Nature shows the way

[asterroc]

Not only is homosexuality entirely natural, as evidenced by penguins, wolves, seagulls, and more, but so is divorce as evidenced by supposedly ever-faithful swans.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

i think that in those instances ‘unnatural’ is being used in a sense that simply doesn't mean ‘unattested in the natural world’ - basically that as used it means something like ‘especially repugnant or disconcerting’. compare ‘If thou didst ever thy dear father love... Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.’, from Hamlet: although killing one's siblings willy-nilly is not especially adaptive, fratricide is far from unheard of among humans and presumably among a variety of other types of animals, and both Shakespeare and his audience probably knew this. likewise, i think most of us wouldn't object to describing the behavior of a human who made a practice of killing and eating her sexual partners as ‘unnatural’, but of course there are plenty of animal precedents for such conduct.