Homosexuality And Its Enemies

NIGERIA - Recently, the Federal Government banned homosexuality and lesbianism in Nigeria. Specifically, it outlawed same sex marriage, and stipulated a prison term of five years for offenders. Expectedly, pastors, imams and other hypocrites who see themselves as policemen and policewomen of morality in Nigeria have uncritically applauded the government’s pronouncement without sparing some thought on the complex issues involved in the matter at hand. Instead of an informed reasoned analysis of the biological, psychological, social and cultural dimensions of same-sex romantic relationships, the clergy merely indulge in lazy references to ancient superstitious beliefs contained in various religious texts. Again, they insist that the practice is unnatural, and conflicts with African culture.
Before I discuss the arguments of those who support the government on the matter, it is useful to examine, albeit briefly, the scientific aspects of homosexuality and lesbianism first, so that one can have concrete understanding of the psychobiological factors relevant to the problem. Every embryologist knows that at the initial stages of the development of a human embryo, the one that will eventually become a female can hardly be differentiated from the one that will develop into a male child. Consequently, at the embryonic level, human beings, irrespective of gender, are remarkably alike. It is after millions of cell divisions that the cells of the foetus differentiate and specialize. Of course, the XY chromosome leads to the production of a male while XX chromosome means that a female child is on the way. It is, thus the sex cells that make the critical difference in determining the sex of the child at the early stages of fetal development.
Process of evolution
As the fertilized egg undergoes cell division and as the cells specialize into the various organs, tissues and orgnelles of the human person, mutations, errors and mistranscriptions of the information contained in the genetic code can occur, and do occur, in the process. Evolution took billions of years to fashion the first human beings, but in spite of that very long period of time, the process of evolution, though efficient in generating species that ensure the survival of their own gene pool in future generations, is far from perfect.
This implies that an embryo with an XX chromosome may eventually develop into a female child with strong masculine characteristics owing, perhaps, to glandular defects leading to an abnormally high concentration of the male hormone called testosterone. It can also happen that an XY chromosome leads to the birth of a male child which has a concentration of the female hormone oestrogen beyond the critical level for male human beings. In the first scenario, the female child grows into an adult and manifests masculine characteristics which are uncharacteristic for female human beings, especially in their sexual preferences; in the second, the male child exhibits strong effeminate sexual preferences as an adult.
Scientific studies of the sex factor in humans indicate that at the early stages of embryogenesis, the sex chromosomes through the gonads, influence the early development of the sex organs, and determine which of the sex organs will be produced. But the combination of chromosomal and hormonal factors in sex determination can go awry: at times the chromosomes or the hormones become unbalanced and various degrees of sex intergrades result. All these point to one conclusion: that homosexuality and lesbianism could be the result of biochemical imbalance in the individual, and may have nothing to do with habits or culture.
Taking the biological factor as a foundation, it is not difficult to infer the psychological corollaries. If a man presents definite sexual desire for another man, it is very likely that the person is suffering from the multiplier effects of hormonal imbalance. The same goes for a lesbian. It is also possible that the home environment in which a child is brought up may reinforce either homosexual or lesbianic tendency in a child, especially in boderline cases where the biological substrate either way is not that strong. I conjecture that an “effeminate environment” for a male child in which masculine tendencies are not very pronounced would encourage such a child to tend towards feminine characteristics whilst a particularly “masculine family ambience” tends to encourage young female children to behave in a more or less masculine manner. Therefore, the strength of the psychological factor in specific cases or instances of homosexuality and lesbianism is a function of the biological factor in each case. The more the hormonal cum chromosomal imbalance, the stronger the psychological tendency towards being a homosexual or a lesbian, as the case may be.
Those who criticize marriages by lesbians and homosexuals do so mainly from religious grounds. They argue that marriage is a sacred institution founded by god and intended by him to bring a man and a women together for a life-long partnership. However, facts emerging from anthropology and other relevant disciplines strongly suggest that marriage is a human institution created by human beings to meet certain basic needs, including procreation and companionship.
The type of marriage adopted in different cultures of the world at any given point in time is determined by the complex interaction of economic, social, environmental, religious and idiosyncratic variables, interactions that have both intended and unintended consequences for the human beings involved. The kinds of marriages that have been invented and practised by human beings are legion, and negate the idea of divine origin of marriage. I do not see any good reason to believe that a supernatural being founded marriage. The institution is well within the inventive productive powers of humankind, and must have evolved in tandem with other socio-cultural traditions and institutions that make human society possible. Criticizing homosexuality etc as contrary to God’s intentions for human beings is tendentious because there is no objective reliable scientific method of establishing what exactly God is, let alone discerning with exactitude what he intended marriage to be. The easy resort to divine regulations concerning issues that can be investigated scientifically is a sign of intellectual constipation which seeks ready-made answers to the difficult problems of human existence.
Sometimes, it is held that homosexuality and lesbianism are “unnatural”; here an appeal is made to the idea that sex is intended by nature for procreation, although other biological functions such as the release of sexual tension (Freud) have also been cited as the “natural” ends which “normal” heterosexual relations, but not homosexual ones, serve. Anyone acquainted with philosophical discussions of the concept of “nature” and cognate notions must be aware of the large difficulties confronting any claims about discovering the “natural” or “normal” functions or relations proper to human beings. Obviously, unless blinded by theological and religious scales, human nature is extremely variable, according to idiosyncratic, economic, socio-cultural and educational circumstances. In general, when someone says that a particular action or behaviour is contrary to nature, what he means is that either his religion condemns it, or that he finds it distasteful or that he is not used to seeing people act or behave that way.
Those who condemn homosexuality forget that a large proportion of the behaviour they accept as natural were at one time or another deemed unnatural. For instance, in remote antiquity, covering one’s body, lighting a fire, planting of seeds etc. must have seemed “unnatural” to these who were not used to such activities. The study of anthropology reveals the dynamic processes by which particular behavioural patterns emerge and, over time, come to be seen as natural. St. Thomas Aquinas thought that sex not intended for procreation is unnatural, which means that even married people who copulate for pleasure and companionship are acting unnaturally! No well-informed person at this time can seriously defend Aquinas’ position.
Marquis de Sade had argued vigorously that any possible human sensuous activity can be reasonably defended as being “natural”. As an illustration, de Sade argued against the “natural design” arguments for genital heterosexual intercourse by stating that the relative sizes of the various apertures and protrusion’s of the human body could only have been so fittingly designed in order to be employed accordingly; which means that the so-called design of the human body allows for the possibility of experimentation in sex. Robert Solomon summarized de Sade’s point well by arguing that any act humanly possible is as natural, or as unnatural, as any other.
from Vanguard

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