Animals and homosexuality:

A reader writes, apropos “Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name,” that animals do things that we wouldn’t tolerate in humans:

They are animals and we are not. We don’t need to use them as a guide for how humans should act.

     I agree with this entirely — which is why, for instance, Jerry Falwell was wrong when he said, in 1984 (Sex and God in American Politics; What Conservatives Really Think, Policy Review [Heritage Foundation], Summer 1984, at 12), that

Homosexuality is a perverted lifestyle. It is performed only by humans. As a theologian, I would say that homosexuality, like all sin, has its roots in the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Because we have a fallen nature, we are capable of doing anything. . . .

He was mistaken on the facts — animals do engage in homosexual conduct — but he was also mistaken on the moral inference to be drawn from them. That something is “natural” (in that animals do it) doesn’t mean it’s good for humans to do. That something is “unnatural” (in that animals don’t do it) doesn’t mean it’s bad for humans to do. (I assume that, because he started his answer with linking perversion and things that are done only by humans, Falwell was arguing that whether or not animals do something is a good guide to whether it’s perverted or normal for humans to do.) See here for my criticism of the general “homosexuality is bad because it’s unnatural” argument.

     But since people have made the “animals don’t do it, so it’s unnatural, and so it’s evil” argument — and, to my knowledge, continue doing so — it seems quite right to point out that the argument is wrong not just in one way, but in two. First, as the reader writes, what animals do or do not do is no guide for how humans should act. But second, as a factual matter, homosexuality isn’t something done only by man, who fell in the Garden of Eden — it’s something that other animals do, too.

P.S. For what seems to be a diametrically opposite scientific error, see Interview With Rosie O’Donnell, O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, Mar. 25, 2002:

O’REILLY: I would say that the course of nature dictates, all right? This is my opinion. The course of nature dictates that it’s better for a child to be in a heterosexual home, again, with good, loving, responsible parents, than a homosexual home, because nature says the best way for a child to be raised is with a mommy and a daddy. That’s nature.

So by disagreeing with that, you’re disagreeing with nature, are you not?

O’DONNELL: Well, I’m not really disagreeing with nature, Bill, because in every animal kingdom and every species, 10 percent of the population is homosexual.

O’REILLY: Yes, but they can’t — only humans…

O’DONNELL: It’s a fact of nature.

O’REILLY: … can adopt. . . .

I have never heard the assertion that “in . . . every species” (I’ll assume that “in every animal kingdom” is O’Donnell misspeaking), “10 percent of the population is homosexual.” Contrary to some now-discredited reports, that doesn’t seem to be the number for humans in America (at least if one counts homosexuals the same way as one counts heterosexuals — as people who predominantly engage in homosexuality, rather than just people who have at least once had a homosexual experience); the more accurate estimate appears to be about 1.5% of women and 3% of men, though of course one should take any such estimates with a grain of salt. I’ve never heard of any 10% estimate for animals, much less all animal species, and I would be utterly amazed if this was indeed so. Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but my sense is that O’Donnell is just flat wrong here.

UPDATE: Readers Tom Myers and Nels Nelson write that virtually all bonobos apparently participate in homosexual behavior at least on some occasions; Myers cites a source that reports that only about 1% of ostriches do (though of course you should take all such estimates with a grain of salt, since it’s nearly impossible to measure the behavior of a representative sample of the worldwide population of a species, especially over time). Again, I’ve seen no evidence supporting the 10% number.