Homosexuality is a hot button issue whether it's politics on the national stage or just a gay teenager having to put up with grandma and grandpa's (typically) more conservative views on sexuality. I picked this image because I like how it takes a scientific approach to an issue that is very often based in questions of religion. This image addresses the position that "homosexuality is not natural" by putting a (supposedly unbiased because science is supposed to be free from influence) scientific figure on just how natural homosexuality really is.
The battle being fought here is between those that think that homosexuality is natural, (yes, gay people are naturally occurring), and those that think homosexuality is something acquired, or some kind of personal choice later in life (no, gay people are not naturally occurring). But in order to understand this split we need to take a look at how our society is structured.
Subgroups that challenge the cultural norms are always controversial in one way or another and homosexuality, for the last couple hundred years at least, has been seen as a threat to traditional values. Calling on some Foucault, the family as we know it today really started to come together in the Victorian Era (second half of the 19th century) and this is where many of our gender norms originate from (like women staying in the home, men being the breadwinners, etc.). In this period, families grew more and more important and production both on the assembly line and reproduction in the family were seen as essential for the health of society. Homosexuals, however do not fit into this model very well. They are not producing offspring and I think this is one origin of homophobia. Homosexuals are not having sex for procreation like heterosexuals are supposedly doing but for pleasure, and in turn they are not contributing to society by producing future generations of workers. So, one point of homophobia is that homosexuals are not following the social norms of society, which would be the "natural" urge to reproduce. The homophobia that follows is based on the supposed drain that homosexuality has on society.
This idea that homosexuality is an unnatural anomaly is directly challenged by this statistic that homosexuality has been observed occurring naturally in hundreds (I've seen other figures at over 1,000) of species. This is where the "stumbling block" comes in. Can both sides be right? For the majority of humans there is a natural need to reproduce but for a smaller segment of society there is an undeniable attraction to the same sex. Both sides of the argument claim that nature is on their side. But there is a problem when the heterosexual model is seen as an absolute theory. The heterosexual model is not a one-size-fits-all, and when society looks at sexuality in this matter any other alternative sexualities are marginalized. Homosexuality can be seen as a threat to heterosexuality because in a homosocial world (where men are making decisions in close proximity with other men) there is an interruption in the chain of command and the threat of desire among decision makers. Homosexuality interrupts society's typical flow and forces a confrontation of different desires.
To sum things up, (trying not to bore my friends here) the heterosexual model claims that procreation is natural and anything that opposes it is unnatural. Homosexuality disrupts the societal norms such as the chain of command when it comes to everything from the military to politics and the friction caused by going against the grain makes homosexuality look all the more unnatural. The homosexual side of the argument would argue that homosexuality occurs naturally in many species and it's no surprise that it should also occur in humans the same way. This would also argue that the systems of power that are in place are inherently flawed because they are based on a heterosexual model that has been established on data that doesn't take into account that we humans are also part of the animal kingdom and are not immune to the laws of that kingdom.
I appreciate that you included that science is "supposedly unbiased", because as we learned from this class, nothing is immune to bias. Just as society's norms are heavily influenced by religion, science can be influenced by the researcher's viewpoints. He or she decides what research and findings to publish, after all.
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