nazgul@apollo.UUCP (Kee Hinckley) (11/04/83)
**
I'm afraid I have to comment on this:
>
> 1. It is not natural. The process of evolution has determined that
>to procreate the species a man and a woman are required. Homosexuality
>defeats this purpose.
>
I find this logic rather interesting. It seems to read:
"Homosexulity is a sin because it is unnatural (ie. defeats the purpose of
evolution)."
1) (side point) I don't recall the bible talking about evolution, as
natural or unnatural; creationists certainly could not use this
logic!
2) (main point) The implication seems to be that anything that prevents
procreation is a sin. If you're a Catholic I suppose this is actually
some of the points that the Church wants you to beleive. On the other
hand, if that is the case, why don't priests have lots of children?
Is it a sin to be a bachelor? a spinister? sterile? Furthermore,
where in the defintion of homosexuality does it say that being gay
means never being heterosexual? Clearly being homosexual is not
related to procreation, but one can hardly argue that it "defeats
this purpose"!
-------------
From the keyboard of "the devil's advocate" -nazgul
P.S. Actually, my login name is rather appropriate for that role!david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris) (11/11/83)
I don't see where any religous argument is used in this statement at all. The fact that evolution requires a man and a woman to procreate is a fact; why are you adding a religous argument to it? This argument does not state that it is a sin at all; it merely makes a statement on "the natural order of things" I stated personal observation on my belief that homosexuality is unnatural due to the way nature works; even though I am a Christian this shouldn't allow others to make this kind of a logical error. I am willing to debate just about anything in a logical argument; however, once others begin to add new meaning to the words to suit their own argument logical reasoning falls apart. Comments, anyone? -- Dave Norris
sebb@pyuxss.UUCP (11/11/83)
Relay-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mhuxl.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxss.UUCP Message-ID: <205@pyuxss.UUCP> Date: Fri, 11-Nov-83 11:06:13 EST t Organization: Bell Labs, Piscataway Lines: 14 produce progeny is not as logical as you suppose. There are numerous counter-examples. If a women and/or a man are sterile, does this imply that sex between them is wrong? They certainly cannot produce children. We can not turn to the other animals for our sense of naturalness either. Homosexuality has been documented in other animals therefore animals with no sense of right or wrong are doing unnatural things. I personally think discussing the unnaturalness of homo- sexuality is absurd. There are numerous things that man does that are unnatural in that no other animal does them. Man destroys his environment so that it is even unfit for him to live in. I have more examples of the illogic of the "unnatural" argument but I don't wish to clog up the net any more. S.Badian
rene@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/14/83)
W.r.t. homosexuality being unnatural: many animals exhibit
homosexuality - I know for sure about ducks, dogs, and rats (these are
the ones I've read about). The interesting thing about the rats was
that it was observed in an experiment with overcrowding. The rats were
given all the food they needed, but a limited amount of space. Result
was pregnant rats re-absorbing their babies (this happens in rabbits
too, come to think of it) or eating them as they're born, an increase
in the number of violent encounters, an increase in the injury
inflicted in these encounters, and an increase in homosexuality (which
however, had been present all along). I think one might be able to
draw parallels too our current crowded situation in cities. One
hypothesis is that homosexuality is a natural and NEEDED method of
birth control.
--
Arpa: rene.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay
Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!renespeaker@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/19/83)
Let's be very carefull when we make comparisons between humans and animals that exhibit homosexual behavior. Humans do it for fun. The animals may very well think that they are procreating and just have their wires crossed. One expects odd behavior from rats if they are placed in an overcrowded environment... an 'unatural' environement if you will. On the other hand, many animals (rats too) can learn to modify their behavior if the reward is some sort of pleasure. Laura's story about the bull on her uncle's (?) farm is an example that could be interpreted wither way. -- - Speaker-To-Stuffed-Animals speaker@umcp-cs speaker.umcp-cs@CSnet-Relay
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (11/20/83)
From Speaker-to-Stuffed-Animals Let's be very carefull when we make comparisons between humans and animals that exhibit homosexual behavior. Humans do it for fun. The animals may very well think that they are procreating and just have their wires crossed. One expects odd behavior from rats if they are placed in an overcrowded environment... an 'unatural' environement if you will. On the other hand, many animals (rats too) can learn to modify their behavior if the reward is some sort of pleasure. Laura's story about the bull on her uncle's (?) farm is an example that could be interpreted wither way. It was my great-grandfather's farm, but that is not the point. Your whole argument does not wash. There are human societies that have yet to connect sex with babies. (I heard a lecture on one group of them last week -- they are in New Guinea.) Do you really expect that the rats do? However, it really outlines what it is that some people mean by "natural". They mean that if you aren't going "rah rah procreate!" all the time, then your sex is unnatural. By that definition, I don't know a single heterosexual couple that counts as natural. Now where could this idea, not that the humans *ought* to be thinking of sex-as-for-procreation-only (an idea which isn't even in favour with the middle-of-the road Catholics in Toronto!), but that the animals *already are* have come from? Let me think. I may be wrong, but my hunch is that it comes from Genesis 1:22 -- the old "be fruitful and multiply bit". If this is so, then you have just defined "natural" to mean "in accordance with my interpretation of the Christian Bible". This sure isn't my definiton of the word natural, and I am sure that it is not the one that most people use. I have a smaller definiton of "natural" than Tim Maroney's (for instance, if there were no wild colonies of rats that exhibited that lab behaviour, I would be willing to concede that that was not natural behaviour for rats) but not so small as to consist of somebody else' interpretation of his Holy Book. (By the way, lemmings exhibit homosexual behaviour every 7 (I think) years, under overcrowded situations. Of course they are the same animals that every seven years "swarm" <much like bees> to form new colonies due to overpopulation. In lemming swarms, there is a lot of dinners provided for the Arctic foxes and wolves, and a lot of lemmings simply dive into the ocean and start swimming for the other side. They drown, leading people to beliefs of lemming mass suicides.) Now. If you want to argue about "correspondance to my interpretaion of Holy Book X", that is fine. BUT -- not in net.motss, which is read by a lot of people who don't care about "Holy Book X". And consider that what you are actually arguing about is not the NATURALNESS of homosexuality, but the MORALITY of homosexuality. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura