fostel@ncsu.UUCP (11/21/83)
I doubt that a gay person will be very much pleased by arguments that "its natural" because rats do it under stressful conditions. Really, thats seems remarkably insulting. Other comparisons to animals likewise. The compar- isons also overlook a crucial difference: only a few animals species seem to treat sex as a "recreation". Most DO-IT only at certain well defined times of the YEAR or occassionally a more frequent cycle. Humans are rather lonely in the propert of doing-it all the time. (I believe dolphins too.) More animal data: bands of monkeys near japan have been observed to use homo-sexual encouters to state dominance relationships among the males. This seems quite different from the majority of male human homo-sexual encounters, except perhaps for prisons. Why not leave the animals alone unless we want to start a different sort of group discussion. Now, the entire question of whether it is natural or not is, again, a remarkably insulting one. Unless one believes that all gays are an alien species, or have been brainwashed by litle green men (or litle green ladies) then by definition, the existence of homo-sexuality is the proff of its naturalness. What must be lurking in these debates are questions like "don't they realize they need help? Its not naturalP." Well, most of the people I know occasionally act oddly, and Ann Landers would certainly suggest they seek professional help. None of these people are (so far as I know) gay, so I guess the majority of the people in this country are un-naturral and need help. For my money, I personaly would be quite distressed if my children turned out gay. But I be distressed if they turned out Catholic too. Or republicans. Or mud-wrestlers. Or .... ----GaryFostel----
schoff@bbncca.ARPA (Martin Schoffstall) (11/27/83)
I assume then because a certain threshold (5% say) of humans do something it becomes "natural". Does this include wife-beating, murder, etc.... One step further, if 5% of humans did murder, beat their wives, (you name your favorite), is this good? This is why, I as your basic bible-thumper don't care for the Moral Majority, just because 50% of the people believe something is right, it doesn't make it so.
schoff@bbncca.ARPA (11/27/83)
References: <2409@ncsu.UUCP> Relay-Version:version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site duke.UUCP Posting-Version:version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path:duke!decvax!bbncca!schoff Message-ID:<350@bbncca.ARPA> Date:Sat, 26-Nov-83 18:41:37 EST Organization:Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. I assume then because a certain threshold (5% say) of humans do something it becomes "natural". Does this include wife-beating, murder, etc.... One step further, if 5% of humans did murder, beat their wives, (you name your favorite), is this good? This is why, I as your basic bible-thumper don't care for the Moral Majority, just because 50% of the people believe something is right, it doesn't make it so.
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (11/28/83)
From Martin Schoffstall: I assume then because a certain threshold (5% say) of humans do something it becomes "natural". Does this include wife-beating, murder, etc.... One step further, if 5% of humans did murder, beat their wives, (you name your favorite), is this good? Nope. Wrong question. X is natural does not imply X is good. Earthquakes and plagues are natural as well. However, once you have decided that you will argue whether X is good then you should not use the shabby argument "X is unnatural". The morality of an action is much more fun to discuss anyway -- BUT NOT HERE. Let's try net.religon, if you want to argue from a religious base, or net.philosophy if you don't, huh? laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura