Homosexuality: The Nature and Harm Arguments
JOHN CORVINO*
One of the aims of the Gay Liberation movement is to enable gays and lesbians to be happy, healthy, contributing members of a society that recognizes and accepts differences in sexual orientation among its members. This requires educating or “raising the consciousness” not only of gay people but of their heterosexual or “straight” neighbors and coworkers as well. In the following essay, the philosopher John Corvino (1969–) confronts and criticizes two mainstays of anti-gay attitudes: the assertions that homosexuality is unnatural and harmful. Like other advocates of Gay Liberation, Corvino believes that confronting their own homophobia—that is, their fear of homosexuals and homosexuality—can lead “gays” and “straights” alike to overcome homophobia’s stunting and stifling effects.

HOMOSEXUALITY: THE NATURE AND HARM ARGUMENTS
Tommy and Jim are a homosexual couple I know. Tommy is an accountant; Jim is a botany professor. They are in their early forties and have been together fourteen years, the last five of which they’ve lived in a Victorian house that they’ve lovingly restored. Though their relationship has had its challenges, each has made sacrifices for the sake of the other’s happiness and the relationship’s long-term success.
I assume that Tommy and Jim have sex with each other (although I’ve never bothered to ask). Furthermore, I suspect that they probably should have sex with each other. For one thing, sex is pleasurable. But it is also much more than that: a sexual relationship can unite two people in a way that virtually nothing else can. It can be an avenue of growth, communication, and lasting interpersonal fulfillment. These are reasons most heterosexual couples have sex even if they don’t want children, don’t want children yet, or don’t want additional children. And if these reasons are good enough for most heterosexual couples, then they should be good enough for Tommy and Jim.
Of course, having a reason to do something does not preclude there being an even better reason for not doing it. Tommy might have a good reason for drinking orange juice (it’s tasty and nutritious) but an even better reason for not doing so (he’s allergic). The point is that one would need a pretty good reason for denying a sexual relationship to Tommy and Jim, given the intense benefits widely associated with such relationships. The question I shall consider in this paper is thus quite simple: Why shouldn’t Tommy and Jim have sex?1

I. Homosexuality Is Unnatural
Many contend that homosexual sex is “unnatural.” But what does that mean? Many things that people value—clothing, houses, medicine, and government, for example—are unnatural in some sense. On the other hand, many things that people detest—disease, suffering, and death, for example—are natural in some sense (after all, they occur “in nature”). If the unnaturalness charge is to be more than empty rhetorical flourish, those who levy it must specify what they mean. Borrowing from Burton Leiser, I will examine several possibilities.2

1
What is unusual or abnormal is unnatural. One meaning of “unnatural” refers to that which deviates from the norm, that is, from what most people do. Obviously, most people engage in heterosexual relationships. But does it follow that it is wrong to engage in homosexual relationships? Relatively few people read Sanskrit, pilot ships, play the mandolin, breed goats, or write with both hands, yet none of these activities is immoral simply because it is unusual. As the Ramsey Colloquium, a group of Jewish and Christian scholars who oppose homosexuality, write, “The statistical frequency of an act does not determine its moral status.”3 So while homosexuality might be “unnatural” in the sense of being unusual, that fact is morally irrelevant.

2
What is not practiced by other animals is unnatural. Some people argue, “Even animals know better than to behave homosexually; homosexuality must be wrong.” This argument is doubly flawed. First, it rests on a false premise. Numerous studies— including Anne Perkins’s study of “gay” sheep and George and Molly Hunt’s study of “lesbian” seagulls—have shown that some animals do form homosexual pairbonds.4 Second, even if that premise were true, it would not prove that homosexuality is immoral. After all, animals don’t cook their food, brush their teeth, attend college, or drive cars; human beings do all these things without moral censure. Indeed, the idea that animals could provide us with our standards, especially our sexual standards, is simply amusing.

3
What does not proceed from innate desires is unnatural. Recent studies suggesting a biological basis for homosexuality have resulted in two popular positions. One side says, “Homosexual people are born that way; therefore it’s natural (and thus good) for them to form homosexual relationships.” The other side retorts, “No, homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, therefore it’s unnatural (and thus wrong).” Both sides seem to assume a connection between the cause or origin of homosexual orientation, on the one hand, and the moral value of homosexual activity, on the other. And insofar as they share that assumption, both sides are wrong.
     Consider first the pro-homosexual side: “They are born that way; therefore it’s natural and good.” This inference assumes that all innate desires are good ones (that is, that they should be acted upon). But that assumption is clearly false. Research suggests that some people are born with a predisposition towards violence, but such people have no more right to strangle their neighbors than anyone else. So while some people may be born with homosexual tendencies, it doesn’t follow that they ought to act on them.
     Nor does it follow that they ought not to act on them, even if the tendencies are not innate. I probably do not have any innate tendency to write with my left hand (since I, like everyone else in my family, have always been right-handed), but it doesn’t follow that it would be immoral for me to do so. So simply asserting that homosexuality is a “lifestyle choice” will not show that it is an immoral lifestyle choice.
     Do people “choose” to be homosexual? People certainly don’t seem to choose their sexual feelings, at least not in any direct or obvious way. (Do you? Think about it.) Rather, they find certain people attractive and certain activities arousing, whether they “decide” to or not. Indeed, most people at some point in their lives wish that they could control their feelings more (for example, in situations of unrequited love) and find it frustrating that they cannot. What they can control to a considerable degree is how and when they act upon those feelings. In that sense, both homosexuality and heterosexuality involve “lifestyle choices.” But in either case, determining the cause or origin of the feelings will not determine whether it is moral to act upon them.

4
What violates an organ’s principal purpose is unnatural. Perhaps when people claim that homosexual sex is unnatural they mean that it cannot result in procreation. The idea behind the argument is that human organs have various “natural” purposes: eyes are for seeing, ears are for hearing, genitals are for procreating. According to this argument, it is immoral to use an organ in a way that violates its particular purpose.
     Many of our organs, however, have multiple purposes. Tommy can use his mouth for talking, eating, breathing, licking stamps, chewing gum, kissing Jim, and it seems rather arbitrary to claim that all but the last use are “natural.”5 (And if we say that some of the other uses are “unnatural, but not immoral,” we have failed to specify a morally relevant sense of the term “natural.”)
     Just because people can and do use their sexual organs to procreate, it does not follow that they should not use them for other purposes. Sexual organs seem very well suited for expressing love, for giving and receiving pleasure, and for celebrating, replenishing, and enhancing a relationship, even when procreation is not a factor. Unless opponents of homosexuality are prepared to condemn heterosexual couples who use contraception or individuals who masturbate, they must abandon this version of the unnaturalness argument. Indeed, even the Roman Catholic Church, which forbids contraception and masturbation, approves of sex for sterile couples and of sex during pregnancy, neither of which can lead to procreation. The Church concedes here that intimacy and pleasure are morally legitimate purposes for sex, even in cases where procreation is impossible. But since homosexual sex can achieve these purposes as well, it is inconsistent for the Church to condemn it on the grounds that it is not procreative.
     One might object that sterile heterosexual couples do not intentionally turn away from procreation, whereas homosexual couples do. But this distinction doesn’t hold. It is no more possible for Tommy to procreate with a woman whose uterus has been removed than it is for him to procreate with Jim. By having sex with either one, he is intentionally engaging in a nonprocreative sexual act.
     Yet one might press the objection further: Tommy and the woman could produce children if the woman were fertile. Whereas homosexual relationships are essentially infertile, heterosexual relationships are only incidentally so. But what does that prove? Granted, it might require less of a miracle for a woman without a uterus to become pregnant than for Jim to become pregnant, but it would require a miracle nonetheless. Thus it seems that the real difference here is not that one couple is fertile and the other not, or that one couple “could” be fertile (with the help of a miracle) and the other not, but rather that one couple is male-female and the other male-male. In other words, sex between Tommy and Jim is wrong because it’s male-male—that is, because it’s homosexual. But that, of course, is no argument at all.6

5
What is disgusting or offensive is unnatural. It often seems that when people call homosexuality “unnatural” they really just mean that it’s disgusting. But plenty of morally neutral activities—handling snakes, eating snails, performing autopsies, cleaning toilets, and so on—disgust people. Indeed, for centuries most people found interracial relationships disgusting, yet that feeling, which has by no means disappeared, hardly proves that such relationships are wrong. In sum, the charge that homosexuality is unnatural, at least in its most common forms, is longer on rhetorical flourish than on philosophical cogency.

II. Homosexuality Is Harmful
One might argue, instead, that homosexuality is harmful. The Ramsey Colloquium, for instance, argues that homosexuality leads to the breakdown of the family and, ultimately, of human society, and points to the “alarming rates of sexual promiscuity, depression, and suicide and the ominous presence of AIDS within the homosexual subculture.”7 Thomas Schmidt marshals copious statistics to show that homosexual activity undermines physical and psychological health.8 Such charges, if correct, would seem to provide strong evidence against homosexuality. But are the charges correct? And do they prove what they purport to prove?
One obvious (and obviously problematic) way to answer the first question is to ask people like Tommy and Jim. It would appear that no one is in a better position to judge the homosexual “lifestyle” than those who live it. Yet it is unlikely that critics would trust their testimony. Indeed, the more that homosexual people try to explain their lives, the more critics accuse them of deceitfully promoting an agenda. (It’s like trying to prove that you’re not crazy. The more you object, the more people think, “That’s exactly what a crazy person would say.”)
One might instead turn to statistics. An obvious problem with this tack is that both sides of the debate bring forth extensive statistics and “expert” testimony, leaving the average observer confused. There is a more subtle problem as well. Because of widespread antigay sentiment, many homosexual people will not acknowledge their feelings to themselves, much less to researchers.9 I have known a number of gay men who did not “come out” until their 40s and 50s, and no amount of professional competence on the part of interviewers would have been likely to open their closets sooner. Such problems compound the usual difficulties of finding representative population samples for statistical study.
Yet even if the statistical claims of gay-rights opponents were true, would they prove what they purport to prove? I think not, for the following reasons. First, as any good statistician realizes, correlation does not equal cause. Even if homosexual people were more likely to commit suicide, be promiscuous, or contract AIDS than the general population, it would not follow that their homosexuality causes them to do these things. An alternative and very plausible explanation is that these phenomena, like the disproportionately high crime rates among blacks, are at least partly a function of society’s treatment of the group in question. Suppose you were told from a very early age that the romantic feelings that you experienced were sick, unnatural, and disgusting. Suppose further that expressing these feelings put you at risk of social ostracism or, worse yet, physical violence. Is it not plausible that you would, for instance, be more inclined to depression than you would be without such obstacles? And that such depression could, in its extreme forms, lead to suicide or other self-destructive behaviors? (It is indeed remarkable that in the face of such obstacles couples like Tommy and Jim continue to flourish.)
A similar explanation can be given for the alleged promiscuity of homosexuals.10 The denial of legal marriage, the pressure to remain in the closet, and the overt hostility toward homosexual relationships are all more conducive to transient, clandestine encounters than they are to long-term unions. As a result, that which is challenging enough for heterosexual couples—settling down and building a life together—becomes far more challenging for homosexual couples.
Indeed, there is an interesting tension in the critics’ position here. Opponents of homosexuality commonly claim that “marriage and the family … are fragile institutions in need of careful and continuing support.”11 And they point to the increasing prevalence of divorce and premarital sex among heterosexuals as evidence that such support is declining. Yet they refuse to concede that the complete absence of similar support for homosexual relationships might explain many of the alleged problems of homosexuals. The critics can’t have it both ways: If heterosexual marriages are in trouble despite the various social, economic, and legal incentives for keeping them together, society should be little surprised that homosexual relationships—which not only lack such supports but face overt attack—are difficult to maintain.
One might object that if social ostracism were the main cause of homosexual people’s problems, then homosexual people in more “tolerant” cities like New York and San Francisco should exhibit fewer such problems than their small-town counterparts; yet statistics do not seem to bear this out. This objection underestimates the extent of antigay sentiments in our society. By the time many gay and lesbian people move to urban centers, much damage has already been done to their psyches. Moreover, the visibility of homosexuality in urban centers makes homosexual people there more vulnerable to attack (and thus more likely to exhibit certain difficulties). Finally, note that urbanites in general (not just homosexual urbanites) tend to exhibit higher rates of promiscuity, depression, and sexually transmitted disease than the rest of the population.
But what about AIDS? Opponents of homosexuality sometimes claim that even if homosexual sex is not, strictly speaking, immoral, it is still a bad idea, since it puts people at risk for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. But that claim is misleading. Note that it is infinitely more risky for Tommy to have sex with a woman who is HIV-positive than with Jim, who is HIV-negative. The reason is simple: It’s not homosexuality that’s harmful, it’s the virus, and the virus may be carried by both heterosexual and homosexual people.
Now it may be the case that in a given population a homosexual male is statistically more likely to carry the virus than a heterosexual female, and thus, from a purely statistical standpoint, male homosexual sex is more risky than heterosexual sex (in cases where the partner’s HIV status is unknown). But surely opponents of homosexuality need something stronger than this statistical claim. For if it is wrong for men to have sex with men because their doing so puts them at a higher AIDS risk than heterosexual sex, then it is also wrong for women to have sex with men because their doing so puts them at a higher AIDS risk than homosexual sex (lesbians as a group have the lowest incidence of AIDS). Purely from the standpoint of AIDS risk, women ought to prefer lesbian sex.
If this response seems silly, it is because there is obviously more to choosing a romantic or sexual partner than determining AIDS risk. And a major part of the decision, one that opponents of homosexuality consistently overlook, is considering whether one can have a mutually fulfilling relationship with the partner. For many people like Tommy and Jim, such fulfillment, which most heterosexuals recognize to be an important component of human flourishing, is only possible with members of the same sex.
Of course, the foregoing argument hinges on the claim that homosexual sex can only cause harm indirectly. Some would object that there are certain activities (anal sex, for instance) that for anatomical reasons are intrinsically harmful. But an argument against anal intercourse is by no means tantamount to an argument against homosexuality: neither all nor only homosexuals engage in anal sex. There are plenty of other things for both gay men and lesbians to do in bed. Indeed, for women, it appears that the most common forms of homosexual activity may be less risky than penile-vaginal intercourse, since the latter has been linked to cervical cancer.12
In sum, there is nothing inherently risky about sex between persons of the same gender. It is only risky under certain conditions: for instance, if they exchange diseased bodily fluids or if they engage in certain “rough” forms of sex that could cause tearing of delicate tissue. Heterosexual sex is equally risky under such conditions. Thus, even if statistical claims like those of Schmidt and the Ramsey Colloquium were true, they would not prove that homosexuality is immoral. At best they would prove that homosexual people, like everyone else, ought to take great care when deciding to become sexually active.
Of course, there’s more to a flourishing life than avoiding harm. One might argue that even if Tommy and Jim are not harming each other by their relationship, they are still failing to achieve the higher level of fulfillment possible in a heterosexual relationship, which is rooted in the complementarity of male and female. But this argument just ignores the facts. Tommy and Jim are homosexual precisely because they find relationships with men (and in particular, with each other) more fulfilling than relationships with women. Even evangelicals (who have long advocated “faith healing” for homosexuals) are beginning to acknowledge that the choice for most homosexual people is not between homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships, but rather between homosexual relationships and celibacy.13 What the critics need to show, therefore, is that no matter how loving, committed, mutual, generous, and fulfilling the relationship may be, Tommy and Jim would flourish more if they were celibate. This is a formidable (indeed, probably impossible) task.
Thus far I have focused on the allegation that homosexuality harms those who engage in it. But what about the allegation that homosexuality harms other, nonconsenting parties? Here I will briefly consider two claims: that homosexuality threatens children and that it threatens society.
Those who argue that homosexuality threatens children may mean one of two things. First, they may mean that homosexual people are child molesters. Statistically, the vast majority of reported cases of child sexual abuse involve young girls and their fathers, stepfathers, or other familiar (and presumably heterosexual) adult males.14 But opponents of homosexuality argue that when one adjusts for relative percentages in the population, homosexual males appear more likely than heterosexual males to be child molesters. As I argued above, the problems with obtaining reliable statistics on homosexuality render such calculations difficult. Fortunately, they are also unnecessary.
Child abuse is a terrible thing. But when a heterosexual male molests a child (or rapes a woman, or commits assault), the act does not reflect upon all heterosexuals. Similarly, when a homosexual male molests a child, there is no reason why that act should reflect upon all homosexuals. Sex with adults of the same sex is one thing; sex with children of the same sex is quite another. Conflating the two not only slanders innocent people, it also misdirects resources intended to protect children. Furthermore, many men convicted of molesting young boys are sexually attracted to adult women and report no attraction to adult men.15 To call such men “homosexual” or even “bisexual” is probably to stretch such terms too far.16
Alternatively, those who charge that homosexuality threatens children might mean that the increasing visibility of homosexual relationships makes children more likely to become homosexual. The argument for this view is patently circular. One cannot prove that doing X is bad by arguing that it causes people to do X, which is bad. One must first establish independently that X is bad. That said, there is not a shred of evidence to demonstrate that exposure to homosexuality leads children to become homosexual.
But doesn’t homosexuality threaten society? A Roman Catholic priest once put the argument to me as follows: “Of course homosexuality is bad for society. If everyone were homosexual, there would be no society.”
Perhaps it is true that if everyone were homosexual, there would be no society. But if everyone were a celibate priest, society would collapse just as surely, and my priest-friend didn’t seem to think that he was doing anything wrong simply by failing to procreate. Jeremy Bentham made the point somewhat more acerbically roughly two hundred years ago: “If then merely out of regard to population it were right that [homosexuals] should be burnt alive, monks ought to be roasted alive by a slow fire.”17
From the fact that the continuation of society requires procreation, it does not follow that everyone must procreate. Moreover, even if such an obligation existed, it would not preclude homosexuality. At best it would preclude exclusive homosexuality: Homosexual people who occasionally have heterosexual sex can procreate just fine. And given artificial insemination, even those who are exclusively homosexual can procreate. In short, the priest’s claim—if everyone were homosexual, there would be no society—is false, and even if it were true, it would not establish that homosexuality is immoral.

Honosexuality is a sin we condemn it in totality even the Holy books forbids homosexuality...Civilization seems to take the best part of us and render us conscienceless �

The Ramsey Colloquium commits a similar fallacy.18 Noting (correctly) that heterosexual marriage promotes the continuation of human life, they then infer that homosexuality is immoral because it fails to accomplish the same.19 But from the fact that procreation is good it does not follow that childlessness is bad, a point that the members of the Colloquium, several of whom are Roman Catholic priests, should readily concede.
I have argued that Tommy and Jim’s sexual relationship harms neither them nor society. On the contrary, it benefits both. It benefits them because it makes them happier, not merely in a short-term, hedonistic sense, but in a long-term, “big picture” sort of way. And in turn it benefits society, since it makes Tommy and Jim more stable, more productive, and more generous than they would otherwise be. In short, their relationship, including its sexual component, provides the same kinds of benefits that infertile, heterosexual relationships provide (and perhaps other benefits as well). Nor should we fear that accepting their relationship and others like it will cause people to flee in droves from the institution of heterosexual marriage. After all, as Thomas Williams points out, the usual response to a gay person is not “How come he gets to be gay and I don’t?”20

Conclusion
As a last resort, opponents of homosexuality typically change the subject: “But what about incest, polygamy, and bestiality? If we accept Tommy and Jim’s sexual relationship, why shouldn’t we accept those as well?” Opponents of interracial marriage used a similar slippery-slope argument thirty years ago when the Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws.21 It was a bad argument then and it is a bad argument now.
Just because there are no good reasons to oppose interracial or homosexual relationships, it does not follow that there are no good reasons to oppose incestuous, polygamous, or bestial relationships. One might argue, for instance, that incestuous relationships threaten delicate familial bonds, that polygamous relationships result in unhealthy jealousies (and sexism), or that bestial relationships (do I need to say it?) aren’t really “relationships” at all, at least not in the sense we’ve been discussing. Perhaps even better arguments could be offered (given much more space than I have here). The point is that there is no logical connection between homosexuality, on the one hand, and incest, polygamy, and bestiality, on the other.
Why, then, do critics continue to push this objection? Perhaps it’s because accepting homosexuality requires them to give up one of their favorite arguments: “It’s wrong because we’ve always been taught that it’s wrong.” This argument—call it the argument from tradition—has an obvious appeal: People reasonably favor “tried and true” ideas over unfamiliar ones, and they recognize the foolishness of trying to invent morality from scratch. But the argument from tradition is also a dangerous argument, as any honest look at history will reveal.
To recognize Tommy and Jim’s relationship as good is to admit that our moral traditions are imperfect. Condemning people out of habit is easy. Overcoming deep-seated prejudice takes courage.22

Notes

1
Although my central example in the paper is a gay male couple, much of what I say will apply mutatis mutandis to lesbians as well, since many of the same arguments are used against them. This is not to say that gay male sexuality and lesbian sexuality are largely similar or that discussions of the former will cover all that needs to be said about the latter. Furthermore, the fact that I focus on a long-term couple should not be taken to imply any judgment about homosexual activity outside of such unions. If the argument of this paper is successful, then the evaluation of homosexual activity outside of committed unions should be largely (if not entirely) similar to the evaluation of heterosexual activity outside of committed unions.

You won't be given birth to if your parents were homosexual or lesbians. Bunch of greedy fellows

juvewalex:
You won't be given birth to if your parents were homosexual or lesbians. Bunch of greedy fellows

the idea that every man exists solely for procreation is stupid. Do you know what the world population is today? The world is experiencing a vwy high case of overpopulation that has never been seen before and you fools keep propagating the idea that we should keep breeding like pigs.

Moreover, if it were the case of parents giving birth, then what happen to adoptions and IVF? Help those already alive instead of bringing more into the world