WHEN the documentary film March of the Penguins came out in 2005, some Christians tried to exploit it to promote a conservative social agenda. To them, the penguins’ apparent monogamy and selfless parenting affirmed the rightness of traditional family values.
This is a logical error sometimes called the “naturalistic fallacy”: you cannot draw inferences about what is right from what happens in nature. Penguin behaviour tells you nothing about human morality.
The same applies to same-sex sexual behaviour in animals (see “Homosexual selection”). It might be tempting to use animal examples to refute claims that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore wrong. That would be a mistake. We have no need for fallacious arguments to support basic human rights.
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