Lucki Chaarms wrote:As for the idea of it being purely a situational thing:
When offered female companionship, they have adamantly refused it. And the females aren't interested in them, either.
I will, however, concede that your second point (animals doing it doesn't mean that human society must condone it) is very solid. That said, I often hear anti-gay types using the term "unnatural" to describe the sexual activity of gays. That particular point of view is, IMO, effectively rebutted by this sort of thing.
LC
Homosexual activity in nature is also unnatural. As you pointed out the observations of the penguins were in a zoo, an unnatural environment for animals.
Matt 19:4-7
"Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said,' For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh'? 6 "Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." NAS
This is God's natural design for human sexuality. When Paul writes:
Rom 1:26-27
26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. NAS
He is addressing the fact men and women have exchanged God's natural design for what is not natural. If you want to appeal to what is of "nature", then why condemn men who kill, steal, commit adultery, etc. since in the animal kingdom animals kill to survive, steal other animals kills, nests, etc., and very few animals are monogamous. Male polar bears kill cubs so the female will go into heat, should we approve infanticide so men don't have to deal with children? As pointed out in the article I quoted female mantis' decapitate their mates, so should we accept killing a man after a woman becomes pregnant as "natural"? Where do you draw the line when appealing to nature?