I read an article about Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni's recent statement in support of their new anti-homosexual legislation. She said, "If cows do not practice homosexuality, how could we the human beings start arguing over homosexuality?"
This made me giggle. First off, homosexuality has been observed in many different species of animals. Here's a link.
Second off, even if no animals were homosexual that does not mean that therefore homosexuality is evil or bad. This is a non sequitur.
I agree. I don't think the animal kingdom is the optimal venue for dictating morality. I've always been under the impression that humans were supposed to regard ourselves on a different plane from animals, that we exist in a kind of superior consciousness that separates us from other living creatures. This has always been a sentiment that I've found myself agreeing with. If we use these habits to justify our own, then other animal behaviors would theoretically be imitable as well. I find this frightening. For example, it is common in animals for a male to sire multiple children with multiple partners and have no hand in the raising of the child. It is common for females and children to essentially be viewed as property that can be won in fights to the death. These are just several example of things that I find immoral in the human world, but that are frequent in the animal world.
ReplyDeleteYeah animals? There are populations of the leaping lesbian lizards.
ReplyDeleteI think that our turning to the physical world and all of the awesome things that are in it is starting to go a little too far. Using animal justification for our behavior does seem really odd, but it is what's happening. I wonder if those who support becoming more like animals have truly lost the sense of what it means to be human - or at least the idea of what it means to hold oneself to a higher standard than common animals.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this partially what the civil war was fought over? The idea that all Negroes are human, and should be regarded and treated as human, and have all the rights that we set aside for ourselves as humans? But I digress...