Read a take here.  Blair compares the Catholic Church to political parties, which is a bit crass, even if it’s probably sociologically accurate. The difference, of course, is that parties, even if they do care about principles, have a bit more at stake in terms of keeping power, while at least the argument about institutional religion is that it cares about truth first, then power.  Now clearly that’s often not true, but it’s at least the hope in a way that such hope can’t exist in politics.  

Anyways, his point on homosexuals is pretty solid.  Thanks to some great comments on a lot of the previous postings about homosexuality, particularly those that call to question whether the ban on gay acts is “natural”.  I think there’s a ton of compelling evidence to question the existence of a “natural” at all barring some pretty mundane things–I think that humans are naturally selfish, afraid of heights, desirous of community in some form, averse to pain, able to recognize patterns and causation, and a few other things.  But there’s a big jump from those to a natural way to have sex, which anthropology makes pretty clear simply does not exist.  If we want to say this is how the West, or even the Catholic Church, has traditionally done something, that’s one thing, but to argue that it’s natural seems a bit off.

Mark said a few more things worth commenting on:

1. Males and females not fitting together is I suppose true from one point of view, except for the women and  men in gay relationships who think they fit just fine, thank you.  Hands don’t fit together either.  Neither do kissing lips.  So hand-holding and kissing: none of that is natural or achieves a purpose.  Yet it’s still okay, right?  Because it’s unitive.  In terms of what humans were “designed” to do, you either have to take in on authority that certain parochial Western practices are what they were designed to do or ignore the vast amount of other practices that seem obvious and normal to other cultures.

2. The woman accepting the sperm of the man is what sex is about?  What about kissing?  What about long, close hugs?  And this doesn’t even get into the many and sundry forms of sodomy that the vast amount of heterosexuals do.  And then, of course, there are the infertile couples, or those on NFP who know they won’t get pregnant on a certain day and that’s why they have sex that day.  Of course, these are all just exceptions to the rule.  I challenge the rule too: except on an argument by authority, why is sex designed for procreation first?  I don’t believe there’s a good reason.

4. Lastly, there is no good sociological evidence that gay couples raise worse kids or raise kids in an inferior way (unless you count thinking gay relationships are okay is inferior, which is fair enough, but then you’d have to ban liberals from having kids too).  I know the field pretty well, and while I’m open to being corrected, I’d be quite surprised.