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crimes against nature

2006-11-01 15:37:01.802105+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

Several articles about an exhibit in the Oslo Natural History Museum about homosexuality in animals have shown up in the news of late (here's another), but this one has a really great last paragraph:

A Lutheran priest said he hoped the organisers would "burn in hell," and a Pentecostal priest lashed out at the exhibition, saying taxpayers' money used for it would have been better spent helping the animals correct "their perversions and deviances".

acelightning also copied the article to an LJ entry while linking to it.

[ related topics: Humor Sexual Culture moron Current Events ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2006-11-01 16:50:25.628486+00 by: Nancy

The article starts out referencing gay and lesbian behaviour but I was disappointed that it only addressed gays (males) when suggesting theories of why homosexuality perseveres tho it is a 'genetic deadend.' Unless the 'more fertile' sisters and mothers of gays are producing lesbian offspring?

If 'abnormal' defines 'perversion' and a certain behaviour is notably present (to some as-yet-to-be-defined degree) in the general kingdom of animals, does that mean it's not a perversion amongst humans? Are there other widespread behaviours (besides sex) that you could use in comparing animals on whole to humans? I find it a very strong human tendancy to define ourselves as being apart from / superior to the general animal kingdom...which is most likely the root of so many problems.

I doubt anyone was surprised by religion's age old response to scientific inquiry - "burn in hell" -sigh-

#Comment Re: made: 2006-11-01 17:05:13.407136+00 by: Dan Lyke

Nancy, I think the difficulty in finding instances of animals exhibiting lesbian behavior is that most species have trouble driving Subaru Outbacks, and LL Bean flannel shirts just don't fit them that well.

I think the problem with finding other behaviors that are "perversions" is that perversion is about the cultural norms that we build up, and sex is the one around which we have most of the wacky rituals. We can point, perhaps, to mechanisms of hunting or whatever, but those rules generally get built by necessity.