Putting those parental instincts to good use

I just finished the book The Wild Man by Patricia Nell Warren. I borrowed it from the library in the Affirmations center in Ferndale. I chose it because I had enjoyed her other books The Front Runner, Harlan's Race, and Billy's Boy, which are seen as the top novels in gay fiction. Yes, this is a lesbian writing about men loving men.

Wild Man is about a gay bull fighter and his lover in Spain in 1969. Thankfully the only fight described in detail is one in France where killing the bull is not permitted. The tension that drives the plot is that Spain was still under Franco and the regime was Old Catholic fascist. Of course, that meant they did not tolerate gays (quite the contrast of today's Spain, an early adopter of gay marriage). The matador's brother is trying to be a rising star in the regime.

One enjoyable aspect of the story is that the matador and his lover are trying to restore a game preserve that had become over-hunted. They become conservationists. After the novel the author included a few notes, such as how she came to be living in Spain in the late 1960s. She proposes the idea that while gay couples (where they are allowed to be couples) don't reproduce, they do have an evolutionary purpose. Their parental instincts can be turned to the environment as a whole, nurturing plants and animals, making life better for everyone.

A benefit to procreation

My friend and debate partner asked me to share my thoughts on this article from the New York Times. It is a look into the research on homosexuality in animals. I've encountered most of the basic ideas before, but even with the length I read it all. There are a couple new ideas which I'll share.

Much of the article is about Laysan albatrosses in Hawaii. The researcher, Lindsay Young, noted many nests under the care of two females instead of a male and female pair. Young is very careful in describing what she found to make sure she isn't imposing the human perspective on what the birds are doing. It's a wise move, but the article shows how difficult it is to pull off.

One reason why homosexual behavior in animals was dismissed for so long is because it is so difficult to reconcile such behavior with what we know of evolution. That same difficulty has been noted with human homosexuality and debated extensively. Another researcher, Paul Vasey, says the answer for a particular species does not necessarily translate to any other species. Each one may have developed its own evolutionary reason for same-sex pairing.

The difficulties of gays and evolution got me thinking about the Fundie insistence that marriage is only for procreation. When considering behavior through the lens of evolution the major question is how does a certain behavior benefit procreation. And Fundies don't believe in evolution?

The purpose of gays

Why do gays exist? What function do they serve? Since they much less likely to produce offspring evolution suggests they shouldn't exist. How might gays be an evolutionary advantage?

Research done in Western societies haven't come up with an answer. A team of researchers decided that the normal roles of gays has been corrupted by homophobia and Western societies can't provide the answer. They are counter-evolutionary. So the team went to Samoa, a culture little influenced by Western morality and more like our ancestral past. There they found gays to be well accepted in society (though they usually had sex with straight men rather than with each other -- perhaps reinforcing the idea that most men are not exclusively straight?). The role of these gay men was usually to put significant effort into raising nieces and nephews including "babysit­ting, buy­ing toys, tu­tor­ing, ex­pos­ing the chil­dren to art and mu­sic, and con­tri­but­ing to daycare, med­i­cal and educa­t­ion ex­penses." Kids with gay uncles had better care and a higher chance of reaching adulthood (or at least less frazzled parents). These kids also have a genetic tendency to produce gay offspring.

All that means is homophobia is the problem, not homosexuality. It is homophobia that destroys family values. The research has been published in a respected scientific journal -- and roundly ignored. It should be a factor in the laws we make about gay people.