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Scientists have claimed that same-sex coupling in nature offers prime evidence that homosexuality among humans is naturally and morally normal.
• Whatever animals do in nature is natural.
• What’s natural is normal.
• What’s normal is moral.
How can we mere mortals impose our rules of sexual behavior on what’s natural in the animal kingdom? Homosexuals extrapolate that what animals do naturally in nature applies to what higher “animals” can do naturally without any moral judgments attached.
For example, And Tango Makes Three is an illustrated children’s book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin. It’s based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo that “adopt” a fertilized egg and raise the chick as their own.[1]
In his book Biological Exuberance, Bruce Bagemihl claims “The world is, indeed, teeming with homosexual, bisexual and transgendered creatures of every stripe and feather…. From the Southeastern Blueberry Bee of the United States to more than 130 different bird species worldwide, the ‘birds and the bees,’ literally, are queer.”
Here’s a typical unthinking response:
The lower-animal/higher-animal model breaks down when other so-called natural behaviors in animals are considered. For example, the Bible states, “It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT’ [Prov. 26:11] and, ‘A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire’” (2 Pet. 2:22). These are natural behaviors of animals. These are not normal human behaviors. Gregory Koukl makes these striking points:
It’s not unusual, for example, to see male dogs mount each other in an erotic way. There are two problems with this view, however…. [T]he observation is flawed because it assumes that erotic behavior in other mammals is the same as homosexual desire in human beings. Male homosexuals engage in sodomy because of an attraction to a gender. They are male erotic, and sodomy is an expression of that desire.
Does the animal kingdom display this kind of same-gender eroticism? When a male dog mounts another male dog, is it because he’s attracted to the male gender of the other dog? I don’t think so. This same poor pooch will slavishly mount sofas or shrubs or anything else available, including the leg of your dinner guest. None of these things is the object of the canine’s sexual lust; they are merely the subject of it. The dog does not desire your unfortunate visitor. He simply desires to be stimulated. It doesn’t prove they have homosexual desire in any way parallel with humans.[2]
Consider the case of Timothy Treadwell depicted in the movie Grizzly Man. He lived among bears for 13 years and considered them his “family.” In 2003, Treadwell and his companion, Amie Huguenard, were mauled and mostly eaten by one of the Alaskan grizzly bears he considered to be “All in the Family.” While he thought of the bears as his brothers and sisters, the bears thought of him as lunch.
Then there’s the case of Armin Meiwes, who killed and ate 43-year-old Bernd-Jurgen Brandes.[3] What did Mr. Meiwes do that was wrong, given the premise that animal behavior is a normative model for human behavior? For a detailed telling of the story, see Nathan Constantine, “A German Revival,” A History of Cannibalism: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths (Edison, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 2006), 186–191.) If the bears that ate Treadwell were only doing what came naturally, then how can the cannibal nature of Meiwes be judged as abnormal, given evolutionary assumptions?
Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor
The most damning assessment of a matter-only cosmos devoid of a Creator is that we got to this place in our evolutionary history by acts of violence whereby the strong conquered the weak with no one to support or condemn them. Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor repeatedly raises the issue of accounting for the conscience, good and evil, and loving our neighbor. It’s shocking to read what atheists say about a cosmos devoid of meaning and morality.
Buy NowWhat did Mr. Meiwes do that was wrong, given the premise that animal behavior is a normative model for human behavior?[4] If the bears that ate Treadwell were only doing what came naturally, then how can the cannibal nature of Meiwes be judged as abnormal, given evolutionary assumptions?
A few years ago, I saw an ad for a television special on Turner Network Television titled “The Trials of Life.” The full-page ad showed a composite picture of six animals, one of which was the bald eagle, with the following caption: “Discover how similar the face of nature is to yours. The way you love, the way you fight, the way you grow, all have their roots in the kingdom we all live in: the animal kingdom.” The implication here is obvious: Humans are only an evolutionary step away from other animals. In biblical terms, men and women are not animals. God did not create Adam out of another pre-existing animal.
While channel surfing, I came across the second installment of the six-part series “The Trials of Life.” I soon learned what Benjamin Franklin meant when he described the eagle as a bird of “bad moral character.” With two eaglets in the nest and not enough food to go around, the mamma allows the weakest eaglet to die. She then cannibalizes it and feeds it to the survivor.
A 2002 article carries this title: “Bald eagle kills, eats its young”: “Wildlife biologists are baffled and intrigued by two incidents captured on videotape at a bald eagle nest in Portsmouth, Virginia —an eagle parent attacks, kills, then eats its two scrawny young.”
Was this natural or unnatural? Is this moral animal behavior that we should emulate? How do we know? Should we follow the example of the eagles or just the supposed homosexual penguins?
Do chimpanzees have a moral code or a justice system? Since they are supposedly so close to us genetically, should they be prosecuted for crimes? Naturalist and filmmaker David Attenborough was asked, “What has been your most distressing/upsetting moment in your career?” He answered, “Seeing chimpanzees kill monkeys. They do this to eat them. They chase them, set an ambush, catch them, and tear them apart.”[5] Watch this video. Attenborough is applying human moral standards to chimpanzees. The Bloodhound Gang’s song Bad Touch has this line (and a video to match): “You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals; so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”
By This Standard
Millions of Christians have sadly not recognized the continuing authority of God's law or its many applications to modern society. They have thereby reaped the whirlwind of cultural and intellectual impotence. They implicitly denied the power of the death and resurrection of Christ. They have served as footstools for the enemies of God. But humanism's free ride is coming to an end. This book serves as an introduction to this woefully neglected topic.
Buy NowAnimals rape on a regular basis. Should we make the leap the homosexuals want to make regarding penguins? If homosexual behavior in penguins is a template for human sexuality, then why can’t a similar case be made for rape among humans? As hard as it might be to believe, the connection has been made. Randy Thornhill, a biologist, and Craig T. Palmer, an anthropologist, attempt to demonstrate in their book A Natural History of Rape [6] that evolutionary principles explain rape as a “genetically developed strategy sustained over generations of human life because it is a kind of sexual selection—a successful reproductive strategy.” The authors claim that even though rape can be explained genetically in evolutionary terms, this does not make the behavior morally right. Of course, given Darwinian assumptions, there is no way to condemn rape on moral grounds. The same could be said for homosexual behavior, and everything else. If we are the products of evolution, then there can be no moral judgments about anything. If homosexuals want to use penguins as their moral model, then they need to take all animal behavior into consideration when they build their moral worldview. If we should follow the animal world regarding homosexual penguins and thereby regard human homosexual behavior as normal, then we must be consistent and follow the animal world regarding rape, eating our young, and eating our neighbors, and decriminalize these behaviors as well.
[1] Cristina Cardoze, “They’re in love. They’re gay. They’re penguins…. And they’re not alone” (June 6, 2006).
[2] Gregory Koukl, “Just Doing What Comes Naturally: Mother Nature’s Way.”
[3] “German cannibal tells of fantasy,” BBC News (December 3, 2003).
[4] Theodore Dalrymple, “The Case for Cannibalism” (January 5, 2005). For a more detail telling of the story, see Nathan Constantine, “A German Revival,” A History of Cannibalism: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths (Edison, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 2006), 186–191.
[5] Lauren Davis, “This is the Most Disturbing Animal Behavior David Attenborough Has Seen,” Gizmodo (January 9, 2014): Link here.
[6] Randy Thornhill, and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).