The Claims of Nature

The "can gays change" debate is dodging the main issues.

Virginia Postrel from the October 1998 issue

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Over the long run, however, the argument from nature is a trap. Left by itself, "we can't help it" leads to Lott's position and from there to Folger's. It goes straight back to the pre-1973 psychiatric view: Homosexuality may be a natural, biologically based condition, but so is disease. Kleptomaniacs can't help their inclinations. Neither can sex addicts or alcoholics. But we don't have to do what nature inclines us to. Diseases can be cured. Willpower, psychological support, and incentives can overcome, or at least dampen, these conditions. Hence, the friendly call for "recovery" programs and the not-so-friendly push for criminal sanctions.

In our "biological century," we are going to be confronted again and again with both the argument from nature and the claims of disease. The more we understand biology, the more we will see natural causes and potential "cures" for all sorts of human action. There is already evidence that much antisocial behavior--from violent sexual jealousy to serial killing--has a biological basis, as do such positive traits as nurturing one's children. Psychopharmacology demonstrates that we can alter personality by altering brain chemistry, and such interventions will become ever more possible as we unlock the genetic code. Although it is the great idol of those seeking a secular source of absolutes, nature alone cannot establish standards or norms. It cannot justify anything. It can only tell us what is, not what ought to be. Appealing to nature can excuse terrible acts; conversely, it can stamp out individual identity in the name of curing disease. If we want a peaceful society in which a wide range of individuals can flourish, we'd better get used to evaluating behavior by its consequences, not its causes.

Ultimately, Trent Lott may have done gay rights a favor, by inadvertently clarifying the argument. What distinguishes homosexuality from kleptomania isn't that one is natural and the other isn't. It's that love and theft have dramatically different consequences. "To be able to live one's life loving and being loved by some other person is not something that is a disease," said Sullivan on Nightline. "It is the essence of what it is to be human, and that's what we're asking, the tolerance to be human and to be allowed to live our lives in peace." That humane, pluralist argument, not invocations of biological determinism, is what a confused public needs to hear.