The arguments against marriage equality – nature

In a previous post we talked about Fr Merv Duffy’s argument:

[Marriage equality] is wrong because marriage is a historical and cultural universal reflecting our nature

Then, we dealt with the first part – that marriage is “a historical and cultural universal”.  (To recap:  it isn’t!)

Now we want to deal with the second part – “reflecting our nature”.

You can take that statement a couple of different ways, but Fr Duffy elaborates:

Humans are a sexually differentiated species – males and females are different – and we pair-bond.

The problem is:  there are a lot of sexually differentiated species in nature.  Plenty of them pair-bond, but plenty don’t, and among both the species who the majority of the time pair-bond and the species who don’t, we know same-sex “relationships” occur.

(We’ve put “relationships” in quotation marks because … well, we can’t exactly check their Facebook status to see how they think about it!)

We know it’s not exactly academically rigorous to link to Wikipedia, but its article on homosexuality in animals is very well-referenced (that’s always a good sign) and notes that:

• homosexual or bisexual behaviour has been observed in around 1,500 species;
• it’s well-documented in about 500 species;
• and though there’s a definite difference between the behaviour and proof of an actual sexual orientation, we’ve also seen animals which clearly show a life-long preference for homosexual relationships.

Now, the article goes on to explain that this is a really complex area of study (sexuality and sexual behaviour is complex?  No way!) and of course there’s a lot of room for one side or another to be pushing a particular agenda or bias which clouds the research.

But the fact of the matter is that gay swans raise their kids better.

Seriously, though, the science isn’t decided one way or another.  But in nature, there’s no absolute final conclusion to be made about whether or not same-sex relationships are “natural”.

And besides, humans already do plenty of things that aren’t “natural”.  Is Fr Merv Duffy going to stop wearing clothes and microwaving his dinner now?