The 'is' and 'ought' of homosexuality

On Friday I wrote about David Torkington's piece in 'The Catholic Universe' describing, in his view, the homosexual colonisation of the Catholic Church. "The elephant in the room that threatens to bring our Church to its knees" also featured his searing theological attack on sodomy.

Yesterday (Monday) I posted "The evolutionary genetics of homosexuality (GWAS)" which described the work of a large team headed by Brendan Zietsch showing that homosexuality had strong genetic correlates and was associated with greater reproductive fitness in near relatives.

I'd like to draw your attention to a third post I wrote back in October 2014, "Evolutionary roots of homophobia" where I quoted The Economist: "Revulsion against homosexuals is ancient, deep and, in its way, sincere."

The angst is always about male homosexuality.

That there are good evolutionary explanations for a trait is a fact with limited consequences. Psychopathy is also strongly heritable and appears to be under genetic control. It's generally accepted that psychopaths 'can't help it'. That does not make their behaviour acceptable: negative externalities.

My conclusion in the 2014 post was this:

The reason for an evolved heterosexual disgust towards homosexuals (mislabelled as 'homophobia') is that in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) homosexuals were more likely to be disease vectors.

This due to the unsanitary nature of some male homosexual sex acts.

In the first world today:  modern hygiene. Our emotions are still there of course, locked in our survivalist genome. The suppression of disgust in the name of compassion - where we know we will pay no real price - is called tolerance.

Psychopaths shouldn't be tolerated; homosexuals in our modern societies should be. Few non-homosexuals, however, feel an inner instinct to celebrate it. If you think you do, view some of the more controversial gay photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe and gauge your reactions.