Justifying Homosexuality on Faulty Logic
Jeff Unsworth
Recently, I was asked a question concerning homosexual behaviour.
How can homosexuality be wrong, when we see the same behaviour in animals? Surely this shows that it is natural.
It is true that same sex activity goes on in the animal kingdom and it is true to say that it is nature. However, animals can only act according to their nature.
What is natural to the animal is not natural for humanity. There are incidence that happen in animal behaviour, that are obviously not acceptable in human behaviour.
The fundamental difference between the animal ethics and the people ethics is due to the fact, that the first of them has its base in the instinct and the second in rational thinking.
This point is expressed very well in comments made by AC Ewing in 1953.
"Every system of ethics has prescribed duties to others as well as to oneself, and no good man is uninfluenced by the prospect of his actions producing bad effects on other men"
Ewing above describes ethics in terms of consequences to self and others and examines the idea that a human will take consideration of their acts before doing them. That is to make a conscious choice regarding duties to oneself as well as to others.
Quote: Barry Turner University of Lincoln
This is but one of the reasons why the existence of animal ethics is questionable. Animals do not consider the consequences of their actions. Contributors refer to animal emotions of which there is plenty of evidence for. Chimps that ruthlessly kill the children of others in their social group are uninfluenced by the devastating effect this has on the mothers of those infants. Close studies of them indicate no signs of remorse, only triumph. If chimps had ethics there would be some who refused to carry out this barbaric act because of the effect on other chimps.
Why do the chimp societies not punish these infanticides? That would indicate a common code of ethics. We must assume that if they are ethical then they have the equivalent ethics of the human psychopathic murderer and that the ethics of their societies are akin to those of criminal gangs.
Those on this thread who support the idea of animal ethics concentrate solely on the 'good' animals do, such as adopting other species. If animals have ethics then they must be unethical too. Ethics is the study of both right and wrong not simply an expression of doing good.
The problem here is the timeless anthropomorphism whereby humans project human characteristics onto animal behaviour. Of course animals are capable of emotions you only have to see the grief stricken expressions on a female chimp's face when its infant is butchered by others in its social group. Whale mothers desperately try to protect their young from the attacks carried out by Orcas and are visibly shaken by such attacks.
If animals have ethics then they are vicious, unethical and murderous. If we are to compare them with human ethics then their activities are disgusting. For those who believe in 'animal ethics' you are faced with condemning animals as evil, destructive and murderous, as well as cuddly and loving. You must approve of punishing animals that behave unethically. Ethics is a two way street, not simply a celebration of how wonderfully loving some animals are.
End of Quote.
There is a definite difference between humans and animals. So to try and justify human behaviour on animal behaviour is based on a faulty logic.
The sexual organs of the body are there for a specific purpose and that is procreation. The makeup of the male and female are designed to fit together specifically that procreation can take place.
The fact that the sexual organs can be used for other reasons is not the primary use.
Animals were created with mind, will, and emotion, while humans were created with mind, will, and emotion, and most importantly, a moral and spiritual capacity.
We are told in the book of Genesis, that when God made man, He breathed into his nostrils and man became a living soul. Man was endowed with eternal life.
There is a big difference between man and animals because man was made in the image of God.
When God made the animal kingdom, He said:
Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
However when it came to man, God said.
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
In the biblical creation model, animals and humans are distinct creations. Man having the ability to love and reason and having a moral and spiritual capacity.
The book of Genesis also tells us that mankind was given dominion over the animals to care for them as good stewards of God’s creation. God has given man the wherewithal to fulfil what He told him to do.
Although many animals can act in a similar way to man, although they can express similar emotions, use simple tools, solve problems, communicate by sounds and actions, and mourn for their dead, they cannot match the intellectual, technological, and spiritual capacity of mankind. After all, we don’t see animals placing humans in zoos. We don’t see animals training humans to perform physical labour and mental tasks. We don’t see animals building great civilizations. We don’t see animals obeying moral laws.
Animals have no sense of right or wrong, they just act according to their nature.
When hungry, they kill to eat, when threatened they attack to defend themselves and their young and kill if necessary. When they are sexually stimulated they act in whatever manner alleviates that feeling.
Those who attempt to justify homosexuality in humanity by pointing to its existence in the animal kingdom have a logical problem. They argue that homosexual behaviour and relationships in animals makes it ‘right’ for the same sorts of things in humans, but animals also practice rape, murder, incest, theft, physical abuse, and cannibalism. By the same reasoning, therefore, we should accept and condone these sorts of things as ‘normal’ too.
In reality, there is a great difference between animals and humans, and apart from the false presumption of evolution, there is no basis for applying animal behaviour as the yardstick for humans.
Man’s conscience and commonsense tells us that the idea of accepting rape and cannibalism is not natural and normal. This is an evidence and confirmation of the reality that we are made in the image of God, not animals. We know that such things are wrong, regardless of what animals may or may not do.
The evolutionists would have a hard time justifying why they believe rape is morally wrong even though some of them claim it is in our genes.
Rom 2:15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;
The evolutionist argues that natural selection is correct, that only the strongest genes survive and this is how nature evolves.
According to this logic, for mankind to survive, the homosexual gene would therefore be eradicated, otherwise mankind could not survive.
Homosexual activity is based on sex, it is based on fulfilling a sexual desire, a sexual desire that cannot procreate of its own kind.
Law and Gospel
The Bible explicitly forbids homosexual behaviour in both the Old and New Testaments. In addition, the Bible explicitly defines marriage as one man and one woman in both the Old and New Testaments Matthew 19:4–6
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Mat 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Mat 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
This scripture is quoting from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Homosexuality is contrary to God’s law, it is wrong, plain and simple, it is against God’s natural order and sin appals a holy God.
The Bible makes it quite clear what this activity is.
Genesis 19:5: "And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them."
Leviticus 18:22: " Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."
Leviticus 20:13: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."
Deuteronomy 23:17: " There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel."
Romans 1:26-27: "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."
1 Corinthian 6:9: "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind."
1 Timothy 1:9:10: "Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;"
For anyone who will follow God’s Word, homosexual practice is not correct.
It is quite clear from scripture that it is wrong and not natural.
The words used are, abomination, vile effections, change the natural use, burn with lust, unseemly, abusers of themselves, unholy and profane, whoremongers and those that defile themselves.
To accept that homosexual activity is normal or natural, is to discard God and his Word.
God made man, male and female, specifically designed to come together to procreate. Anything contrary to this is a perversion of God’s natural order.
