Equal Marriage Now

Contents:

• Anti-ME Position: Homosexuality is unnatural.
• Pro-ME Response: Homosexuality is well-documented in nature.




• Partial list of animals that have been documented engaging in homosexual behavior, with references.
• Video clips of documentaries exploring homosexuality among animals.
• Example chart of the incidence of homosexuality among different species.




• Anti-ME Counter-Position A: “The animal kingdom is no place for man to seek a blueprint for human morality.”
• Pro-ME Response A: That’s another way of saying “Homosexuality is immoral or sinful.” Click here to see the response.




• Anti-ME Counter-Position B: Animals may engage in homo-behavior, but they’re not really gay.
• Pro-ME Response B: There are several, well-documented examples of on-going same-sex matings.

References

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Anti-marriage equality position:

Homosexuality is unnatural.

Pro-marriage equality response:

In the words of Peter Bockman, project coordinator for the University of Oslo’s Natural History Museum’s “Against Nature?” exhibition:

Homosexuality has been observed in more than 1,500 species, and the phenomenon has been well described for 500 of them. (1)

Here’s a partial list of animals that have been documented engaging in same-sex sexual activity (aside from humans, of course).

• Black swans (2)
• Gulls (3)
• Penguins (4)
• Amazon Dolphin (5)
• American Bison
• Bonobo and other apes (6)
• Bottlenose Dolphins
• Elephants (7)
• Giraffes (8)
• Japanese Macaque (9)
• Lions (10)
• Polecat
• Sheep (11)
• Koala (12)
• Spotted Hyena
• Dragonflies
• Fruit flies
• Lizards

Video Clips

A clip from National Geographic discussing homosexuality among animals. (4:59 minutes)

A clip from National Geographic discussing homosexuality among dolphins. (3:08 minutes)

A a clip from Sexplorations discussing homosexuality among animals. (8:20 minutes)

Incidence of Homosexuality By Species

species	percent homosexual	percent bisexual	percent heterosexual
silver gulls (females)	10	11	79
black headed gulls (both sexes)	22	15	63
Japanese macaques (both sexes)	9	56	35
bonobo chimpanzees (both sexes)	0	100	0
galahs (both sexes)	44	11	44
source: Bruce Bahemihl, Ph.D., Biological Exhuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, St. Martin’s Press, 2000, page 35 (13)

Anti-marriage equality counter-position A:

Yeah, but they’re animals. Heck, some animals eat their young. And sometimes those homo antics aren’t about sex, mating or affection. Like, a dog will mount another dog to show dominance. And sometimes they just fail to identify the other sex correctly. So it’s not really “gay” per se, and humans should be able to rise above their “base” desires anyway.

The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (which is clearly a member of the anti-gay industry) says it concisely:

The animal kingdom is no place for man to seek a blueprint for human morality. (14)

Pro-marriage equality counter-response A:

Actually, this is a clever response because it’s true. Darn them! They found an argument that has legs!

Well, sort of. It’s actually disingenuous of them.

Let’s not miss the forest for the trees. Originally, the anti-gay industry said that homosexuality was unnatural because it had never been documented in nature.

Why did I write about homosexual animals? To illuminate the lack of scientific basis for the argument that a homosexual way of life cannot be accepted among humans because it is against the “laws of nature.” Fifteen hundred species (not individual organisms) can’t all be “deviant” — whatever that word means — and after all, they are a part of “nature” (15).

Now that it has been documented, the anti-gay industry had to come up with a counter-position, or drop the argument. They went with a counter-position. But this position isn’t actually about whether homosexuality occurs in nature. It’s entirely predicated on the belief that homosexuality is immoral or sinful. Therefore, the appropriate counter-response addresses that position. Click here to read about it.

Anti-marriage equality counter-position B:

“Gay” animals do not exist.

NARTH quotes gay scientist Simon LeVay to support this position:

Although homosexual behavior is very common in the animal world, it seems to be very uncommon that individual animals have a long-lasting predisposition to engage in such behavior to the exclusion of heterosexual activities. Thus, a homosexual orientation, if one can speak of such thing in animals, seems to be a rarity (16).

Pro-marriage equality counter-response B:

It’s simply not true that no animals are “gay.” That’s not even what LeVay says. It would be accurate to say it’s uncommon, but not that it never happens.

Consider black swans:

Almost a quarter of black swan families are parented by homosexual couples. Male couples sometimes mate with a female just to have a baby. Once she lays the egg, they chase her away, hatch the egg, and raise a family on their own (17)(18).

Or those infamous penguins:

Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo have been inseparable for six years now. They display classic pair-bonding behavior—entwining of necks, mutual preening, flipper flapping, and the rest. They also have sex, while ignoring potential female mates (19).

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REFERENCES

(1) “Animals Gone Wild.” TheThinkingBlog.com. 23 October 2008. http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2008/10/animals-gone-wild-homosexuality-in.html (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(2) Goudarzi, Sara. “Gay animals out of the closet?” MSNBC.com. 16 November 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15750604/ (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(3) Smith, Dinitia. “Central Park Zoo’s gay penguins ignite debate.” The San Francisco Chronicle. 7 February 2004. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/07/MNG3N4RAV41.DTL (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(4) Ibid.

(5) Fletcher, Martin. “Birds do it, bees do it…” Times Online. 3 January 2007. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article1288633.ece (retrieved 25 November 2008) This is a fascinating post that mentions “the only example of nasal sex we have in nature” (referring to an Amazonian river dolphin penetrating another’s blowhole).

(6) de Waal, Frans B. M. “Bonobo Sex and Society.” Scientific American. March 1995. http://songweaver.com/info/bonobos.html (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(7) Bagemihl, Bruce. Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (St. Martin’s Press, 1999.)

(8) “1500 animal species practice homosexuality.” News-Medical.net. 23 October 2006. http://www.news-medical.net/?id=20718 (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(9) “Animals Gone Wild.” TheThinkingBlog.com. 23 October 2008. http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2008/10/animals-gone-wild-homosexuality-in.html (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(10) “Lion.” Cat Collection. 2006. http://www.catcollection.org/cat/lion/ (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(11) Cloud, John. “Yep, They’re Gay.” Time Magazine. 26 January 2007. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1582336,00.html (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(12) Rothstein, Meryl. “Esquire’s Field Guide to Gay Animals.” Esquire. 9 March 2007 http://www.esquire.com/the-side/gayanimals030707-11 (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(13) Bidstrup, Scott. “The Natural ‘Crime Against Nature’: A brief survey of homosexual behaviors in animals.” 2000. http://www.bidstrup.com/sodomy.htm (retrieved 25 November 2008) A nicely written article posted to the web; Bidstrup also discusses several counter-arguments the anti-gay industry makes, and offers responses.

(14) Solimeo, Luiz Se’rgio. “The Animal Homosexuality Myth.” NARTH. 2 September 2008. http://www.narth.com/docs/animalmyth.html (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(15) Weston, Louanne Cole. “Is Homosexuality ‘Against Nature’?” WebMD.com. 3 April 2007. http://blogs.webmd.com/sexual-health-sex-matters/2007/04/is-homosexuality-against-nature.html (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(16) LeVay, Simon. Queer Science: The use and abuse of research into homosexuality. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996), p. 207.

(17) Goudarzi, Sara. “Gay animals out of the closet?” MSNBC.com. 16 November 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15750604/ (retrieved 25 November 2008)

(18) Rothstein, Meryl. “Esquire’s Field Guide to Gay Animals.” Esquire. 9 March 2007 http://www.esquire.com/the-side/gayanimals030707-11 (retrieved 25 November 2008) Despite being an Esquire article, it’s actually an interesting piece examining homosexuality in ten or so different species.

(19) Owen, James. “Homosexual activity among animals stirs debate.” National Geographic News. 23 July 2004. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0722_040722_gayanimal.html (retrieved 25 November 2008).

Additional reading:

“Gay penguins steal eggs for straight couples.” Telegraph.co.uk. 27 November 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3530723/Gay-penguins-steal-eggs-from-straight-couples.html (retrieved 1 December 2008).

Graham, Caroline. “Gay penguins expelled from zoo colony for stealing eggs are given their own to look after following animal rights protest.” Mail Online. 15 December 2008. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1094977/Gay-penguins-expelled-zoo-colony-stealing-eggs-given-look-following-animal-rights-protest.html (retrieved 18 December 2008). Apparently it’s worked out well: “‘We decided to give them two eggs from another couple whose hatching ability had been poor and they’ve turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo,’ said one of the keepers.”