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I suggest you look up the definition of the word “normal”. By that definition — which I did not create, by the way — deviance is not normal. Homosexuality is deviant, by definition. Therefore, my “tautology” is implicit.

You, on the other hand, attempt to win the argument by redefining the terms, and including a pathology under the definition of “normal”.

If your friends had felt a sudden and dramatic orientation toward murder, would that mean their behavior was any less aberrational? Frankly, I doubt the “epiphany” school of sexual development, but even if I concede that point arguendo, the result is the same. However quickly one arrives at the notion of one’s sexuality, there is a correct (i.e. normal) result and an abnormal or deviant result. Heterosexuality is the norm. Homosexuality is the deviation.

You seem to have conflated deviant with incorrect and immoral which is something that psychologists and psychiatrists are very careful to not do. They are distinct terms for a reason and deviant is used as a morally neutral pointer. Chances are you are statistically deviant in many ways that common usage usually wouldn't even consider. Heterosexuality being a baseline norm is just not the same thing as it being baseline proper, correct, healthy, etc from the viewpoint of the world of psychology.

Sorry if it seems nitpicky and pedantic. I was raised by a psychologist and a psychiatrist and picked up some of their pet peeves.

I suggest you look up the definition of the word “normal”. By that definition — which I did not create, by the way — deviance is not normal. Homosexuality is deviant, by definition.

Therefore, my “tautology” is implicit. You, on the other hand, attempt to win the argument by redefining the terms, and including a pathology under the definition of “normal”.

It appears to me that you're attempting to make your argument by conflating two meanings of normal.

For example if you are defining normal as ""the average or mean", there are an awful lot of people reading these words whose sexual behavior is "deviant" - in fact it's highly likely that most people reading these words have in this sense engaged in "deviant" sexual behavior of one sort or another.

And if you take "average" heterosexual sex acts your standard, you are certainly going to find some homosexuals less deviant from average heterosexual practices than some of their heterosexual counterparts, for example in a purely statistical sense homosexual couple practicing oral and anal sex are statistically a lot less "abnormal" than a heterosexual couple engaged in the more extreme sorts of S&M.

OTOH, if you are defining normal as "free from any mental disorder; sane", and you define homosexuality as a mental disorder, you have to keep in mind that there is no sexual act possible for a homosexual couple that cannot be committed by at least one partner at a time during heterosexual lovemaking. It's not the sexual act itself that can be deviant in the sense of "not heterosexual", it's the fact that both partners to the act happen be the same sex that on this view makes it more deviant than the same act performed by a heterosexual couple.

(For example, on this view homosexual lovers are more "abnormal" than heterosexual lovers, even if the homosexual couple are in a physically unconsummated relationship, sitting around drinking weak tea and playing Scrabble on Saturday night, while their heterosexual neighbors across the hall are taking turns flogging each other at the local dungeon).

So while I don't have a problem with regarding homosexuality as more "abnormal" in the statistical sense that heterosexuality, I think you get into much murkier waters if you try to describe it as abnormal in a functional psychological sense, especially as you're always going to have some homosexuals in relationships clearly ethically superior on any reasonable functional grounds to at least some of their heterosexual counterparts.