From: bryant@math.duke.edu (Robert Bryant)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: ""Gay rights group files complaint""
Date: 10 Nov 92 02:20:30 GMT
Distribution: usa

In article <1992Nov8.201524.9789@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)  
writes:
> 	1)  In the animal kingdom, it's occurance is equal or less than the
> 	"10%" quote given by Kinsey.  Manic Depressive disorder is genetic,
> 	and has a somewhat lower rate of occurance--should society accept
> 	these people and not try to help them?  How about schitzophrenics
> 	or serial killers--maybe they're just walking to a different 
> 	drummer-
> 
> 		-Who are _we_ to judge??
> 
> 	Please refrain from using the animal kingdom argument:
> 	It means nothing.  Occurance of homosexual behavior is
> 	_low_--as low or _lower_ than the occurrance in humans.
> 	It does not help your case.

	Of course the "animal kingdom argument" cannot be used to _justify_  
human homosexual behavior.  Nevertheless, there is a valid reason for talking  
about animal sexual responses:  It is often argued that homosexual acts are bad  
because because they are "unnatural".  Animal behavior, specifically, the  
supposed absence of animal homosexual behavior, is usually cited as "proof"  
that homosexual acts are "unnatural".  

	Leaving aside the glaring, unjustified identification of the undefined  
terms "good" and "natural", there are two straightforward ways of attacking the  
second part of this argument.  

	First, one simply cites the many documented examples of homosexual  
behavior in animals. (BTW, studies done on sea gull populations have found  
incidences as high as 13% of female-female pair bonding.  I cite this only as a  
response to the above comment about the supposed lower frequency of homosexual  
behavior in non-human populations.)  
	I don't see why this doesn't help our "case"; those who believe some  
version of the above argument and use it to fortify their anti-homosexual  
attitudes (and I believe that many do) must admit that their rationale fails  
and thus must at least be modified.  

	A second and more compelling reason to junk the second part of the  
argument is to explain why non-human sexual behavior cannot reasonably be  
compared to human sexual behavior anyway:  Constructing homologies between our  
species' sexual behavior and that of others is likely to be very misleading.   
For one thing, human sexual response is not tied to an estrual cycle as it is  
in many other mammals, i.e., unlike dogs, cats, cows, etc., our females do not  
go into "heat" periodically and trigger corresponding responses in the nearby  
males.  For another, we don't use sex to establish a hierarchy among the local  
male population, like many apes and canines do.  Or at least, this is very  
rare. :-) 
	Apparently, our sex drive developed in such a way that it could be  
triggered by a broad band of stimuli. (Versatility being one of the strengths  
of the human species.)  It would not be at all surprising to find that one of  
the "costs" of having a versatile sexual response is that some members of the  
species exhibit sexual response in situations which do not lead to  
reproduction.  
	Furthermore, the comparison, or rather, the contrast of our species'  
sexual behavior with that of others makes clearer that we, as a species, use  
sex for many purposes other than simple reproduction.  (I recall that my  
undergraduate roomate's Intro to Biology course, taught in the early '70's,  
claimed that reproduction was not even the _primary_ function of sex in  
humans.)  Animal studies help to destabilize notions like the "natural  
function" of sex, which, again, helps weaken the persuasive power of the second  
half of the main argument.  Again, I don't see why their use in this context  
does not help our "case".

	Anyway, our task is to convince enough members of society that the cost  
of suppressing homosexual behavior outweighs the supposed benefits. (People who  
insist on comparing homosexual acts to murder and robbery should try to  
consider whether they could argue that the cost of suppressing murder or  
robbery outweighs the benefits of doing so.)  To do this, we _have_ to address  
rationales like the arguments from animal behavior because they carry  
persuasive force for many people who still believe that the cost of allowing  
homosexual behavior is high. 

	Of course, someone is going to object that we want "logically sound"  
arguments, not merely persuasive ones, and that anything not logically sound is  
irrelevant.
	This is a pipe dream.  Strict logical argument requires axioms to  
describe the behavior of a specified set of undefined terms, formal definitions  
of all constructs using those undefined terms, and application of modus ponens  
as the only deductive rule.  
	Does anyone seriously believe that anything as complex as human  
sexuality and morality can be usefully cast into a strict logical system in  
which the axioms are universally agreed upon?  Anyone who does think so is  
invited to contemplate the 13 books of Euclid on geometry, a trivial subject  
compared to human sexuality. Yet even Euclid abounds with "errors", i.e.,  
arguments which are not logically valid.   
	Anything less than a strict logical argument is "merely" persuasive,  
though, of course, the strength of persuasion may vary, depending on the skill  
of construction of the argument and the receptiveness of the listener(s).
	
	
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality