The pride movement endlessly attempts to convince the public that same-sex behavior and relationships are just as much a part of our nature as heterosexual attractions and behaviors. One of those arguments is to point to the interactions between various species in the animal kingdom and insist that if it’s happening in the wild, then it must be productive and beneficial to accept it everywhere.

A recent New York Times article examined a research paper published in the journal Nature. That paper was written by Jose Maria Gomez, a member of the research unit in the Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Granada, and its title says a lot: “The Evolution of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior in Mammals.” Basically, researchers asserted that behaviors of a more intimate nature are not uncommon between male and male or female and female in several different species, particularly in mammals, but also in reptiles and amphibians.

Despite the insistence from the current crop of LGBTQ activists — as they’ve taken the existence of alternative sexual identities to a new level through their obsession with gender labels and nonsensical pronouns — this paper only seems to further solidify the fact that sexual behaviors outside of the male-female tradition still only manifest in a very small minority, whether humans or animals. According to the Times, “The researchers ended up with a list of 261 species, or about 4 percent of all mammalian species, that exhibited these same-sex behaviors.”

It’s also necessary to take into consideration the reasons for these type of interactions in the context of a pride of lions or den of snakes.

In this study, there were very clear factors that suggest why two male animals might snuggle up to each other, or why female animals might spend more time with each other than their male counterparts.

Survival.

As The Washington Post’s coverage notes, the paper includes a bit about “male garter snakes using pheromones to attract other males when it’s cold, causing other males in the area to come form a ‘mating ball’ — which can help them all survive through the night.”

Reducing conflict.

Christine Wilkinson of the University of California at Berkeley pointed to this paper to explain some of the interactions we might witness between male lions: “You have African lion males that travel together and help each other to survive,” she said. “They’re also mounting each other and sort of bonding in more physical ways because they need each other.”

Social connections.

“We found that the prevalence of same-sex sexual behavior in mammals is associated with sociality,” the paper says. “And the directional test of trait evolution suggests that this covariance probably occurs because the evolution of same-sex sexual behavior in both males and females has been contingent on shifts from solitary living to sociality.”

Essentially, it’s how they make friends and establish trust.

If anything, papers such as this offer a strong case as to why we should not be looking to the practices of undomesticated creatures for our rationale to promote certain behaviors as human beings.

We tend to discourage resorting to sexual advances in order to work through challenges with friends or colleagues or to resolve disputes in the office, as doing so would likely result in legal repercussions.

Outside of a bar on a Friday night, we do not rely on provocative behavior to strike up a conversation with another person or as a method of inviting new friends into our social circles. And it is generally frowned upon to use “survival” as an excuse to enter someone’s personal space uninvited, same sex or otherwise.

There are countless acts that occur in the wild that can be easily equated to the need to keep other animal friends warm in the cold months, to mark territory, or to ensure the greatest likelihood of survival for the whole tribe — none of which makes a strong case to suggest that the relentless demands of today’s LGBTQ activist movement are necessary.

There are no daily lion pride meetings about inclusivity or convincing the lionesses to hold off on their development, in case they were truly meant to lead instead of breed. There are no lions forcing their cubs to celebrate the connection between their male members. In fact, a male lion that takes over a pride will often kill the young that are not his. Clearly, humans shouldn’t emulate that behavior.

In a pride of lions, there is no confusion about each member’s responsibilities, and their roles within the group almost exclusively rely on their biological sex.

If we were to look at the bigger picture — and not just cherry-pick the behaviors that work to affirm a particular viewpoint of the minority — we would largely agree that most of the practices that make sense in a herd or pack of wild animals are clearly not fit to maintain a civilized society of human beings.