How can homosexuality be immoral or contrary to natural ends if there is a genetic/evolutionary/biological reason for it?

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The problem here is that this isn’t ivory tower debates. People move from this forum to the Moral Theology forum and from there to World News. People in the real world want to apply what is discussed in places like this, and you end up with Catholic legislators, many of whose constituents won’t be Catholic, and some of which may even be gay, confronted with Bishops and laity questioning their morality and religiosity, with members of the LGBTQ community given the thin gruel of “we love you, even though you have disordered inclinations, but we certainly don’t want legal recognition of your unions, and by and large would like you to become invisible, because, you know, your sex is like beastiality…”

And then comes the special pleading for why, say, a woman born sterile having sex with her husband doesn’t violate the same alleged Natural Law. Apparently a sexual act that is a reasonably close facsimile of heterosexual relations partaken by a fertile couple is a okay, and indeed similar sexual acts that homosexuals may practice is less disordered when done by a heterosexual couple.
 
niceatheist said:
we certainly don’t want legal recognition of your unions,
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Nil objection to an appropriate legal representation.
niceatheist said:
And then comes the special pleading for why, say, a woman born sterile having sex with her husband doesn’t violate the same alleged Natural Law.
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Husband and wife doing what is proper to their married state and their bodies does not require “special pleading”, certainly not the arm waving required to explain why two men engaged in sexual acts is reasonable.
 
Rau said:
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niceatheist:
we certainly don’t want legal recognition of your unions,
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Nil objection to an appropriate legal representation.
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It’s to be expected that in a democracy people who think that homosexual sex is wrong and should be discouraged will vote for candidates who believe like they do. There will no doubt be some temporary reversals, but fortunately for LGBT people, I think that there is no going back to the way things used to be. Same-sex marriage is now legal everywhere, and that is unlikely to change considering that 63% of Americans support it. The percentage of younger people who support same-sex marriage is even higher. So opponents can debate this in philosophy forums, but it’s unlikely to change what’s happening.

Even in my conservative, Baptist family, views on homosexuality have shifted quite a lot in the last decade or so, not only because of changing views in the wider society, but also because they have a gay family member (me). It’s not that they’re pro-LGBT, but they’re just not as vocal and extreme in their views as they used to be and they welcome me and my partner into their homes.
 
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Who knows what will happen in a few hundred years, it might not matter anyways.
 
niceatheist said:
The problem here is that this isn’t ivory tower debates. People move from this forum to the Moral Theology forum and from there to World News. People in the real world want to apply what is discussed in places like this, and you end up with Catholic legislators, many of whose constituents won’t be Catholic, and some of which may even be gay, confronted with Bishops and laity questioning their morality and religiosity, with members of the LGBTQ community given the thin gruel of “we love you, even though you have disordered inclinations, but we certainly don’t want legal recognition of your unions, and by and large would like you to become invisible, because, you know, your sex is like beastiality…”

And then comes the special pleading for why, say, a woman born sterile having sex with her husband doesn’t violate the same alleged Natural Law. Apparently a sexual act that is a reasonably close facsimile of heterosexual relations partaken by a fertile couple is a okay, and indeed similar sexual acts that homosexuals may practice is less disordered when done by a heterosexual couple.
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That deserves more than me just clicking the ‘like’ button. It deserves to be reposted.
 
VanitasVanitatum said:
Who knows what will happen in a few hundred years, it might not matter anyways.
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Of course, no one knows what is going to happen in the distant future. In a few hundred years, there might not be any people left on this planet anymore because pollution, nuclear weapons and global warming killed them all off.
 
But that’s circular. According to natural law, or so I’m told, sex is for reproduction. If conception is impossible then sex is purely for pleasure. Wouldn’t that make a woman who is sterile having sex is with her husband like beastiality?
 
I think your getting two different things confused.

When Catholics say that the ‘purpose’ of sex is reproduction, what that means is that the primary purpose of the penis and vagina is for reproduction. It doesn’t mean that the primary purpose (reason) that people have (engage in) sex is for reproduction. Two different things. They have to be separated in order to move forward with the rest of the Catholic reasoning on sexuality.
 
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niceatheist said:
But that’s circular. According to natural law, or so I’m told, sex is for reproduction. If conception is impossible then sex is purely for pleasure. Wouldn’t that make a woman who is sterile having sex is with her husband like beastiality?
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There is nothing circular in my post. You may be more competent in Natural Law than I am, or others may be, but I doubt that it implies what you suggest. Logic suggests to me that the appropriate “venue” for use of the male sexual organ is the female sexual organ. The deficiency in one of the parties, or the time of the month, doesn’t change that.
 
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niceatheist said:
Wouldn’t that make a woman who is sterile having sex is with her husband like beastiality?
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As argued earlier in this thread, the sterility is caused by a defect in the reproductive organs, not in the act in itself (in se).

Rather, as also argued earlier, the homosexual act and bestiality are categorically the same as both frustrate procreation in the very act, in se.
Homosexual acts and bestiality are also twofold in their frustration of
the natural ends of sex. They both frustrate the procreative end insofar as
they involve the active taking of the physiological processes associated with
sexual arousal toward a climax in which conception would be impossible
even in principle, even when all of the faculties of the parties involved are
in good working order. They also frustrate the unitive end insofar as they
involve actively taking the psychological process of arousal through to an
emotional climax that involves an object other than the one toward which
nature has directed it—in the one case toward a person of the wrong sex, in
the other toward an object that isn’t even a person.
In Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument
Edward Feser
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o_mlly said:
They also frustrate the unitive end insofar as they
involve actively taking the psychological process of arousal through to an
emotional climax that involves an object other than the one toward which
nature has directed it—in the one case toward a person of the wrong sex, in
the other toward an object that isn’t even a person.
In Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument
Edward Feser
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How do we know toward what object an individual man’s nature directs their psychological process of arousal? Perhaps their nature is to be sexually attracted to and aroused by someone of the same sex. Research has shown, for example, that the more older brothers a male has, the more likely he is to be homosexual. This is called the “fraternal birth order effect”. According to Wikipedia:
In 1958, it was reported that homosexual men tend to have a greater number of older siblings (i.e., a ‘later/higher birth order’) than comparable heterosexual men and in 1962, these findings were published in detail. In 1996, Ray Blanchard and Anthony Bogaert demonstrated that the later birth order of homosexual men was solely due to a number of older brothers and not older sisters. They also showed that each older brother increased the odds of homosexuality in a later-born brother by 33%.

Research over the years has established several facts. First, homosexual men do tend to have a higher birth order than heterosexual men, and this higher birth order is attributed to homosexual men having greater number of older brothers. According to several studies, each older brother increases a male child’s naturally occurring odds of having a homosexual orientation by 28–48%. However, the numbers of older sisters, younger brothers, and younger sisters have no effect on those odds… Secondly, the fraternal birth order effect operates through a biological mechanism during prenatal life, not during childhood or adolescence. Direct evidence for this is the fact that the fraternal birth order effect has been found even in males not raised with their biological brothers – it has been determined that biological brothers increase the odds of homosexuality in later-born males even if they were reared in different households, whereas non-biological siblings, such as step-brothers or adopted brothers, have no effect on male sexual orientation.
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If there is a natural, biological, prenatal mechanism that causes some younger brothers to be homosexual, how can we say that being sexually aroused by other men is not their nature?
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Freddy said:
That deserves more than me just clicking the ‘like’ button. It deserves to be reposted.
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As an example of poor logic. I agree.

Let’s look at the assertions that @niceatheist makes:
  • Catholic legislators make decisions based on their own prudential judgments and not on the express wish of their constituents, and this is representative of either Catholics or heterosexuals? This isn’t a question of LGBTQ rights; this is a question about representative democracy that’s been debated since the inception of our country. At play isn’t “this is wrong” – which hasn’t been a consensus – but rather “I don’t like the potential positions of my representatives”, which is simply a matter of individual politics. Not a crisis, as niceatheist implies… just a dynamic of our democracy.
  • “By and large [we] would like you to become invisible”: not at all what’s been stated here, but rather, an irrational and emotional straw man.
  • An invalid alleged “special pleading” regarding the assertion that sterility does not violate natural law. “A sexual act that is a reasonably close facsimile of heterosexual relations partaken by a fertile couple” is factually false and intentionally misleading.
  • “indeed similar sexual acts that homosexuals may practice is less disordered when done by a heterosexual couple” is likewise false.
 
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Thorolfr said:
How do we know toward what object an individual man’s nature directs their psychological process of arousal?
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Objectively, given the nature of sex & it’s inherent functionality, sexual attraction ought to be between man and woman. We have no understanding of why there are exceptions.
Thorolfr said:
If there is a natural, biological, prenatal mechanism that causes some younger brothers to be homosexual, how can we say that being sexually aroused by other men is not their nature?
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If and when we can identify actual biological mechanisms that drive sexual attractions, we may then be in a position to understand what is going on. Absent a great deal more understanding, it is hard to see the absence of interest in the opposite sex as other than an absence of a natural “capability”. And the desire for sex with the same sex in a small % of people as confounding.
 
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TheDefaultMan said:
How can we still argue that homosexuality is immoral/contrary to the procreative faculties if there is an explicit genetic/evolutionary/biological reason for it?"
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Well just because one person did a Ted talk on his theory it certainly doesn’t mean it’s a legitimate reason. Im not familiar with Thomistic ethics and philosophy but it seems the word of God is not enough for you.

Therefore I will not present a moral argument but a scientific or medical argument to anal sex. The human rectum is designed to expel waste from our bodies, nothing more. Any doctor or scientist will tell you that it is not an orifice to be used for sexual penetration. The anal sphincter is easily ruptured along with the soft tissue surrounding it. Their are a lot of veins that are also easily ruptured. The possible damage is very serious and will result in surgery and/or a life long fault.

Aside from that we have trillions of bacteria in our intestines. Inserting a penis into it has a great risk of contracting many types of diseases, STIs and STDs.

For me the fact that such deviant behaviour is condemned by God is enough. The fact that medical science also doesn’t approve of it is the finishing argument with is irrefutable.
 
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I only presented the medical facts of anal sex.
Im not familiar with the sexual practices of lesbians so I can’t comment.
What I’m ok with is what God is ok with.
 
Thorolfr said:
How do we know toward what object an individual man’s nature directs their psychological process of arousal?
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I’m not sure what you mean by an “individual man’s nature”. The “nature of man” is common to all men.

We do know that the passions are not willed and so must be governed. For instance, the man who is aroused at apprehending the wife of another man ought to stifle that passion. Continually governing and repressing disordered passions becomes easier in subsequent episodes. In time, passions that would move one to be vicious no longer trouble the man. The disordered passions become less frequent or do not occur at all. The result is the habitually virtuous man.
 
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Thorolfr said:
If there is a natural, biological, prenatal mechanism that causes some younger brothers to be homosexual, how can we say that being sexually aroused by other men is not their nature?
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The study cited does not demonstrate that a natural (biological) cause is behind homosexuality; it speculates so.

One could also speculate from the data that mom and dad have less quality time per child as the number of children increases and leap to a nurture rather than nature cause for higher instances of homosexual tendencies, or any other speculation consistent with the data.
 
I’m sure others have posted it.

But Romans 1 is about as clear as can be.
 
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