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Edited on Sat Feb-07-04 07:04 AM by scottxyz
It's going on throughout the animal kingdom now - and it's been going on in humanity since whenever we became more-or-less "human" (which some anthropologists date as far back as a half-million years ago) - and even back before that.
I don't equate being gay with being black or brown or yellow.
Nor do I regard it as a "choice", as JasonDeter erroneously put it.
Last time I looked a guy didn't have much "choice" over whether he got a hard-on (unless he took Superbowl Viagra to get a four-hour erection for his lawfully wedded wife or hooker on the side who he can't get it up for anymore). I equate being gay with having blue or red or green as a favorite color, with preferring warm weather or cold weather, or having a preference for eating fish or flesh or fowl or salad. (And let's remember that good old Gore Vidal has always been saying there's no such things as "homosexual people" - just "homosexual acts" - adding another subtle twist to the argument.)
De gustibus non disputandum est - there's no point in arguing about tastes. So why do most of our Churches and our politicians pontificate and legislate about some of our tastes so much of the time?
I label homosexuality a natural (and uninteresting) variation. Most people and other animals like the opposite sex - some like the same sex - some people like Tabasco on their eggs - some people like ketchup - some just like salt. Only an idiot (or a wimpy bully trying to pose as an Alpha Male? or a terrified traitor trying to stay out of jail?) would try to amend the Constitution to prevent homosexuals or people who like Tabasco on their eggs from getting married. It's really neither here nor there. (And never in the history of America has there been an attempt to amend the Constitution to DENY a particular set of people a particular set of rights - until Bush's bullying speech last week calling for a amendment to bring our Constitution into line with his favorite prohibition from Leviticus. By the way, if we're combing the Old Testament now looking for divine inspiration for faith-based legislation, let's not forget to ban the eating of shellfish on Sundays, adultery and divorce. Fair's fair!)
Being homosexual is about as interesting and as abnormal and as explicable as liking a particular food or fashion or color. Some people like it - some people don't - so what? Some animals like gay sex - and all through history some humans have liked it, and all through the world some like it now. That's kind of new news these days, since it's something that western Science has neglected to tell us - preferring to lie and say that ONLY humans are gay and ONLY abnormal humans at that. Wrong. MANY animals are gay - and they're normal and healthy - and sometimes they even enjoy advantages over their straight counterparts (check out Konrad Lorenz's three-parent duck families). Because so many animals have been gay for so long, and because so many species with gay individuals have stuck around so long, it seems that homosexuality might be just a normal natural variation that might actually be HEALTHY and ADAPTIVE for a species - rather than the aberration or abnormality it's been labelled for so long. Maybe homosexuality, natural, normal, inevitable homosexuality - like a taste for a certain color or food - like natural, normal promiscuity or divorce - doesn't really need to be punished in our lawbooks - let alone in our Constitution. That's the argument people are making here.
By the way, I hope you're not trying to imply that homosexuals are trying to force you to have sex with them, JasonDeter - or that people are trying to force you to put Tabasco on your eggs or swear that pink is your favorite color. (Somewhere in another post you make a weird point of clarifying that a male dog that doesn't want to get screwed by another male dog isn't being homophobic. I guess we would have to add, in case anyone's still confused about this point, that a female human being who doesn't want to be screwed by a particular male human being isn't "heterophobic" - or a lesbian - maybe she just didn't like that particular guy.) As a straight person, people don't really care who you sleep with - it rates a big yawn - and there's probably no gay guys who are just dying to sleep with you (unless you're really hot). We will accept your explanation that if a gay guy DID try to sleep with you and you turned him down, it wouldn't mean that you're homophobic - just that you're not into guys. That's cool.
What do homosexuals want? They probably really just want you to be bored with them - not fascinated with them like so many people are (especially lately, as the economy tanks and the unilateral-war-based-on-fake-intelligence kills more of our soldiers off-camera and trillions in deficits accumulate and the war-profiteers loot the Treasury and our education and healthcare programs and liberties and environment are systematically destroyed and all of our money ends up in the hands of the millionaires and none of the corporate media covers any of it). Gay guys want you to understand that when they get a boner, it's not a choice - it's a taste - just like when straight guys get a boner. Lesbian couples want you to understand that when they live together for many years and manage to maybe have or adopt children, they want to have the same legal means to protect those children as straight couples adopting children have. Gay people who have shacked up for a long time want the government to give them the same legal rights that straight people who've shacked up for a long time have. Fair's fair.
Homosexuals just are tired of people always getting so excited about who they like - and tired of people trying to deny them their civil rights based on that. You'd be pretty pissed off if someone told you that YOU couldn't be a full-fledged citizen (inheritance mechanisms, adoption, hospital visitation rights, healthcare benefits, immigration rights) just because you like women. Fair's fair.
You seem to perceive homosexuality as interesting, as worthy of discussion, JasonDeter. You erroneously label it as a "choice" when it's more of a "taste". When you see a pretty woman go by and you like her and maybe even get a boner - I guess that's not a choice, is it? But when a homosexual sees a guy go by that he likes and gets a boner - that's a choice, huh? When someone hates to have Tabasco on their eggs or doesn't like walls painted lime-green - that's a choice, huh?
What I'm saying here is that homosexuality (and heterosexuality) is not a choice - it's something more like a "taste" - like liking (or not liking) a certain person or food or landscape or song. Not as visible as being black or brown - but just as irrevocable and "atomic" and mysterious - and ultimately just as boring and irrelevant.
What I'm saying here is that homosexuality occurs throughout nature now, and it always has, and it always will - in many animal species, including the human species, throughout history, throughout the world. And that it's boring and overrated and sensationalized. And that it's RECENTLY (in the last 5 or 10 thousand years or so) been stigmatized and punished and repressed in ONE species - ours - precisely during the end-days, when we started destroying all of Creation and destroying ourselves, in the name of Religion or War or Sexism or Racism or Capital. When I mentioned that we've been more or less human for the past half a million years, that's a way of bringing back the long view - reminding you that we were normal for about 490,000 years when it was ok for people to be gay (and we didn't have war or capitalism or sexism) - and that only in the last 10 thousands years has it not been ok (when we did have war and capitalism and sexism). Hmm.
I'm criticizing the last 5 or 10 thousand years as being probably the ONLY time that ANY animal has had a "problem" with homosexuality - and the ONLY time that ANY animal has waged war or committed intra-species genocide or extra-species genocide (something like 20% of the diverse species of Creation have become extinct in the late 20th century - that much-vaunted time you refer to) or destroyed the biome or the climate. I'm saying that HOMOPHOBIA is a recent aberration, somehow caused by something that went horribly wrong (macho monotheism? pastoralism? militarism? capitalism?) over the last 5 or 10 thousand years. I'm trying to take the long view and remind you that a certain amount of naturally occurring homosexuality WITHOUT any accompanying homophobia has ALWAYS been the healthy norm back when we weren't busy destroying the planet.
Homosexuals may say that being gay is "chocolate cake" as you say, and you might call that "BS" - but they aren't trying to tell you who you should sleep with, JasonDeter, they aren't erroneously labeling your tastes as "choices" or comparing them with "physical deformities" as you clumsily tried to do - in the end they just really aren't all that interested in who you want sleep with. They're simply telling you that they're ok and you're ok. OK? And they hope you're not overly interested in who they want to sleep with. A long time ago (over 5 to 10 thousand years ago), probably nobody cared who you slept with - just like straight butterflies and beetles and bonobos don't really care if some butterflies and beetles and bonobos are gay.
Pleistocene humanity probably didn't care who you slept with either (or what "race" you were, or what sex you were). So the really fascinating question is this: why does modern humanity get so worked-up about who you sleep with (or what "race" you are, or what sex you are)? These are the questions the zoologists and anthropologists need to be asking. And the President needs to stop yacking about wanting to change the Constitution based on who you sleep with and shack with. And start talking about something relevant like the trillions of dollars we're going to have in deficits in a few years.
A healthy animal doesn't care who other animals have sex with. A sick animal does. You point to the wonderful cultural developments over the past few years, or the accomplishments of civilization in the thousands of years before that. I remind you that that was the ONLY time in humanity's glorious half-million-year history when certain groups started destroying the planet and killing homosexuals and women and people of a different color. A simple factual point I'm making. Not really an argument, just an observation.
As you say: just look at what 5 thousand or 200 years of history has produced, indeed! My point exactly. Homophobia. Racism. Sexism. Capitalism. Oh what a glorious civilization! Destruction of the all of Creation. Eschaton.
Scattered homophobia in a species is a sign of some kind of sickness - we may even find that is one of the harbingers of doom for that species. Scattered homosexuality, on the other hand, is a sign of health. Again - just an observation - not an argument. Read Bagemihl's thousand-page, lavishly illustrated (with photos and line drawings) and heavily footnoted objective scientific book: Biological Exuberance. I highly recommend it - it is a millennial milestone in western Science.
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