Homosexuality - should I even go there?

I've been thinking a lot about this post (which explains its length), first because it deals with issues that I genuinely believe are best left to ethics experts and second because I better know what the heck I am saying if I am going to go on the record about a thing as controversial as homosexuality.

1. Homosexuality is a pre-condition?
As far as the nature versus nurture debate goes, and whether homosexuality is a choice, I strongly believe that homosexuals are born the way they are. This is a mountain of statistical evidence linking pre-natal factors to homosexuality, and its occurrence is almost universal in the animal kingdom amongst sexually reproducing species. In fact, there are over 1,500 species of animals that engage in varying degrees of bisexual and homosexual behavior, from the matriarchal, lesbian bonobos to the homosexual "gangs" of male bottlenose dolphins, to the parthenogenic lizards, to the male-only dragonfly orgies. Throughout the animal kingdom, instances of homosexuality are so widespread that finding a species that sexually reproduces but has no homosexuality amongst its population is an anomaly.

I don't want to digress too much into theories here, but there is a widespread theory that overpopulation in animals leads to an uptick in homosexuality. Although even in tiny populations of animals, like in the Bonobos of the Congo, homosexuality exists and is widespread, for many animals (especially insects), homosexuality surges as the population reaches and passes a critical value that the environment can sustain. Let me put it this way: locust swarms are full of gays. Could it be that the surge in homosexuals in the world in the last 25 years is due to the human population reaching a planetary critical value and some evolutionary population control mechanism is kicking in? However easy it would be to say "yes, that explains everything," I do not agree. Human homosexuality occurs in small populations as much as in large ones, and there really isn't much evidence that says that more people are homosexual today than there were in the 70's. Most statistical evidence shows that the only difference is that less homosexuals are in the closet about their sexual bias.

But let me stick to humans for this discussion. A wide-spread study (I apologize for the lack of citations) showed that for mothers who had consecutive sons, each consecutive son had a higher likelihood of being homosexual than his older brothers. What changed? It's not like the mother and father had gradually gayer sperm and eggs. Recent science has pointed the finger for many genetic traits to the conditions inside the womb between fertilization and birth. Could it be that an evolutionary mechanism exists that encourages male fetuses to become homosexual? Could it also be that the mechanism becomes stronger with each consecutive son? An interesting note of the study was that for sons that were born after a girl, the prevalence of homosexuality plunged to almost nil. It would be, once again, easy to say "oh, its the mother's womb" that is causing homosexuality, and shut the case, but I again do not completely agree. The study in no way explains lesbianism, nor does it truly explain why some first-born, only-child sons are gay. Though a male's likelihood of being homosexual may rise based on the number of older brothers he has, he may very well not be homosexual. Just like smoking cigarettes increases your likelihood of getting lung cancer, but smoking one cigarette doesn't instantly give you cancer, in fact some regular smokers never get lung cancer, and some people with lung cancer never smoked.

2. Homosexuality cannot be cured?
Though many individuals like Michael Savage rail against homosexuals, bisexuals, etc. there is no real evidence that it is a "growing" problem. Maybe for those homophobes it is a growing problem, but most evidence shows that homosexual acts and homosexual individuals have been around a long, long, long time. Scientists have induced homosexuality in fruit-flies but not induced heterosexuality; until a time comes when genetic engineering of humans becomes commonplace, I doubt we'll even see an argument for "curing" homosexuality. And the idea of "curing" homosexuality usually stems from the belief that heterosexuality is the "norm" but ignores that homosexuality is prevalent in most sexually reproducing species on this earth. A gay population of around 10-15% of the total population is relatively normal. Current statistics estimate anywhere from 7-12% of humans on the planet right now have engaged in a homosexual act, though a lower number than that are exclusively homosexual. So we're probably close to ideal for our species. Trying to "cure" homosexuality is like trying to cure us of the laborious task of eating, or trying to change our genes so we no longer have to go to the bathroom. When it is the natural order of the planet, why mess with it? Stop calling it unnatural. It's only unnatural if everyone (or no one) is homosexual.

3. Homosexuality should not be embraced, nor banned; merely accepted?
Banning homosexuality is like banning writing with your left hand. Although the majority of the population is right-hand dominant, and although lefties could eventually learn to write with their right hand, they are most effective at writing with their left, and it makes no sense to fight that. As easily as one argues that a genetic "flaw" causes homosexuality, I could equally argue that some unknown genetic "flaw" induces left-hand dominance. As easily as someone could argue that lax regulation and lax legislation have allowed the intrusion of homosexuality in society, and that gay celebrites are "making it okay" for the rest of us to be gay, I could argue the same for left-hand dominance. I could point to famous authors that were left-handed, and show "left-hand tolerance has destroyed the right-hand tradition" posters with Leonardo da Vinci writing backwards, a true sicko!
Conversely, homosexuality is not something we need to celebrate. Gay-pride parades are, in my opinion, surely just a reaction to the gay-hatred of society. Homosexuality is just what it is, a product of evolution, a byproduct of the fact that we are animals, and an integral part of a healthy primate population (yes, you are a primate). If we accept homosexuals as a minority of the population, other than a "Gay History Month" we will probably stop hearing so much about it, except for the occasional bigots who refuse to change.

4. Without a massive die-off in the human population, homosexuality is here to stay?
Pretending for a minute that homosexuality is tied to overpopulation, theoretically a massive die-off in the population, from a great war or plague or drought would cause a sudden plunge in homosexuality and heterosexuality would surge. However (and here I promised that I would avoid more animal talk) this is not seen in our animal friends. Chimpanzee and bonobos, as I mentioned earlier are our closest cousins. Both species are suffering from low numbers. Yet the homosexuality and bisexuality persists. Though the species should be at a point where they should breed like crazy, their breeding habits have not largely changed as their populations have shrunk. Therefore I will (un)safely infer that a human population die-off would not curb homosexuality in our population, it would only serve to curb our population. However, there are some behaviors that are actually a sickness, and in my belief, are directly tied to overpopulation.

5. Stop associating homosexuality with sickness behavior
Apparently there is an idea that you should associate LGBT with people who parade in the streets in leather whipping themselves and each other. Sado-Masochism, and similar compulsions, are sicknesses of the mind caused by some internal or external stimuli that have warped reality for individuals who find those activities pleasurable.

We must learn to not associate behaviors that are natural in the animal kingdom with behaviors that are not. Like I have said above, homosexuality is (in varying degrees) widespread across more than 1,500 species of animals. However, although species of this planet will cause each other pain in order to establish a social hierarchy, there is not a single instance of animals inflicting injury on themselves or others in their species in order to give themselves pleasure. Ants will engage in war with other colonies, male lions will battle and sometimes mortally wound one another for mating rights, cocks will try to wound one another with their foot-claws, and many species of primates will hunt one another and kill one another's young to attempt to gain ecological dominance over each other.

You just don't see chimpanzees flogging each other with tree branches for fun, or panda bears sodomizing each other with bamboo poles. You don't find wolves biting themselves to draw blood before mating. These behaviors are unique to the human population, and for the most part, unique to the human population in heavily-populated areas.
I briefly mentioned locusts earlier. The way they swarm is they start as ordinary grasshoppers, but when their population his some magic, critical mass, they start to transform. Their bodies grow and change color, they grow extremely large wings and mouths and in a massive movement, they head off to ransack the countryside and eat every edible thing they come across. Could it be that humans, much like locusts, begin to exhibit weird behavior when their population reaches a certain level or when available food decreases to a certain level? Could it be the self-destructive behaviors of sick individuals like sado-masochism is a mechanism of evolution to curb the human population?
I really don't know, I'm not an expert in the field of swarm intelligence, but I do know that we need to stop seeing homosexuality as one of these mental-sickness problems.

Homosexuality is not the problem. Homophobia is the problem.