It's a Natural Attraction (Mother Nature Wouldn't Make a Mistake)

Directed Freewrite p. 340

For many years now, scientists have been in constant argument with religious organizations over how the world came to be. Many who attend church believe that God created the earth, as stated in the first two chapters of Genesis in the Holy Bible. Others believe in the big bang theory; there was a “bang” and BOOM, here we are. Yet others claim we evolved from primates. Whichever theory you choose to accept, most people will agree that humans and animals share similar traits, specifically in terms of sex, coupling, and mating. Could there be a correlation between how animals are attracted to members of the same sex and why men and women become homosexual? To observe this connection, “we must gaze back into our evolutionary past—a past that has grooved and scored our minds as much as our bodies, our strategies for mating as much as our strategies for survival” (Buss 263).

In the animal kingdom, more than 1 million varying classes of species exist (Kluger 338). Of that 1 million, Bruce Bagemihl, a linguist and cognitive scientist, “found same-sex pairings documented in more than 450 different species” (Kluger 338). If you compare 450 to 1 million, it may seem like a useless ratio to support homosexuality in animals, but “as few as 2,000 species” have actually been viewed closely enough to scrutinize their mating patterns (Kluger 338). In relation, while some men and woman are actively public about their sexual orientation, many prefer to remain “inside in the closet,” keeping their private lives secret from co-workers, family, and friends. In this sense, only a small portion of animals and humans allow outside spectators to see them for who they truly are.

Those opposing all forms of homosexuality might argue that for animals, “sex serves many nonsexual purposes, including establishing alliances and appeasing enemies,” attempting to dispute the parallel that we have previously established (Kluger 339). This could be attributed to the notion that humans are living, breathing, and thinkingmachines with a wide range of emotions. Animals, while intelligent, lack the sophisticated degree of thought possessed by humans. If an animal has an instinct to do something, it acts upon it. The same statement could be applied to humans, the difference being that the instinct could come from a psychological aspect as well as a gut feeling or a number of other reasons that are unable to be explained even by scientists. Furthermore, Bagemihl argues that “if homosexuality comes naturally to other creatures, perhaps it’s time to quit getting into such a lather over the fact that it comes naturally to humans too” (Kluger 338).