It's only natural.

Working where I do it’s unfathomable to me that people still think homosexuality is a choice. Psychology and science has ruled out its being a choice, or a mental disease, or something you can change. http://www.apa.org/topics/orientation

But you know as well as I do that research, logic, observation, understanding, and love have nothing on a few sentences written in the Bible, written during the time when a person could be killed for wearing two different fabrics and slavery was encouraged. And we all know God picked up a pen and wrote the Bible, right? In English of course. Absolutely.

Check out the following Web site regarding Leviticus 18:22, the “abomination” verse: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibh.htm
It’s an unbiased analysis offering the viewpoints from the left, right, and middle. Points of note for me:

The word “homosexuality” did not exist in Hebrew, so if your Bible uses this word you should be “wary that the translators might be inserting their own prejudices into the text.”

It says nothing about lesbians; it mentions only men lying together. So, technically, the ladies are off the hook.

It is just as valid to interpret the verse as saying that men aren’t allowed to lie together in a woman’s bed, because it is a sacred place, but it is perfectly fine to sleep together elsewhere.

(For a not-so-unbiased opinion of following all of the Old Testament rules, go to http://www.stallman.org/dr-laura.html.)

To save myself time and frustration, and an eighty-two-page dissertation (and you having to read it because you think everything I have to say is so important), I’m simply going to say, that regarding the New Testament, Jesus didn’t say anything (read: didn’t give a crap) about homosexuality, and Paul was more concerned with increasing the number of Christians in the world (read: breeding) because he believed the world was going to end at any time. Homosexuality doesn’t cause reproduction, and so it didn’t help the Christian cause (survival) at the time. It’s understandable then why Paul would suggest heterosexuality as the way to go. The situation is slightly different now. There was this one guy one time who recognized that the situation was slightly different, then he changed stuff. What was his name? Jerry? Mesus? It’s coming to me....Oh yeah, JESUS.

Anyway, back to my not-a-choice rant. Now for the argument we’ve all heard: It’s just not natural. I asked my friends Noah Webster and George and Charles Merriam for some help with this. The boys told me that a definition of natural is “being in accordance with or determined by nature.” It is true that most human beings are heterosexual identified, the recent estimation being around 90 percent of us. That leaves 10 percent of humankind identifying as homosexual. But we’re humans capable of making choices, so the 10 percent are just deviants choosing to go against God’s will. Right? I mean, look at animals, the epitome of natural. They act on their God-given instincts alone, and they are all heterosexual.

Or not. The Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, begs to differ. They are currently showing an exhibit titled “Against Nature?” offering information on homosexuality in more than 1,500 species of animals, some of whom mate for life. It’s running through August 2007, so you have plenty of time to make it to Oslo. But if you can’t, you can visit the museum’s Web site here:
http://www.nhm.uio.no/againstnature/index.html

Enjoy.