Is Homosexuality Natural or a Choice?

I had the unfortunate experience of listening to Bill O'Reilly for about three minutes the other night, and of course he said several things in that short span that were simply absurd.

First, he was going on about his little tiff with George Clooney. Apparently the 'E' network - that bastion of high brow journalism - painted O'Reilly as a loudmouth (which he didn't dispute, to his credit) and Clooney as a man trying to go good by using his celebrity for fundraising. To this O'Reilly responded, "Well, the E network has to pander to celebrities. We (meaning Fox News I assume) understand that." Of course you do Bill - your network panders to ultra-conservatives and arguably has about as much journalistic credibility as E.

Second, and bit more serious, O'Reilly was responding a letter from a viewer that said something about how those who oppose gay marriage are simply trying to force their own moralism on everyone else, to which O'Reilly responded "C'mon, you can't argue with nature." Suggesting therefore that homosexuality is not natural.

Now, this is a long standing debate. I am among those who believes that homosexuality is a natural occurence, but that choosing to live a homosexual lifestyle is a choice, and an extremely difficult one to make for most people outside of San Fran, NYC, Key West or Ann Arbor.

Now, CJR, another writer here, has argued to me before that homosexuality is, from an evolutionary point of view, detrimental to the species because it essentially means that healty, reproductive males won't reproduce and further our species. Now, in CJR's defense, this is a purely scientific and not social argument.

There are plenty of legitimate arguments to either side. Some say homosexuality doesn't happen in the rest of the animal kingdom, so it's not natural. Well, does that mean having a large brain, the ability to speak, the ability to make complex tools, etc. is not natural because only humans demonstrate these traits? Certainly not.

There are some who think homosexuality is a disease, much like depression or multiple personality disorder. Now this is an interesting tack, because it places the "blame" for homosexuality on societal influences, like being beaten by your father with a wrench can make one develop multiple personalities. But other "diseases" like depression and alcoholism are genetic, but often triggered by social circumstances. In other words, you could have depression genes and still be a pretty happy person most of the time if life doesn't kick the crap out of you. Even if homosexuality were a disease, which I do not believe it is, it certainly couldn't be labeled as "unnatural." But you don't see Pfizer advertising a pill to cure homosexuality...in fact, quite the opposite given all the boner-pill advertising we're subjected to at all times.

The most frightening argument, however, comes from those, like O'Reilly, that are essentially arguing from the bible. The bible says homosexuality is wrong, therefore it's unnatural? Well, lying, killing and theivery are all forbidden by the bible, but that doesn't stop the bible thumpers from starting holy wars based on lies and the desire to steal wealth from an oil rich nation.

The conflict here, for me, is that I respect people's right to believe in what they want. I do not, however, believe that in any form of public, secular debate someone has the right to make an argument that's solely based on the bible and not corroborated by anything else. It's an endless and useless argument, and it's based essentially on the same assumptions ancient people made - if we can't come up with a rational expalantion for something, call it g-d; and if we have to justify something that's clearly without basis, evoke divine right.