Now I'm going to go all demalion on your asses!
This definition:
If you randomly pick out a male and a female from the whole population of humans on the planet earth, and put them toegether in a sexual relationship, it's POSSIBLE to have offspring as the result. You might "pick" an infertile person (resulting in no child), a female who's 90 (resulting in no child), etc. But you WILL at some point pick a pairing that will result in offspring.
If you randomly pick out two same sex individuals from the whole population, put them in a sexual relationship, you will NEVER have offspring as the result. No matter how many pairings you choose, offspring will NEVER result.
The difference between "natual sexual relationship" and "unnatural sexual relationship", by my definition, is the difference between POSSIBLE and NEVER.
of natural may be very meaningful to you but is in fact useless in this argument because it is circular. If you are going to say "Homosexuality is not natural" and then when people bring facts to argue with you, claim that your definition of a "natural" sexual relationship is "one that is not homosexual" you end up sounding pretty unreasonable.
To illustrate its circularity once and for all, and to attempt to minimize bootless future semantic arguments, I am going to try and restate the central idea of your definition in more formal terms as
Theorem 1:
Code:
Suppose you have two populations, A + B. A sexual relationship between a member of A and a member of B may be considered "natural" if and only if there exists at least one member of A, Ax, and one member of B, By, such that a sexual relationship between Ax and By could result in offspring in the customary way.
This is an interesting premise with many possible ramifications, depending on how you define the populations A + B. If you define A as Joe de Furia, and B as "Any sheep", you get a conclusion that I think most of us would agree with
However, Theorem 1 clearly breaks down depending on how you define the populations. If you define A as "all men" and B as "post-menopausal women" you would seem to indicate that any sexual relationship between a man and a post-menopausal woman would be unnatural.
Given the many possible counter-examples, why shouldn't we just reject Theorem 1 as unworkable? Instead, a refinement of Theorem 1 is offered,
Theorem 2:
Code:
[Theorem 1] where the populations A + B each consist of all the members of a single species of a single gender.
Theorem 2 is convenient for some because while it makes unnatural all homosexual relationships and inter-species relationships, it allows all heterosexual intra-species relationships, even those that themselves could not result in offspring.
I'd like to offer an alternative refinement of Theorem 1,
Theorem 3.
Code:
[Theorem 1] where the populations A + B each consist of all the members of a single species.
My question to the Theorem 2 fans out there is this: what logical reason, independent from a pre-existing conviction that homosexuality is unnatural, would you use to pick Theorem 2 over Theorem 3?
In other words, insisting that Theorem 2 is preferable to Theorem 3 is no different than saying "Homosexuality is unnatural because I define 'natural' to not include homosexuality."
What you've done is offer a non-circular but fatally flawed definition of "natural" as it applies to sexual relationships [Theorem 1] and elide it with a harder-to-argue with, yet circular, definition [Theorem 2]. I've tried to make this as clear as possible although I suspect my explanation may still have gone past some of you.
I respect your right to define "natural" and "unnatural" any way you choose, for religious or other reasons. However, you shouldn't delude yourself that facts or logic support a judgment that arises from your own prejudice.
