On Lawn brings to our attention an article entitled “Gay Marriage is Natural” co-written by Ken Grimes and Paul J. Zak. I was going to write a comment to On Lawn’s posting but the comment kept getting longer and longer so I thought I should raise it as a posting.

Thinking that a highly rational professor of economics such as Zak could not co-author such a daffy article that makes ludicrous and irrational claims about “gay marriage” based on the effects of oxytocin, I thought I’d write to Prof. Zak to see if had actually co-authored the article. Here is the brief email correspondence we had yesterday:

“One question. Were you the co-author with Ken Grimes of the article Gay Marriage is Natural? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-j..._b_112256.html ) .

Thank you.

José Solano”

Response:

“Yes. We are writing a book on oxytocin's effects and that op-ed came from it.Best,

Paul J. Zak, PhD Director, Center for Neuroeconomics Studies http://www.neuroeconomicstudies.org”

Now there still remains for me some ambiguity but his unequivocal “yes” tells us that he at least agrees with what the article states. So let’s look at the biases and outlandish claims of the article to see how Prof. Zak could endorse such nonsense.

With regard to the California Supreme Court’s decision imposing homosexual “marriage” and overturning the expressed will of the overwhelming majority of the people in proposition 22, Zak and Grimes tell us that the court decision was greeted with either joy from the homosexual community or “indifference from much of the rest of California.” “Indifference?” The marriage defenders were outraged and galvanized to pass a Marriage Amendment that is being supported by presidential candidate John McCain and millions of other people.

Beginning with this bit of deceptive propaganda Zak and Grimes then wish to talk about “brain mechanisms that support same-sex relationships.” So they talk about varied animal behaviors. They say they are “outing mammals.” Though they refer only to homosexual animal behaviors their reasoning would naturally lead to the conclusion that if bonobos chimps engage in incest and pedophilia it must also be alright for humans. After all it’s “natural.” If male lions kill and devour lion cubs of other lion tribes, or if chimpanzees kill and eat the babies of other chimps, etc., it must be justifiable for humans to do similar things. It’s “natural.”

They then talk about a “gay gene” that “must somehow be beneficial to women or it would have been eliminated from the gene pool. What? They are still spreading the Dean Hamer gay gene story that has been totally debunked. (Hamer has moved on now to imagine a “God gene.”) And this never demonstrated gay gene “must somehow be beneficial to women” because homosexuals don’t reproduce. This is unadulterated junk science worse than phrenology. Prof. Zak must become aware of how this sort of wild and irresponsible speculation undermines any rational work he may be doing in neuroeconomics. This is a rather brainless effort to find “brain mechanisms” justifying homosexual “marriage” and conduct.

They go on to make the observation that while these other behaviors are natural, marriage is not. Neither is sexual loyalty. What else can one say but, “Dah!” “And nearly each partner in these 'animal marriages' engage in extra-pair mating. Lifelong sexual loyalty in nature is, it turns out, “a vanishingly rare commodity.” Therefore one may conclude, but they dare not say it, adultery is also “natural” and justifiable. Animals do it. It’s “natural.”

From there they declare the truism: “It turns out that both marriage and homosexuality are, in fact, both common for our species.” Tah Dah! And this because “human attachment behaviors depend on the same 'bonding' molecule called oxytocin, also found in other mammals,” as the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies has shown. When oxytocin is released we begin to “care” about everything, humans, animals, even our cars. Sounds like the ultimate love potion and so “it is not surprising that we see long-term same-sex partners.” (But the vast majority are short-term partners.) And they wrap it up with the most mind-numbing non-sequitur and complete contradiction: “. . . long-term attachment between genders and within a gender should be viewed as natural as the care and affection we quite easily show to those around us.” But we care and show love for our children without imagining we should marry them. Most long-term attachments have nothing to do with marriage. Marriage remains only what it could possibly be, the complementary relationship of the sexes that offers the possibility of procreation. That’s it foundational definition.

So, oxytocin, which is found in numerous species of mammals including lions and primates does not prevent them from attacking and killing other animals and even babies of the same species, animals in which long term sexual relationships are “a vanishingly rare commodity,” demonstrating there is “nothing natural about ‘marriage,’” is in humans the hormone that “allows us to have morality—a love beyond the self—that far exceeds anything found in our mammal relatives.” “Morality?” Is this a joke? Maybe they should start giving high dozes of oxytocin to pedophiles and homosexuals, to rapists and adulterers, to prisoners, to murders and thieves. Oxytocin, the morality pill. Skip the Communion just hand out oxytocin.

And from there they derive the most bizarre conclusion of all, for which there is not the slightest rational justification, the very title of the article: “Gay marriage is natural.” What a leap!

Of course oxytocin is an important hormone and it is also used to induce labor. It apparently does lend itself to some “bonding” but so do other hormones and drugs.

Talk about bonding:


There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that’s unafraid—
All have existed since time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love,
Of one dead drunk for another. Anonymous



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