Michael Levin: Homosexuality, Abnormality, and Civil Rights (1996)

• Homosexuality (HS) is abnormal
• Normal means using something in accordance with its function
• A thing's function is what it has been selected for (and what explains its existence)
• Thus HS is abnormal because sexual desire (or sex organs) were not selected for HS desire/use
• Similarly, necrophilia is a perversion as it deflects the sex drive from type of targets that resulted in the sex drive being selected for
• Problems:
  • Other uses of sex organs in ways not selected for are also abnormal and perversions?
  • It need not be wrong or bad to use something in ways it was not selected for (e.g., nose to hold glasses)
• Levin does not argue that because HS is abnormal it is wrong/bad
• He is aware of the above gap between being abnormal and being immoral.

• Levin argues that because HS is abnormal it is likely to be less satisfying than heterosexuality (HTS)
• For unlike behavior selected for (e.g., HTS), non-selected for behaviors (HS or using one's nose to hold one's glasses) are not likely to be reinforced by being made enjoyable
• "Evolution makes us like what makes us fit." (Fitness = whatever helps us survive and propagate)
• E.g., organisms seek food, but also enjoy it as those that do are more likely to a better job of seeking food which makes them more likely to survive
• HS tendencies like promiscuity and compulsiveness about sex suggest levels of emotional satisfaction below heterosexuals (he claims that the homosexual life is one of misery)
• Worries
  • Is the lower emotional satisfaction (less happiness) of HS (if true) due to fact that their sexual orientation is innately less satisfying or to fact society makes their lives miserable?
  • If it is true that HS are more promiscuous is this due to an innate feature of HS or to our society making HS relationships difficult
  • Is Levin claiming that HS orgasm less enjoyable?

• HS is probably genetic
• Grants that evidence suggests HS orientation is genetic (innate, not environmental) and hence immutable
• Being genetic does not show that HS is normal (selected for) as not all genetic traits serve adaptive functions (e.g. hair color)
• That HS is genetic does not show that it is wrong to discriminate against HS
• For one thing, even if the orientation can't be helped, acting on those sex drives can be
• Also, discrimination based on things people can't help is commonplace and it is often permissible
  • E.g., picking friends, mates, or shortstops, firing workers for bad tempers, forbidding blind from driving, military height rules
• Levin argues that the immutability of race and sex are also not good reasons to prevent discrimination on their basis
• Levin allows that rewards/punishments should not be based on things people can't help
• They should only be based on voluntary acts people are responsible for
• But he argues that jobs and associations are not punishments/rewards

• Discrimination on grounds of race, sex, or sexual orientation can be rational and have predictive utility
• Examples
• Businessman who thinks blacks tend to not be punctual and has found that a blanket whites only policy is cheaper than reliability tests for all job applicants: Maximizes profits by using race as a proxy for punctuality
• This type of discrimination is not irrational
• Employer who thinks men should be the family breadwinners and thus hires men over equally qualified women
• Not acting irrationally
• Landlords who refuses to rent to gays because he think gays are relatively promiscuous, fears gay tenants will attract numerous strangers who will be careless with property and threaten security
• Not irrational discrimination
• That such discrimination isn't "arbitrary" or "totally irrational" doesn't show it is permissible or not wrong for other reasons
  
• Equal rights or civil rights for HS?
• Equal rights for HS would ban public discrimination
• E.g., prohibitions on HS marriage, refusing to allow military service
• Civil rights would ban private discrimination
• Prevent landlords, private employers from discriminating
• Curtail lots of other liberties (associations at golf courses, private clubs)
• Stronger law
• Levin rejects civil rights (entirely?) as they conflict with rights of free association
  • Assumption that the only time restrictions on individual liberty is permissible is to keep individuals from harming others
  • And one does not harm people by refusing to hire or associate with them
    • To harm someone you must make them worse off, but if you don't hire someone she/he is no worse off that before
• Even non-rational discrimination against gays is permissible
• Non-rational, visceral, or emotional discrimination against gays is permissible
• For people have rights to avoid those things they find disgusting
• Analogy aversion to HS and aversion to bad smells:
• Flatulence in company is strongly sanctioned simply because people do not like it, and voluntariness is irrelevant
• Analogy breaks down if aversion to HS is learned and can be unlearned (doubt can get over one's aversion to bad smells)
• Suggests that a basic/innate aversion to HS might well be genetic;
• Like an innate aversion to bad smells; both conferred fitness
• Rejects the idea that instinctual preferences should be judged in light of reason and values
• Instead thinks life is better if such preferences are satisfied,
• At least when pursing these preferences doesn't frustrate the like aspiration of others
  
• Strong aversion to HS need not involve hatred
• One can dislike and want to avoid w/o a desire to harm
  
• CONCLUSION
• Yes HS will be worse off if others permitted to avoid them
• And it is true that in cosmic sense nothing wrong with HS
• And they don't chose their desires
• But a society that respects the diversity of tastes lets people shun what repels them
• Tolerance includes tolerating fences