"Is Homosexuality Unnatural?"

Book Review # 101419

Gender and Sexuality > Homosexuality

An analysis of Burton Leiser's "Is Homosexuality Unnatural?"

1,010 words () | 1 source | MLA | 2008 | United States

Published on: Feb 25, 2008

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how Burton Leiser's "Is Homosexuality Unnatural?" examines the claim by many theologians and moralists that homosexuality is, at its core unnatural, and how they use this claim as a rationale for their condemnation of the practice. The paper discusses how it is Leiser's goal to posit and analyze a variety of characterizations of homosexuality to determine if there is anyway by which we can say that homosexuality is "unnatural."

From the Paper:

"Leiser's discussion is driven by five possible definitions of what could be considered "natural." In other words, Leiser examines different ways in which the word natural has been presented and applies them to the matter of homosexuality to determine if any prominent definition could be used to classify homosexuality as unnatural. This is a basic, even simplistic, approach to the determination of homosexuality's supposed unnatural qualities. Nonetheless, this simplicity provides Leiser's argument with greater credibility, because he seems to be presenting readers with a wide variety of options that are incapable of refuting his hypothesis. Of course, the unfortunate reality--and a possible weakness of the essay--is that there may be other definitions or conceptions of naturalness that would undermine Leiser's argument. "