If marriage was created to preserve the species, why do gays and lesbians want the right to marry?

Answer 1

Some people crave the status of marriage.

These people want more and more reassurance and social position.

It has nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with a desire for competitive social recognition.

Answer 2

from: The Research Council of Norway


For eons, na­ture has been pranc­ing, flut­ter­ing and al­to­geth­er teem­ing with gay an­i­mals, pro­claim the or­ga­niz­ers of the first mu­se­um ex­hi­bi­tion on ani­mal ho­mo­sex­u­ali­ty.

Scientists have found ho­mo­sex­u­ality in near­ly 1,500 spe­cies, said zo­ol­o­gist Pet­ter Boeck­man of the Nor­we­gian Nat­u­ral His­to­ry Mu­se­um at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Os­lo, an ex­hi­bi­tion co-or­g­an­iz­er. The show, en­ti­tled “A­gainst Na­ture’s Or­der?” is to run through next sum­mer at the mu­se­um.

Boeck­man said the project, draw­ing on sev­er­al years of re­search by an ar­ray of bi­ol­o­gists, proves gay sex is in fact part of na­ture’s or­der. His ar­gu­ments ech­o the claim of gay rights ad­vo­cates world­wide that in hu­mans, too, ho­mo­sex­u­ality is nat­u­ral.

Same-sex mating is es­pe­cial­ly com­mon among herd­ing an­i­mals, and of­ten serves to re­solve con­flicts, Boeck­man said.

“One fun­da­men­tal prem­ise in so­cial de­bates has been that ho­mo­sex­u­ality is unnat­u­ral. This prem­ise is wrong. Ho­mo­sex­u­ality is both com­mon and high­ly es­sen­tial in the lives of a num­ber of spe­cies,” he said.

The best-known gay an­i­mal is the dwarf chim­pan­zee, or bo­no­bo, one of hu­man­i­ty’s closest rel­a­tives. The whole spe­cies is bi­sex­u­al: sex plays a glar­ing role in all their ac­tiv­i­ties and de­fuses po­ten­tial vi­o­lence, Boek­man ar­gued, the usu­al meth­od of solv­ing con­flicts among an­i­mals.

“Sex among dwarf chim­pan­zees is in fact the busi­ness of the whole fam­i­ly,” he re­marked. “The cute lit­tle ones of­ten lend a help­ing hand when they en­gage in oral sex with each oth­er.”

Li­ons can al­so be ho­mo­sex­u­al, he ar­gued: ma­les of­ten band to­geth­er with broth­ers to lead the pride, and en­sure loy­al­ty by hav­ing sex with each oth­er.

Ho­mo­sex­u­ality is com­mon among dol­phins and kill­er whales, he said; with them, male-fe­male bonds are fleet­ing, where­as male-male pairings can last years. Gay sex be­tween dif­fer­ent spe­cies is not un­u­su­al ei­ther, he added. Meet­ings be­tween dif­fer­ent dol­phin spe­cies can be vi­o­lent, he said, but the ten­sion is of­ten bro­ken by a “sex or­gy.”

As a so­cial phe­nom­e­non, ho­mo­sex­u­ality is most wide­spread among an­i­mals with a com­plex herd life, he con­ti­nued.

Among apes, fe­ma­les cre­ate con­ti­nu­i­ty with­in the group, he added; this so­cial net­work is main­tained not on­ly by shar­ing food and child rear­ing, but through sex. “Among many of the fe­male apes the sex or­gans swell up. So they rub their ab­domens against each oth­er,” Boeck­man said, adding that an­i­mals have sex be­cause they have the de­sire to, just like hu­mans.

“We’re talk­ing about eve­ry­thing from mam­mals to crabs and worms,” he con­ti­n­ued. Some an­i­mals practice ho­mo­sex­u­al be­hav­iour rarely, he ela­bor­ated; others, in­c­lu­d­ing bo­no­bos, do it life­long.

This oc­curs also among birds that pair with one part­ner for life, as geese and ducks do, he not­ed: four to five per­cent of the cou­ples are ho­mo­sex­u­al, and sin­gle fe­males will lay eggs in a ho­mo­sex­u­al pair’s nest. Ho­mo­sex­u­al cou­ple of­ten seem bet­ter at rais­ing the young than het­er­o­sex­ual cou­ples, he added.

In col­o­nies of black-headed gulls, al­most eve­ry tenth pair is les­bi­an, he said. It’s very pos­si­ble for the les­bi­ans to be­come im­preg­nated, he added, though these in­di­vid­u­als should­n’t be con­sid­ered bi­sex­u­al.

“If a fe­male has sex with a male one time, but thou­sands of times with anoth­er fe­ma­le, is she bi­sex­u­al or ho­mo­sex­u­al?” he asked. This is much the same way as gay peo­ple of­ten have chil­dren, he not­ed.

“More­over, a part of the an­i­mal king­dom is hermaphroditic,” hav­ing both male and fe­male sex or­gans, he not­ed. “For them, ho­mo­sex­u­al is not an is­sue.”

The theme of an­i­mal ho­mo­sex­u­ality, he said, “has long been taboo” among sci­en­tists, who of­ten mas­quer­ade the touchy sub­ject by giv­ing it oth­er names.

He cit­ed one sci­en­tif­ic de­scrip­tion of mat­ing among gi­raffes, in an ar­e­a where nine in ten pair­ings oc­curred be­tween ma­les. “Every male that sniffed a fe­male was re­ported as sex,” he said; but anal sex with or­gasm be­tween ma­les was por­trayed as a dom­i­nance, com­peti­ti­tion or greet­ing be­hav­ior.

It’s time to start calling it what it is: sex, Boeck­man in­sists.

“Many re­search­ers have de­scribed ho­mo­sex­u­ality as some­thing al­to­geth­er dif­fer­ent from sex. They must real­ise that an­i­mals can have sex with who they will, when they will and with­out con­sid­er­a­tion to a re­searcher’s eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples.”

Animals masturbate, too, he observed.

“There are plen­ty of an­i­mals who will mas­tur­bate when they have noth­ing bet­ter to do. Mas­tur­ba­tion has been ob­served among pri­ma­tes, deer, kill­er whales and pen­guins… both ma­les and fe­ma­les. They rub them­selves against stones and roots. Orangutans are es­pe­cial­ly in­ven­tive. They make dil­dos of wood and bark.”

Answer 3

WAS marriage created to preserve the species?

Moreover, has the purpose of marriage changed over the centuries, or when you marry today, do you have to prove that you will, eventually, use this granted civil status in order to 'preserve the species'? Of course you don't- many people marry with no intention of having children. Therefore, gays and lesbians want the right to marry to do what lots of other straight people are doing- sharing their lives in a fully, government-recognized way.

Answer 4

Whether marriage was created to preserve the species or not isn't relevant to the question of why gays and lesbians want the same rights, privelages and obligations of the arrangement.
If we allow a widow who's past menopause to remarry, we're already granting the rights of marriage to a situation that doesn't meet the "preserve the species" criteria. On what grounds can we say *this* consideration doesn't apply to a same-sex couple?

Answer 5

I think you're starting out with an incorrect assumption. The species will continue with or without marriage. Marriage (in my humble opinion) was created to make public a sacred commitment between two people. Our society has given special status and rights to married couples to insure among other things rights of the survivor, and tax and health benefits.

If I were a lesbian, I would want the right to marry my partner not just for the rights and responsibilities that go along with marriage, but also simply to have social equality and free choice. It's just a basic human right that should be available to ALL people.

Answer 6

A lot of lesbian/gay/transgender couples seek help from sperm banks or surrogates, or even a male that they know to help them reproduce. They are just as capable to preserve the species, they arent always staying together without a family. With using a friend or having a family that way, they can still have a family, and there will still be a population increase, just not necessarily from them. Everyone should be allowed to get married if they love each other, we need a higher marriage rate than a divorce rate, and they are fully capable of having a married life and being successful with it. If you were denied the one you love to marry, wouldn't you want to fight for that right? I know if I wasnt allowed to marry the one I love (if I were a lesbian) I would be hurt, and I would be lonely the rest of my life. Sometimes just having a relationship for them is not enough, they want that commitement, because without thew commitment, someone can leave at any time, and the sanctity of a relationship is ruined. Hope that helped, I did a lot of research for a paper I was writing about the LGBT movements, and I learned a lot.

Answer 7

If marriage was created to preserve the species...
1) Why do we still have it? We're dangerously OVERpopulated right now.
2)Why do old people get to marry? Or those who don't have full-working reproductive systems? If that was really the reason for marriage, then access to marriage would be restricted based upon the ability to fulfill that function.

Answer 8

What are you talking about? Sex and love were created to preserve the species, and nature took care of that. Marriage was created to preserve a man's right over a particular woman, at a time where a wife was little more than a piece of property.
Today, marriage serves two purposes: People marrying re-affirm their love and commitment to one another through a legal and (sometimes) religious ceremony. It also serves to become a couple for tax purposes, and grants insurance protection, and legal protection for married people.
But gays aren't a threat to the institution. That's just silly. Gay people will be gay whether they have a right to marry or not. And straight people will remain straight whether gays can marry or not. Aside form gays having to go through lengthy divorce proceedings and filing joint income tax returns, I don't see what hoot of a difference it makes and since I don't care what my neighbors do as long as their quiet, I'm all for it.

Answer 9

There shouldn't be any difference in the legal treatment for anyone regardless of sexual orientation. Marriage is nothing to do with species preservation, as you undoubtedly know by now. It was a religious public form that happens to have legal implications. The legal side of it all should be the same for all couples.

The religious side is another issue. Since religion and law should be very seperate it shouldn't matter what religion has to say as far as legality of same sex marriage is concerned. Of course, for many religious folks they won't wish to allow the marriage to happen within their own faith. That's an entirely seperate debate.

There may be some sociological questions to be dealt with for same sex parenting, however the only reason its an issue is the bigotry that can be inflicted upon a child of said couple. If society grows up, throws away any remaining nonsense like said bigotry (same for racism), same sex parents won't be an issue. The criteria for good parents should simply be their behaviour and and stability as a couple and towards their child.

The conclusion I feel is simply that sexuality is no reason for any form of legal discrimination.

Answer 10

Marriage wasn't created to preserve the species. You don't have to be married to have children. How can someone possibly tell homosexuals that they don't have the right to commit themselves formally and legally to the person they love?

Only about 7% of the population is gay anyway. It's not like our species will cease to exist because we allow homosexuals to marry.

Answer 11

Wow...I'm not quite sure where you got the idea from that marriage was created to preserve the species, but it is quite obviously wrong due to the fact that there are plenty of heterosexual couples who either chose not to have children or who are incapable of producing children...not to mention plenty of couples and single women who chose to have children without ever getting married. Not to mention the fact that it is quite simple for gays and lesbians to have children with a little help from others...exactly the same way many 'married heterosexual' couples do...with sperm donors and surrogate mothers. Hope this has cleared up your confusion about 'preserving the species'...