Unnatural

Another reflection on the debate between Douglas Wilson and Andrew Sullivan: The argument that homosexuality is “unnatural” is not going to get much steam going either. Sullivan waxed on and on about multi-sexed plants and sex-changing fish. Once one accepts Darwinian evolution, this sort of sexual variety becomes relevant to the gay marriage debate. On Darwinian premises, it’s plausible to say that “nature” is on Sullivan’s side.

This confirms the point that David Hart makes in his essay in the current issue of First Things : Natural law arguments work in favor of Christian conclusions only if we assume certain things about nature. Darwinian’s don’t assume such things, and today Darwin is the official truth (whatever the percentage of Americans who are skeptical of it).

“Unnatural” is a Pauline description of homosexual desire and activity (Romans 1), but Paul is assuming that “nature” and its patterns come from God. The argument that homosexuality is unnatural is persuasive only to those who possess a biblically-informed moral imagination, and that brings me back to the point of my earlier post.