. Is an adult male that rapes young boys a pedophile, or a homosexual, or both? One thing it does prove IMO is pedophilia and homosexuality are two distinct conditions.

IMO the only thing that separates homosexuals from pedophiles socially (and again, I'm not suggesting it is the same condition or even related) is a source of willing partners. Pedophilia is only considered wrong because it exploits an unwilling partner.

Leauki, what I'm getting from you is basically, homosexuality is normal because it happens in nature, but any other sexual act that isn't accepted by our society might be normal, but isn't natural.

Like I said emotions are clouding judgment. That's OK, it's just not a convincing argument.

I might not have been clear enough.

Everything that happens in nature without human interference is "natural".

Everything that happens a lot in a given population (of animals or humans) is "normal".

And everything that harms somebody without their consent is "harmful".

Homosexuality is natural (since it happens in nature without human interference) and normal (since it affects a large minority of the human population) but not harmful (since it doesn't harm anybody).