My post on Hatrack

Here's something I posted on Hatrack. It's on a thread dealing with Orson Scott Card's latest commentary. Here's the commentary: http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html

We all must remember that OSC comes from the LDS church which has about the strongest "family values" in the country. I, however, agree with most of his points(except that I think homosexual couples should get some financial compensation).

Note: I haven't read any of the previous posts. I hope my ideas are semi-original

Somehow I think this phenomenon of high rates of homosexuality is a natural occurence due to the high population of humans in the world. When there are few people, as earlier in history was the case, everyone was a generalized contributor to society. You provided almost everything for your family, and had responsibility for the success of the future of your community as the very purpose of your life.

As the population increaes, more food is produced than is consumed per capita. This leads to specialization of jobs. Families don't need to provide everything for themselves. Thus, women shirk their naturally occuring roles as keepers of a stable place we call home and as bearers of children. At least, this can be put off for a longer period of time. Because of this, males have less available females who need a mate and a protector. So the male is left to his own devices as well.

People are so specialized in their jobs today that people don't have to have responsibility except to their own job, if they so choose. Their parents will be put in nursing homes. Their children are put in day care/school so the parents can work. The grocery stores will have all the food they need and more. The hospitals will be there in case anything is wrong with a body. There is a service available for every conceivable need, and this is all because we produce more food than we need for ourselves. Since survival is not the core issue of life anymore, people take for granted that all those people responsible for providing these convenient services will always be there. Everything is now about gaining material wealth or the advancement of human knowledge from here on out.

Since there are so many people and nearly everyone is well cared for, we have no reason to worry about the survival of the human race. Thus, if there is any person who feels homosexual urges, he/she will be more likely to act on these urges. The survival motivation is simply not there in any way. It has been shown that even lower animals such as rats will have an increased tendency towards homosexuality as population density increases. While human sociology is more complicated, it seems these are correlative phenomena. When there is no need to propagate the species, activities which do not promote it are more likely to be followed. So yes, acting on homosexual urges would seem to be a choice, to a large extent. I think it is only genetic to the extent that we can recognize the attractiveness of another of the same sex. This is of course necessary for survival in order to know who our mating rivals are. But in our current situation, maybe people are more likely to act on this recognition in a non-competitive way, as is most often the case.

Anyway, that's enough from me. Have fun!