The beastly logic of ‘Queer Planet’

Get out your rainbow flags. Gay Pride Month is almost here.

Peacock TV, a streaming service owned by NBC, is already celebrating, with trailers of its upcoming documentary “Queer Planet” going viral online.

Set to stream in early June, the film promises “gay penguins, bisexual lions, sex-changing clown fish,” and oodles of other titillating content aimed at normalising sexual deviancy.

“Queerness has always existed,” claims one expert in the promotional video.

“It’s only in humans that we have such a stigma about it,” says another.

Mother Nature is pretty open-minded,” smirks a third.

This idea is hardly new. As far back as 2006, Mercator reported on similar antics at Norways National History Museum:

This hitherto obscure institution has been featured around the world because of its unique photographic exhibit, called “Against Nature?” The world's first museum exhibition dedicated to gay animals, it “proves” that that homosexual behaviour is not a “crime against nature”. Homosexuality, it claims, “has been observed in most vertebrate groups, and also from insects, spiders, crustaceans, octopi and parasitic worms. The phenomenon has been reported from more than 1500 animal species, and is well documented for 500 of them, but the real extent is probably much higher.”

Apparently Mother Nature is very open minded. But is that a good thing?

There is more truth to claims about nature’s amorality than either Norways National History Museum or the producers of “Queer Planet” would be comfortable to admit.

So let’s go there.

Anglerfish are masters of deception. The female anglerfish uses a bioluminescent lure to attract prey which she then consumes.

Eagles have no moral compunction about murder. Older chicks sometimes kill their younger siblings to reduce competition for food.

Rape has been observed in many bird species. Male ducks are infamous for their sexual aggression. Bottlenose dolphins are even known to gang rape, forming coalitions to isolate and coerce females into mating.

Even more graphic: male bed bugs pierce the female’s abdomen to inseminate directly into the body cavity, bypassing the reproductive tract.

Certain species of ants practice slavery, raiding other ant colonies to capture larvae and pupae, which they raise as workers in their own colony.

Some wasps practice parasitism, laying their eggs inside living hosts, which are then consumed from the inside out by the developing larvae.

Male redback spiders have suicidal sex. They perform a somersault during mating, positioning themselves to be eaten by the female to ensure she is well-nourished for the offspring.

Male penguins have been observed engaging in necrophilia, attempting to mate with deceased females.

Praying mantises and polar bears occasionally indulge in cannibalism. Lions, chimpanzees and certain bird species practice infanticide.

Need I go on?

The logic is tortured, even beastly, but “Queer Planet” hopes you won’t notice. Even if we polish the turd and roll it in glitter, the fallacy is still staring us in the face:

Queerness in animals is normal. Humans are animals. Therefore queerness in humans is also normal.

But humans aren’t animals. We are a different breed—made in God’s image.

Even if you reject divine revelation, all but the most nihilistic philosophers will concede that humans are more than just animals. We possess abstract reasoning, complex language, the capacity for self-reflection, and here’s the kicker: moral judgment.

It is humanity’s innate capacity for moral reasoning that has held our various societies back—or indeed redeemed them—from evils like cannibalism, infanticide and slavery.   

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Hate me for saying this if you will, but it was also our moral awareness that held us back from openly condoning the collection of behaviours sold today as “queerness”.

In fact, it was only in the last decade that all of this changed—and now the sole way to escape the charge of bigotry is to join the enthusiastic celebrations.

Sorry, but I’m not joining. Not this pride month, not ever.

The entire purpose of queerness, according to its own advocates, is to challenge the very concept of normalcy, to disrupt conventional expectations, to dismantle societal norms. In a word, revolution.

The end goal of queerness is ultimate liberation—a society where all expressions of identity are equally valid and celebrated. No prejudice, no restraint.

If the animal kingdom is our guide to that end, God help us all. 


What do you think about Pride Month? Tell us in the comments below.   


Kurt Mahlburg is a husband, father, freelance writer, and a familiar Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He is the Senior Editor at Australia’s largest Christian news site The Daily Declaration and a Contributing Editor at Mercator. His writings can also be found at Intellectual Takeout, The American Spectator and the Spectator Australia. He has authored or co-authored five books, including his breakout title Cross and Culture: Can Jesus Save the West?

Image credit: Bigstock


 

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  • David Page
    commented 2024-06-02 10:04:57 +1000
    Mrs Cracker, are you preparing to make the case that the Irish suffered as much from slavery as black Africans? Or any other white people? Were they whipped? Were there infants taken away from them and sold at auction? Were they boiled in oil as an example to other white folks? Was there indentured state permanent until death? Were they beaten and killed for learning to read and right? Try not to ignore my questions, as you usually do.
  • mrscracker
    In the States that’s Continuing Education, Mr. Steven.
    I apologize for not explaining .
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-06-01 08:59:51 +1000
    mrscracker, what is CE?
  • mrscracker
    Jumping in here, but slavery wasn’t considered an evil in every culture. When the very poor had nothing else to sell but themselves as indentured labor it kept them from starvation. In Haiti today there’s a cultural practice like that: restavik children. As in “reste avec.” They stay with a family basically as slave labor to pay off their parents’ debt.
    Restavik children have been taken to the States with the families they were indentured to. It’s such an accepted practice in Haiti that the families were very surprised to learn they were doing something unlawful in the US.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-06-01 03:54:37 +1000
    Kurt,

    You’re misquoting me. I didn’t say the bible SUPPORTED slavery. I said that it SANCTIONED it…which your link affirms. It provides rules for the evil practice of slavery, which, I think we can agree, condones the practice, no?
  • mrscracker
    “Why would I want to work for a company that promotes ideals that do not align with my beliefs?”
    *******
    Exactly Miss Claudia. Thank you.
    And I’m sorry, I had actually meant to answer Mr. Steven in my last comments.
  • Claudia Minnich
    commented 2024-06-01 01:56:08 +1000
    Corporations can run their business as they deem fit but they should not have the right to require employees to participate in any activity that is not related to their job or believe in ideals that promote sin. This should have oneself asking: “Why would I want to work for a company that promotes ideals that do not align with my beliefs?”
    Pride is a sin (one of the seven deadly sins). As the saying goes, you can hate the sin but love the sinner. Love conquers all.
  • mrscracker
    I believe in a corporation’s freedom to run their business. I’m not going to share where I worked but you’ll just have to take my word for it that our CE lessons were absolutely mandatory to complete each year & the coursework increasingly promoted this sort of lifestyle. It finally got to the point where your answers were required to affirm that lifestyle or you couldn’t complete the course & remain employed. So, I left & found different employment.
    We didn’t work at the company headquarters office thankfully, but those employees were expected to participate in “Pride Month” if they hoped for promotion or job security.
  • Kurt Mahlburg
    commented 2024-05-31 22:20:50 +1000
    Anon, the Bible doesn’t support slavery. See: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-wrong-say-bible-pro-slavery/.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-05-31 22:14:04 +1000
    Steven – to me it doesn’t matter, just pointing out how the goalposts of the argument against homosexuality have shifted over the previous…oh let’s say two decades?

    Jurgen…it was ONE can sent to ONE influence who loved Bud Light. Then the entire Christian rightlost their collective mind over it and then cancelled Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light.

    Also – it’s an odd disconnect that Kurt rails against slavery in this article, using it as an example as to why the animal kingdom is not a guide for morality. And yet, the bible sanctions slavery (Exodus 21:7). I wonder if Kurt feels the same about the bible?
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-05-31 17:52:20 +1000
    Jurgen, their employees are free to be bigots all they wish. They still have to do their jobs.

    Just as pharmacists should give abortion pills to young girls. 10-year-olds should not risk their lives in pregnancy.
  • Jürgen Siemer
    commented 2024-05-31 16:16:10 +1000
    Steven, are you blind?

    When your company puts out a “trans” beer ad, it simultaneously compels its employees to support the false claims of the trans community. Otherwise the employees might risk their income if the disagreed with those trans-claims.
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-05-31 11:21:57 +1000
    mrscracker,

    The power of corporations needs to be limited. They should, for example, not be permitted to compel employees to do anything not required by the job. So we’re at one there.

    That being said, in Australia at any rate, I have not found a single case of employees being required to attend a gay pride parade or anything of the sort. And I’ve looked. Can you provide specific verifiable examples?

    Anon Emouse

    Homosexuality may or may not be “natural”. I suppose it depends on your definition of the word.
    But, again, so what?
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-05-31 06:53:00 +1000
    “Homosexuality is not natural”
    “Here are a bunch of animals that practice it”
    “Well, we shouldn’t be looking to animals for morality, should we?”

    Can barely see how far Kurt moved those goalposts.
  • mrscracker
    Mr. Steven, you certainly aren’t required to be concerned with Pride Month but it differs for those who are employed by corporations that demand participation in “Pride” activities & apparel, or in mandatory CE courses.
    Freedom of conscience is something I believe in & why I switched jobs several years ago. My conscience wasn’t for sale. The company has the freedom to run its business as it sees fit but without me & quite a few other employees who left for the same reasons.
  • mrscracker
    Anyone who has raised cattle and other livestock understands the effects of ovulation in female animals and how that sets off all sorts of reactive behaviors in the herd. Both in other females and males alike.
    Folks unfamiliar with that phenomenon anthropomorphise what they observe.
    Confinement, overpopulation, and environmental factors contribute to unusual animal behaviors.
  • Kurt Mahlburg
    commented 2024-05-30 22:08:08 +1000
    Paul, we’ve moved a long way from informed consent in the bedroom. Now it’s saturation-level propaganda everywhere you turn.

    I notice that you have straw-manned my article. What I argued is that the animal kingdom is not a reliable guide for human morality. Care to refute that?
  • Kurt Mahlburg
    commented 2024-05-30 22:02:07 +1000
    You obviously cared enough to comment, Steven!
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-05-30 16:09:41 +1000
    Paul Bunyan,

    My response to Gay pride Month and Kurt Mahlburg.

    Yawn.

    Give me one good reason why I should care about Gay Pride Month? Or about Mahlburg’s views thereof?
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-05-30 14:42:38 +1000
    Kurt obviously cannot come up with an argument against informed consent in the bedroom.

    So he tries to equate non-heterosexual relationships with slavery and murder. That’s not how one starts an honest discussion.
  • Kurt Mahlburg
    published this page in The Latest 2024-05-30 14:28:08 +1000