Please do not bite my head off for asking this question... :)?

Question

If you believe in both Evolution (the kind where it is survival of the fittest, and man evolved over millions of years and were apes)... Can you believe that homosexuality is natural as well?

Wouldnt it seem that homosexuals would be the "weakest link" in the human species and would eventually die out for not being able to procreate? (assuming no invitro, egg donating, surrogate mothers).

I am not interested in answers from Christians who do not understand evolution. I am only interested in answers from those who believe or understand evolution as I have explained it above (or an idea close to it)

Thank you!

I think it is hilarious that I did not attack Christians in any way, I simply did not want pages upon pages of "homosexuals shall not enter the kingdom of God".

I myself AM a Christian, but I get fed up with all of the "a-typical Christian answers".

Christians who answered rudely or with sarcasm you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Answer 1

Homosexuality is not normal at all. God programmed us to be attracted to the opposite sex. God told us to make disciples of the Lord, and you sure as hell cannot do that when you have sex with the same sex. Society has two views of homosexuality. The traditional view holds that homosexuality is an aberration, the orientation is a disorder, and the behavior is pathological. The opposing view is that homosexuality is a normal variant in the human condition that is determined before birth and that homosexual behavior is natural for those so oriented.

The gay community has been tremendously successful in gaining acceptance for the second view. This view, however, rests on a number of questionable premises, which if false, lead us back to the traditional view. In the following article we will continue to examine the premises put forth by those accepting homosexuality as “normal.”


“Homosexuality is simply a normal variation in the human condition. It occurs in every culture, in every age, and although a majority are heterosexual, just as some people are left handed, a minority is homosexual in their orientation.”
Is this assertion true, or is homosexuality a disorder, a sign that something has gone wrong in an individual’s development? Is homosexuality something that is inevitable for a certain percentage of the world’s population, and therefore should simply be accepted, or is it a distortion or dysfunction that should be resisted, and if possible, cured?

As with the question regarding homosexuality being prenatally determined, the burden of proof should be with those who say it is normal and natural. I say this because the only hard evidence that we have—the biological evidence—clearly indicates that it is a disorder, in that homosexuality represents a tendency to want to use body parts for some purpose other than that for which they were designed. The penis and vagina are certainly constructed for male-female intercourse. Their complimentary shapes, the location of highly sensitive nerve endings show, without a doubt, the Divine intent.

Regardless of where you stand on the pleasure-relational aspects of sexuality, man and woman’s sexuality is inextricably associated with reproduction, and two men or two women cannot reproduce. Therefore, homosexuality is a condition that, in a fundamental way, is contrary to nature. Biologically, it is simply not natural or normal.

The advocates of acceptance of homosexuality, however, have put forth a great effort to convince the world that homosexuality is in fact both natural and normal, that it is simply different, and that only because it is the orientation of a minority, do we classify it as a disorder or perversion. They have been quite successful in this effort.

When we talk about what is normal, we are talking about what is in accordance with the norm; what is common. When we talk about what is natural, we are talking about what is in accordance with nature. Most arguments favoring homosexuality as normal and natural, therefore, are aimed at creating an impression that homosexuality is extremely widespread, that it occurs everywhere in nature. Furthermore, human sexuality is viewed as an extremely fluid thing in which all sorts of variations are just going to happen.

If you listen to gay advocacy groups, over and over again, you will hear these arguments used. There isn’t space here to fully refute this whole approach, but I ask you to consider what is really being said, and what evidence is really being offered. We will look at two of the most common statements made by advocacy groups.

1. Ten percent of the world is gay. I have heard this expressed with tremendous certainty, as when one gay activist said, “Don’t forget, one child in every ten born in the world, in all countries, in all ages is a homosexual.” The 10 percent statistic has been used so much that it is often simply assumed to be true in newspaper and magazine articles and by much of the public.

Where did the 10 percent figure come from? As far as we can tell it is a misinterpretation of the first Kinsey Report (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male l) in which it was stated that “10% of the males are more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55.” There are several problems here. Apart from the many legitimate concerns about Kinsey’s statistical methods and the fact that the study covered only U.S. males, Kinsey, on the same page states that, “4% of the white males are exclusively homosexual throughout their lives after adolescence.”

Those who first quoted the 10% figure from Kinsey were obviously consciously trying to mislead. Others later have used the figures innocently. In fact, we don’t know what percentage of ours or any other culture is homosexually oriented. Before Kinsey, the estimates, coming primarily out of England, Germany and the U.S. were between 2 and 5%. Later, more objective estimates in the United States project a maximum incidence of 5% among males and less among females.

The bottom line, however, is that whether it is 5% or 10% does not matter. Figures tend to be exaggerated by many homophiles because they believe that in numbers there is legitimacy. Not so. A significant number of people are criminally inclined, but that does not mean that they are not somehow distorted in their orientation.

2. Homosexuality occurs in all cultures and has been accepted in many. This usually is accompanied by the statement or implication that Judeo-Christian culture just happens to be hard on homosexuals. Obviously, we can’t review culture by culture here, but let me suggest that you look carefully at the examples given of homosexuality in other cultures. Invariably, they involve either pederasty (sex by men with boys) or, in rare instances, a limited period of approved homosexual behavior during adolescence.

Certainly, homosexual behavior could have occurred in all cultures to varying degrees, but that says nothing about it being normal or natural. In fact, most cultures, including the Greek, up until its final years, classified homosexuality as a crime deserving the severest of penalties.

There is evidence that homosexual behavior occurs far less frequently in some cultures than it does in the West. Obviously, differing cultures would evidence differing degrees of secrecy regarding sexual behavior and there have been no widely-accepted surveys of homosexuality in non-Western countries, so hard evidence is almost impossible to come by. Anecdotal evidence is available however.

Theologian and psychiatrist Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse quotes an incident in which an American mentioned homosexuality to a group of doctors at the Canton Hospital in the People’s Republic of China, and only one member of the medical staff understood what homosexuality was.2 I asked two missionaries to Africa about homosexuality on that continent, and both related that they had been told that it was unknown until the Westerners arrived. Anecdotes don’t provide certainty, but in the absence of hard numbers, ask people from Asia and Africa this yourself.

Answer 2

I'm not a Christian but let me take a stab at this because it is interesting. On the surface it would seem likely that homo sapiens who are homosexual would not fulfill their biological imperative and so the gene should die out. However, even today there are homosexual men who have fathered children naturally and then 'come out' and other stranger scenarios. Plus, homosexual women may also fall under that umbrella and may also be forced by rape for instance to bear a child. Since science has not determined why someone is a homosexual maybe the woman passed the genes along even if the men did not. Perhaps the societal suppression has caused many to act 'normal', find a mate and procreate and so the gene continued. It is an interesting phenomena.

Answer 3

"Believing in" evolution and accepting homosexuality as "natural" are not mutually exclusive, because we, as a society, NO LONGER believe that physical survival of the fittest is an appropraite way to run a society. If we did, all we'd care about is killing each other, or being powerful enough to do so, so we could rule the heard with pure physical violence.

If we "believed" in survival of the fittest, then Steven Hawking would not be alive (unless he could figure out some way, all on his own, to move and protect himself from those who would kill him) because he has inherent physical weakness. So, in that vein, all people involved in the arts, smart but not good at manipulating others, etc., would all "die out," because they'd be killed or not good enough at attracting a mate. We recognize human value today in all its forms, even though people have some flaws, beceause we can all learn and better ourselves.

Answer 4

Evolution occurs as genes mutate and the creatures that result have a better chance of survival than those without the new trait. There is nothing about homosexuality that makes someone less likely to survive for having this trait, and unless homosexuality is determined to be inherited from the parents, then it will continue to occur. Perhaps humans are evolving and homosexuality is evolutions' response to overcrowding and a continued dearth of the Earths finite resources. Perhaps we are limiting our own population through evolution.

Answer 5

First off let me say, you can find homosexual behavior exhibited by many species of mammals throughout the natural world.

Studies have shown that the more older male siblings a man has the higher the chances of him being homosexual. This sounds more like it is a natural form of equaling out peoples desires with the reality at hand. If there are more males than females (or vice versa) then it helps society if some of the more numerous sex can play amongst themselves rather than compete for a mate.

We live in a time where our species survival doesn't depend upon having as many children as you can possibly produce. We don't even need child labor for our agriculture anymore so I don't see how someone being attracted to the same sex matters.

Happiness is hard enough to find without misguided, self-righteous "moral" police trying to make everyone conform to their ideas of what love is.

Answer 6

In a social context, homosexuality can be an evolutionarily advantageous trait in controlled amounts (say, multi-linked recessive traits).

I'm going to preference patriarchal terminology for simplicity, the matriarchal would be equivalent.

In a social group, there is competition for the choice females amongst the males. The fights, while rarely fatal, consume energetic resources, can cause injury, and can cause fatality. Thus, being a competitor for coupulation is a high-risk scenario.

However, in a social group, there is a high percentage of shared genes. This means that even if I don't procreate, if I assist my brother to procreate, since we share many genes, my genes will still be passed on. Thus, the individual is more likely to survive.

Surving, the homosexual individual is still a member of the group and is likely to participate in child rearing behaviors. Since this individual does not have its own offspring to raise, it's able to devote more attention to the child. Instead of a child being lucky to have a mother and father, its asexual and homosexual relatives will also chip in to raise it. This provides a social and reproductive advantage because there is more available teaching and the child is more likely to make it to reproductive age.

In a social setting, homosexuality, in small amounts, say, oh, one in ten, is evolutionarily advantageous.

Answer 7

That's an interesting theory but what about this? What if homosexuality is a form of population control? Humans are living longer due to healthier lifestyles and advanced medical practices so Nature has to find ways to control the population which, in my opinion, is why we have hurricanes, tonadoes, tsunamis etc...so why couldn't homosexuality be a form of population control?

Answer 8

You do realise that the vast majority of ants are sterile? Way more difficult than the existence of homosexuality but it has been completely explained.

Very briefly, it is the genes that are the entities passed on through evolution not individuals, if the existence of a sterile individual helps copies of those genes to survive it will be selected for, fairly straightforward.

Answer 9

You are making homosexuality much more genetically simplistic than it is. If there were one gene "causing" homosexuality, then it may have died out, however, there are lots of things that factor into both our gender and our sexual attraction. In addition, homosexuality does not seem to run in families, i.e. being passed on from father to son, etc. This makes it quite difficult for nature to affect homosexuality.

In addition, it is likely the very persecution of homosexuality that has aided in its survival. Because these people were forced to live lives emulating heterosexuals to avoid persecution (i.e. marrying, having kids, etc.), they have continued to procreate when they otherwise would not have. It was not until recently that society even allowed for homosexuality, coincidentally keeping it alive until technological advances made it possible for homosexuals to live the way they wish AND still have children.

Answer 10

I am Bisexual and it IS by choice. What I think is homosexuals, and Bisexuals will always be here, even the people who believe that they were born this way, will believe that there will always be the Homosexuals. Which is true, we will never die out, not unless the whole human races dies out, but even then I think there will still be Homosexual.
BD

Answer 11

I don't find homosexuals to be weak links. Since they cannot breed, they simply won't leave any offspring. Or at least not very many. It is their decision. I'm okay with that. I don't believe homosexuality will die out. It isn't genetic. Live and let live!