"Normal."

Let me raise an interesting question. Our opposable thumbs and prehensile fingers evolved so our forebears could grasp things and leap from branch to branch without falling on their little keisters. So—what's normal about, say, playing a guitar? That's not what thumbs and fingers evolved for.

"Normal" is a tricky word. If one wants to claim that homosexual behavior is abnormal because it's not found in nature, that is patently false. Many animals engage in same-sex copulating behavior. Bonobo apes are particularly noted for this. I have seen male dogs mount other male dogs, female dogs mount other female dogs. How about the neighbor's dog who is always trying to hump your leg? Birds do it. Bees? Educated fleas? I couldn't tell you. So that idea of "normal" isn't going to wash

Sexual activity that leads to procreation is normal, but not if it doesn't? Masturbation is almost universal in the human species, and other species as well. How about humans engaging in intercourse while using birth control? So that idea of "normal" isn't going to cut it.

No, Ake and GfS, you're going to have to do better than that.

Religious prohibitions?

There is ample reason for keeping the Church and the State separate, and the Founding Fathers were profoundly aware of this, their families having recently come from countries where religious dogma and moral prohibitions had the power of secular law—and the abuses that invariably follow from such a mixture.

There is much wisdom to be found in the play A Man for All Seasons. For example, this dialogue between William Roper, a hot-headed, religious young man, and the older and wiser Sir Thomas More:

William Roper:   So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More:   Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper:   Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More:   Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Or for those who would like to see religious dogma take on the force of secular law, this conversation:

Margaret More:   Father, that man's bad.
Sir Thomas More:   There's no law against that.
William Roper:   There is:   God's law.
Sir Thomas More:   Then God can arrest him.

Don Firth