Boys and Girls in Space

On 6/20/06, Robert wrote:
(...)
> im sure there will be some places that would do this. others would
> allow paired groupds of lesbians and gays, as longs as they
> contributed to the familys.
(...)

Indeed a recurring evolutionary explanation for the presence of
homosexuality in many mammalian species is that homosexuality is an
indirect way of propagating genes. The gay individual will not
reproduce by itself/himself/herself, but will have spare resources to
help its/his/her nephews, brothers, sisters, etc, which will propagate
copies of the same genes anyway. It is something like (but less
extreme than) those packs of wolves were only the alpha couple
reproduce and all the other wolves just hunt for them, or those
communities of social underground rats were there is a "rat queen"
that is the only reproductive individual in the whole group.

If that is the case, though, strong repression of homosexuality as
seen in many contemporary societies may in fact be nullifying that
naturally evolved strategy.