Latest update April 28th, 2026 12:30 AM
Diversity, choices and the principle of equality
DEAR EDITOR,
Recently, I’ve been reading a few letters in the newspapers targeting the LGBT community. Many of these letters were written by religious leaders who argue that LGBT people should either ‘live on an island’ or be intolerable to society entirely.
For simplicity’s sake, I will classify these persons as the ‘anti-LGBT’ movement. In their letters, the ‘anti-LGBT movement’ wants to convince the public that pro-LGBT rights advocates don’t have an argument to support their case. However, to the contrary, I find the ‘anti-LGBT’ movement does not have any sound reasoning to support their ‘cause’. A close examination of their arguments will show that the ‘anti-LGBT’ movement is flawed in many ways. On this occasion, I will respond to the notion of ‘natural law’.
A common argument we’re given by this movement is that it is not natural for two same-sex individuals to engage in sexual activities, for such acts violate the ‘law of nature’ or the ‘natural order’ of things. According to this line of reasoning, since heterosexual relationships are commonly seen among humans, and humans are part of nature, it is ‘natural’ for relationships to be heterosexual.
This argument fails for a number of reasons. First, the premise that homosexuality isn’t natural since heterosexuality seems to be prevalent among humans is a mistaken one. It ignores sexual difference within the human species, primarily the expression of minority traits. It would be akin to saying that being left handed isn’t natural because most humans are right handed (and we stopped penalizing people for being left handed years ago!).
Just because something isn’t the norm doesn’t make it “unnatural”. Another case the ‘anti-LGBT’ movement argues on the premise of ‘natural law’ is the marriage between two individuals of the same sex. Marriage, regardless of sexual orientation, is not part of “natural law” because it is a socially constructed institution practiced only by our species for social and legal reasons. Homosexuality is natural because humans are part of nature and some of us are homosexual (and, furthermore, some other species in nature exhibit homosexuality).
Secondly, the assumption that ‘natural’ is always ‘good’ or ‘right’ is a logical fallacy. Poison Ivy is ‘natural’ but harmful to us. Vaccines do not occur in nature yet we use techniques ‘unnaturally’ that helps save countless lives.
Nature is diverse and varied. Prejudice is a learned, socialized behaviour. Homosexuality is not unique within our species, and as such cannot be a matter of choice. On the contrary, the practice of homophobia does not naturally occur in nature, but it is a choice. The ‘anti-LGBT’ movement needs to realize this distinction in order to truly progress the principle of equality.
Ferlin Pedro
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