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Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser
Wait... Around 7 - 8% of the total population is gay, correct? By standards of human variation, this percentage is EXTREMELY low. In fact, some genetic mutations and birth defects which are considered 'abnormal' have a higher occurance than homosexuality does. Whether or not it causes harm to the individual or even others is irrelevent.
A weird definition of the word 'normal', you have.
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I mean that it is healthy and natural, and thus lacks some of the additional connotations that the word "abnormal" usually carries. "Normal" can be a statistical descriptor or it can carry with it, as it generally does in common usage, especially as it applies to sexuality, moral, ethical, or psychological connotations. In my experience, it's often accompanied by an implication or outright statement that the behavior is sick, clearly adding a psychological or moral component. None of those extra connotations are accurate descriptors.
If you mean "normal" solely as a statistical descriptor without any relationship to moral or ethical standards, using it solely as a mathematical descriptor, then yes, homosexuality is statistically uncommon. By that definition many more things that don't ordinarily get that label are not normal, but aren't labeled as such. In the United States, being Jewish or Native American is about as common or less common than being homosexual. Is being Jewish abnormal? Residents of Wyoming make up 0.6% of the US population. Is being a resident of Wyoming abnormal?
In terms of world population, Americans are about 4.5%. That's in the same neighborhood as the rate of homosexuality. Is being an American abnormal?
The problem with the "homosexuality isn't normal because it's uncommon" reasoning is that that's a line of reasoning that gets applied only when someone disapproves of the behavior or a moral or ethical connotation is added. This is why "abnormal" in psychological terms and "deviant" in sociological terms carry with them the additional criterion of dysfunction, or as I put it, harm. Psychologically, a behavior is "abnormal" only if it is statistically uncommon
and causes harm to the person exhibiting it or to others. Collecting comic books is statistically uncommon, but not abnormal. Sociologically, a behavior is "deviant" if it is statistically uncommon and it violates the norms of a culture, subculture, or group or represents a failure to act within the norms of the culture. In religious doctrine, those terms usually imply that the behavior is a violation of the specific doctrine of the organization making the judgment.
Homosexuality fails the test on all those grounds save for religious purposes.
This makes the use of "normal" and "abnormal" loaded words. Defending the labeling of homosexuality as "abnormal" on a purely statistical basis fails because there is in that usage a connotation of moral, ethical, or psychological dysfunction. Homosexuality isn't dysfunctional in any of those ways, so using deviant or abnormal when you don't mean to imply that there is some dysfunction inherent to the condition is at best deceptive.
But for the sake of clarification, because we're operating from different definitions of the word, I'll rephrase: Homosexuality is a healthy, natural variant of human sexuality.
Is it statistically uncommon? Sure. It's also a healthy variant of human sexuality that causes neither the individual nor others in the society harm, nor does it impair in any way a person's being able to function according to other societal norms.