Maria Baer: The lesson of the seagulls

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 19th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

LYRIC POST: ♪ Let me tell you ’bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees, the moon up above … and a thing called love. ♪

REICHARD: When a science podcast uses seagull behavior to make a point about human sexuality, it might sound like a remix of “the birds and the bees.” But WORLD Opinions contributor Maria Baer says it’s less biology, more ideology, and it just doesn’t fly.

MARIA BAER: The recent Radiolab episode about seagulls isn’t really about seagulls.

RADIOLAB : All thanks to…gulls. Gulls like seagulls? Mm-hmm.

Radiolab is a popular science podcast. But sometimes, ideology gets in its way. This particular episode begins with the story of two scientists — George Hunt and Molly Warner — and their visit to a seagull colony on an uninhabited rock island off the coast of Santa Barbara.

RADIOLAB: And on top of that rock, Molly’s gonna spot something that will change the lives of millions of people.

Researchers documented a strange phenomenon: pairs of female seagulls were living together in one out of ten nests on the island. They were even going through the motions of mating. According to the paper the couple later published in the journal Science, this was the first ‘official discovery’ of ‘homosexuality’ in the animal kingdom. This was personally significant for the hosts of Radiolab.

RADIOLAB: Alright, bias alert. Latif, my friend, you may recall that I too and a female-female paired vertebrate… I am a lady married to a lady.

Host Lulu Miller goes on to say this blockbuster report on the lesbian seagulls threw cold water on the ‘anti-gay tactic’ of calling homosexuality “unnatural.” Like a dogged investigator on a cold case, she then set out to find just where this conspiracy of bigotry originated.

RADIOLAB: And that is a belief that, as best I can tell, was born back in the 1200s.

She tells us it was Thomas Aquinas, that anti-gay PR strategist (and philosopher and priest) who came up with the idea to call homosexuality a “crime against nature.” Maybe the seagulls could finally put that nonsense to rest!

Except they didn’t. After further study, researchers discovered there’d been a crisis amid the male population of seagulls on Santa Barbara Island. They theorized that a chemical in the air or water was killing them off. For a brief period, that meant the female birds struggled to find a mate, prompting them to “playact” mating with each other. When the government regulated the harmful chemicals and the male seagull population rebounded, the “female-female pairings” disappeared. Much to host Lulu Miller’s dismay.

RADIOLAB: Sorry to interrupt, but couldn’t it be happening without us realizing? It could be happening without us realizing, but the eggs are big and obvious… I don’t think it’s going on now. Sorry… I know! I was like, as a queer person… I can hear you. ‘Please tell me they still like doing that!’

I empathize with Miller’s internal struggle. As much as I’d caution against building moral foundations on the exhibited behavior of animals, I, too, recognize the intense pull to rationalize my own sin. That’s why I don’t think Miller was really asking “do animals do this, too?” I think she was actually asking “is this good?”

Only she couldn’t ask that. Because she is hamstrung by a worldview which sees humans as no more valuable than animals already. It sees no meaningful order or higher purpose to the universe. Everything is “natural” in a world that exists by accident. Everything is “permissible” if nothing matters.

The great irony of this episode of Radiolab is that if the seagull story ‘proved’ anything, it was that nature is ordered toward reproduction, and when animals cannot achieve it, they descend into crisis. The female seagulls were not exploring a ‘new’ desire; they were miming an urgent craving for an unmet one. This isn’t a story about the ‘naturalness’ of homosexuality; it’s a story about the irrepressible impulse of creation toward heterosexuality.

Thomas Aquinas didn’t “invent” the idea that homosexuality is fundamentally opposed to human flourishing. That was God, who designed reproduction to only happen one very specific, and life-giving, way.

I’m Maria Baer.

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