LBGT

There are many layers to my feelings regarding how humanity does and should address this complex issue.

First, I actually agree with Governor Bobby Jindal when he says that A&E is violating the first amendment rights of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson by suspending him for making a public statement of what he believes. I don't think Mr. Robertson's opinions were correct, or even well thought-out, but he must be guaranteed the right to have them. In a free society, everyone has to have the right to be wrong.

So here is what I believe. Some things I say will anger some readers, but will hopefully provoke thought and discussion. That is the main reason for this blog, after all.

Homosexuality is first of all a sort of mutation biologically. Our species is part of the larger animal kingdom, and heterosexuality has survived the crucible of evolution because it produces offspring. From the point of view of our biology, homosexuality cannot produce children. We refer to the mechanism by which mates are chosen in the animal kingdom as 'survival of the fittest'. Note that survival of the fittest does not actually refer to whether an individual survives, but which individual demonstrates to fitness to procreate.

As the human society, however, we are no longer subject to the traditional limiters that drive natural selection in the animal kingdom. The intelligence we have developed over the millenia have allowed us to completely re-write our survival mechanisms. Probably the best example of this is Stephan Hawking, a remarkably intelligent individual whose physical disability is so severe that he would never have survived to astound us with his ideas were it not for the modern technology that keeps him alive and allows him to communicate. Our abilities in the sciences also permit homosexual couples to procreate. Surrogate parenting, artificial insemination, and adoption are all methods available to all couples, regardless of gender mix. Accordingly, heterosexuality is no longer required for the human species to survive.

Currently, of course, the human species is now wrestling with the different future worlds such a truth may create. Over a relatively short amount of evolutionary time spanning perhaps only a few hundreds of thousand of years, we have changed from animals operating as a pack, scratching out an existence on a very hostile planet, to a society that runs the planet and is structured around individual family units. There are those who believe this current state of affairs is somehow ordained by the Almighty, but then the Almighty is as recent an invention as our hetero-based families. Future generations will become more tolerant, hopefully, as more children grow up to know that love can operate in all gender modes, just as the past couple of generations have discovered that love is not limited by skin color.

Still, I am an old man and the product of a fairly conventional education, so I am constantly having to do my own mental wrestling. For example, I do not really like the use of the word 'gay'. I have always sort of agreed with historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. when he objected to this synonym for homosexual by saying, "Gay used to be one of the most agreeable words in the language. Its appropriation by a notably morose group is an act of piracy."—"The State of the Language 1977," Time, January 2, 1978, p. 36. I do believe that labels are hurtful and divisive anyway. Don't tell me you're gay, lesbian, homosexual or anything of the sort. Just introduce me to your partner, if we're in that sort of social setting, and leave it to me to make my own peace with your relationship. If I can actually learn to be well adjusted, I'll judge you on whether you're good people and on no other basis. You, on the other hand, need to not notice if I take a beat to answer the introduction. My old brain sometimes takes a minute to catch up.

Personally, I have not thought of myself as anything other than hetero. I had several friends when I lived in California who were homo, and never felt any attraction to any of them, so I've never given any real thought to such a relationship, plus I had a long and very loving relationship with Cynthia. On the other hand, I was startled the other night when someone asked me if I was Bi, and I actually took a second before I answered 'no'. Thinking about this later, I expect that I had hit on a distinction between love and sex. So although I said I'm hetero, that was in connection to relationships. Personally, when it comes to just sex I think I'd apply my main dictum, that I will try anything once.

But I'm getting off the topic. And the main point of the topic is this: do not label and do not judge. It's just as wrong for GLAAD to label Robertson as bigoted as it was for him to label homosexuals as sinful.

Another layer to this puzzle is the concept of same-sex marriage. I do not think that government should be allowed to either permit or deny same-sex marriages. Amendment 1 to the U.S. Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." When arguing this concept, most people conveniently forget that marriage, as such, is a sacrament of the various churches. Only people who have been married in a church are actually 'married'. I feel the First Amendment actually prohibits our government from giving civil officials the right to perform marriages. On the other hand, whether you call them marriages or civil unions, there should be no gender distinction in the laws of estate, health care, or any other legal right or responsibility.