Homosexuality

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Homosexuality is a sexual attraction between members of the same sex. It is condemned by the Bible as an egregiously sinful act.


Biblical Views on Homosexuality

Homosexuality is referred to four times in the Bible; it is not a topic mentioned by Jesus in the four gospels, and the only reference in the New Testament is in the letters of Paul. As the Bible is the source of western morality, it is obvious that a biblical condemnation of homosexuality should translate into a legal one in the western world.

All references in Amplified Version

Old Testament

  • Leviticus 18:22 - You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.
  • Leviticus 20:13 - If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

New Testament (Epistles)

  • 1 Corinthians 6:9 - Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality
  • Romans 1:26-27 - 26 For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one, 27 and the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another--men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.

Homosexuality in the Law

Treatment of homosexuals by the law has increasingly suggested that discrimination based on homosexuality employs a "suspect classification" subject to "strict scrutiny" under modern Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, with judges and scholars employing language to equate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation with already forbidden racial discrimination practices.[1] Where federal law forbidding discrimination against homosexuals remains scant, the several states have more than taken up the burden, and many have made sexual-orientation based discrimination actionable at law and equity.[2] Perhaps this can be seen as an example of the robustness of the United States' federal system, as the states are acting just as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Brandeis expressed hope that they would, as "laboratories" of experimentation on the border of developed federal law.[3]

The Supreme Court recently overturned a Texas law banning sodomy. The majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, suggests that all forms of discrimination, including that based on sexual orientation, are now subject to rational basis review, and will be frowned upon unless a legitimate state interest in the discrimination is expressed. Justice Kennedy also held that the need to legislate morals by the states' police power is no longer a legitimate state interest, absent specific physical harms being proven. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a blistering dissent, characterizing the opinion as including phrases which will become the "dicta that ate the rule of law."[4]

Homosexuality and Marriage

For many years, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. However, the organization de-listed homosexuality in 1973.[2] Since the late 1960s, many people, both homosexual and heterosexual, have lobbied for more favorable laws for homosexuals.

Legal marriage between same-sex couples is now recognized in Canada, Spain, South Africa, Belgium, Israel and the Netherlands, and in the US state of Massachusetts. Most other western European nations and several US states recognize a more limited "civil union". 26 US states have passed constitutional amendments banning recognition of same-sex marriages, and federal law does not recognize same-sex marriage. Some groups have pushed for a federal Constitutional amendment barring the legal recognition of same-sex marriages, however the amendment did not pass the Senate.[5]

Homosexuality in Humans and Genetics and Environment

Statistical studies give ample evidence that homosexuality is not caused entirely by genetics[6], although genetics plays a part, along with the environment. For example, research has shown that adoptive brothers are more likely to both be homosexuals than the biological brothers, who share half their genes. In the journal Science it is reported that, "this . . . suggests that there is no genetic component, but rather an environmental component shared in families" [7][8][9]. However, there is also a large amount of research that shows that homosexuality is caused by a combination of environment and genetis. For instance, Dean Hamer, a gay researcher, conducted a study of thirty-two pairs of brothers who were not related and exclusively homosexual. As they were not related, they should not share the same genes. However, two-thirds of the pairs (22 pairs)) shared the same type of genetic material, supporting the hypothesis that there is an existing gene that either influences homosexuality, or is caused by homosexuality.[10]

Homosexuality in Nature

In some jurisdictions, some forms of sexual activity are referred to by the legal term "unnatural act," a term which originated in church canon law. Non-zoologists have sometimes made the incorrect inference that homosexual behavior does not occur in the zoological world and have used it as a talking point when attacking homosexuality. This has created an interest in the side issue whether homosexual behavior is or is not zoologically "natural." This is largely a sterile debate because behavior is not necessarily moral even if "natural;" because the nature of human beings is not necessarily the same as the nature of other species, and because it is not at all clear when an observed behavior can be counted as "sexual," or as implying a sexual "orientation."

Homosexual behavior is common.National Geographic For example, every cattle farmer is familiar with the phenomenon of "bulling," cows mounting other cows; in fact, this is one of the standard signs farmers look for when determining that a cow is coming into estrus. However, it does not follow that the cows involved are showing anything analogous to human lesbian orientation.

Sexual behavior between animals of the same sex is common. Some animals in which it occurs include:

A 1996 article, published by an organization commited to "treatment" of homosexuality, musters the arguments against interpretation of animal behavior as sanctioning homosexuality.[13] It notes that "homosexual scientist Simon LeVay" stated that the evidence pointed to isolated acts, not to homosexuality:

"Although homosexual behavior is very common in the animal world, it seems to be very uncommon that individual animals have a long-lasting predisposition to engage in such behavior to the exclusion of heterosexual activities. Thus, a homosexual orientation, if one can speak of such thing in animals, seems to be a rarity."

In addition, Dr. Antonio Pardo, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Navarre, Spain, wrote:

Properly speaking, homosexuality does not exist among animals.... For reasons of survival, the reproductive instinct among animals is always directed towards an individual of the opposite sex. Therefore, an animal can never be homosexual as such. Nevertheless, the interaction of other instincts (particularly dominance) can result in behavior that appears to be homosexual. Such behavior cannot be equated with an animal homosexuality. All it means is that animal sexual behavior encompasses aspects beyond that of reproduction.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Pamela S. Karlan, "Loving Lawrence," available online at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=512662
  2. ↑ See, e.g., N.Y.C. Admin. Code, s 8-107
  3. ↑ Brest, Levinson, et al, "Processes in Constitutional Decisionmaking: Cases and Materials," Fifth Edition.
  4. ↑ See Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558
  5. ↑ http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/07/same.sex.marriage/index.html
  6. ↑ http://www.pureintimacy.org/gr/homosexuality/a0000057.cfm
  7. ↑ (Science, Vol. 262, page 2063, December 24, 1993)
  8. ↑ http://www.trueorigin.org/gaygene01.asp
  9. ↑ [http://www.freetobeme.com/r_biol.htm
  10. ↑ http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f97/projects97/Newman.html A report done by a student at Bryn Mawr College, but is nonetheless verifyable.
  11. ↑ Parker, Sue Taylor,Robert W. Mitchell, H. Lyn Miles (1999), The Mentalities of Gorillas and Orangutans: comparative perspectives. Cambridge University Press. p. 54
  12. ↑ Smith, Dinitia (2004), "Central Park Zoo's gay penguins ignite debate," The New York Times, Saturday, February 7, 2004, as published on the San Francisco Chronicle website[1]: "Bonobos are wildly energetic sexually. Studies show that whether observed in the wild or in captivity, nearly all are bisexual and nearly half their sexual interactions are with the same sex... 10 to 15 percent of female western gulls in some populations in the wild are homosexual... male and female bottlenose dolphins frequently engage in homosexual activity, both in captivity and in the wild"
  13. ↑ The Animal Homosexuality Myth, Luiz Sérgio Solimeo, excerpt from book Defending a Higher Law: Why We Must Resist Same Sex "Marriage" and the Homosexual Movement.
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