By Farzad Roohi

(Fighting homophobia is the moral thing to do)

“Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom -both young and old-surrounded the house. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." ..Then they (the two men) struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
The two men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it."

Genesis 19, the Holy Bible

The above verses from the "Holey Book"  are the foundation of the religious hatred for homosexuality. In the biblical fairytale of Lot, the tribe’s men were going to rape the two men. Somebody should remind The Believers that homosexuality has nothing to do with rape. Rape is terrible, immoral, and unethical; it doesn’t matter how it’s done - homosexually or heterosexually.

Fighting homophobia is the moral thing to do. Here is my argument regarding homosexuality. And this is my moral struggle to challenge The Believers of the "Holey Book"  on the basis of rationality and logic. Therefore, the following argument is for those who pursue rationality and speak in the language of logic than anything else.

Before you judge about moral aspects of homosexuality, you should try to understand amply the difference between normality and something being natural.

A phenomenon is called natural when it occurs during the course of evolution or by the will of God (If you believe in God) independent from human interference. This is a very reasonable definition, which should satisfy almost everybody.

Normality is a complete different story and I should be very careful to define it. As a communal understanding, a phenomenon is called the norm when it occurs in majority. In other words, you can compare one phenomenon to another in the same measuring class and the one with a majority occurrence is considered as the norm or the normal one.

Let’s apply these two definitions to homosexuality. Is homosexuality natural? The answer is definitely positive. Why? Because there are more than 450 different species in the kingdom of animalia in which homosexuality is perpetuated, particularly among their male populations. So homosexuality indeed occurs in nature. There are lions, zebras, gazelles, wildebeests, snakes, many birds, and even wasps and fruit-flies, which go nuts about their own gender. Don’t blame lions or zebras for such existential identity but God or Mother Nature if you don’t like it.

Can homosexuality be the norm? The answer for this question is a tricky one. The answer is: "It depends." You may already know where I am getting at by now. Oh yes! Homosexuality could be the norm if the majority of a population practiced it. Or put it this way, homosexuality is not considered as the norm in our society when the majority of a population is heterosexual. The truth is that normality is a conventional category made by man to classify and emphasize a specific social phenomenon or a biological trait being in majority. So, really, to be the norm means nothing except to be preponderance and that’s why normality equals to commonality.

Now, to answer the question whether homosexuality is moral or immoral, all I can say is that normality or commonality does not determine morality. It is like saying that the natural and normal skin color (the common skin color) of the most Homo sapiens in Africa is black, however, there is a small percent of the African population whose natural skin colour is white. Does this mean that being white Homo sapiens, as a minority, among the majority of the black African Homo sapiens is immoral? The answer is, obviously, negative. Therefore, morality and homosexuality are like apples and oranges.

Just think about it for a moment with your powerful free mind, away from any social, religious, political, cultural, and traditional influences and answer this question: By knowing that homosexuality is natural and it happens in a small portion of a population, is homosexuality moral or immoral?

As you may already know, the answer is neither. Homosexuality like heterosexuality and any other natural phenomenon is not about ethics and morality but about nature revealing itself in the most possible incomparable ways. Variation in nature is natural and it is the beauty of our unique world indeed. Homosexuality and heterosexuality are about two human beings seeking mutually and consciously love, peace, happiness, and compassion in each other. It really doesn’t matter what color, nationality and gender they are.

Nevertheless, Lot, the prophet, preferred his two daughters to be raped than the two men by his tribe’s men.

Lot went outside to meet them (his tribe’s men) and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men,

Genesis 19, the Holy Bible