“Natural” is a word as intricate and polyvalent as “freedom” or “love”. It has so many connotation and means many different things to a given induvidual.
In some ways, homosexuality *is *natural. Many gay people, myself included, view our inclinations and attractions as very natural, in the sense that they come to us like heterosexual attraction comes to straight people. That’s if you use one defination of the multi-faceted word “natural”. In this case, “arising easily or spontaneously”. For many gay people, phsyical and emotional attraction towards other males or females just comes naturally to them.
There are other versions of the word “natural”, too, that certianly fit the idea that “homosexuality is natural”. If you take “natural” as existing in nature - that is, in plants and animals, then homosexuality is indeed “natural”. Homosexual behavior is found among many animals, and among certian species certianly plays a very prominent role in their societies. For example, there are certian types of dolphins - like the bottlenose - that form male-male and female-female partnerships. They play sexually with eachother, watch over the other while one sleeps, and go out in search of female dolphins. Male-male partnerships do not easily break, and even though they may temporarily partner with female dolphins, the original partnership nearly always comes back. Bottlenose dolphins aren’t the only animals that engage in homosexual behavior - the list of species that do is extremely long. But one thing is certian, in that particular defination of the word “natural” - homosexuality certianly
is.
But, of course, there is the theological term “natural”. This is the idea that God has a certian plan for the genital organs and everything *but *sex resulting in ejaculation inside a vagina is considered outside that plan. Masturbation, oral sex (with a male orgasm inside the mouth of his partner), anal sex, or any other type of sex is considered gravely immoral because it is “unnatural”. Because it’s outside of God’s plan. I’m a religious studies student who has taken numerous classes on Catholic theology, and as someone who will graduate in less than two months, I can tell you that I have never heard the term natural used in anything else *but *sexual contexts. It is never the basis of morality for anything other than sex. That is disturbing, in my opinion. Anyway, in regards to the techincal, theological term “natural” - homosexuality is not.
But for people who don’t believe in God or a divine plan, or believe that God either doesn’t care about or accepts non-vaginal intercourse: that defination of “natural” is totally meaningless.
There is, of course, a middle ground: someplace between the theological, technical term natural and between the first and second defination of the word natural. That is a vague and uncertian defination, and it is difficult to put into words.
Catholic.com has tried. I quote them now: “People have a basic, ethical intuition that certain behaviors are wrong because they are unnatural. We perceive intuitively that the natural sex partner of a human is another human, not an animal.” It’s something like a perception of what something *should *be that doesn’t neccessarily involve a divine being. In that case, it’s hard to put your finger on a solid defination - and it is therefore hard for me to put my finger on a solid “Yes” or “No” to the question of “Is homosexuality natural?” - when you use this defination.
But let me put it this way: I don’t have that basic, ethical intution that homosexuality is unnatural. I know countless other people who don’t have that intuition either. So when you use that defination, which is based on the perception of induviduals and their feelings about what is natural and what isn’t - I think you’re on very shaky ground. I predict that in a few years, maybe a few decades, but certianly before this century is over, this argument against homosexuality will fade away. The “ewww” gut reaction to homosexuality has diminished significantly in western societies over the past 30 or 40 years - and I think it will continue. Soon, that defination, for most people, will result in a “Yes” to the answer “Is homosexuality natural?”
And for me, it already is. I do have a basic, intuitive feeling about something’s morality or “naturalness” - but homosexuality certian feels “natural” to me, and countless others, heterosexuals included.
