If being gay is a choice

[failsafe]

I like Dan Savage's recent column on "Choicers" (a la Truthers, Birthers, etc):

(Link below is SFW in terms of images, but Savage Love may not be what you want to visit during work hours)

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Sava ... id=8308624

What if the choicers are right? What if being gay is something people consciously choose? Gee, if only there were a way for choicers to prove that they're right and everyone else is wrong... actually, there is a way for choicers to prove that they're right!

I hereby publicly invite—I publicly challenge—John Cummins to prove that being gay is a choice by choosing it himself.

Suck my d***, John.

I seriously want to use that with anyone who insists it's a conscious choice. Oh, you think it's a choice, that gay people one day just decided this? Well go for it - CHOOSE IT.

Oh wait. You can't. Because if it WAS a choice, no one would choose to be a part of a group so marginalized by society. I'm sure it would make a lot of gay people's lives easier if they were straight. In fact, I'm sure many wish they were straight, at times, especially when they're young and being gay is this huge and complicated thing that their friends and family may or may not accept. So if it were a choice... well why would you choose it?

[Koala]

I always want to ask them to tell me about the day they chose to be straight.

[Lainey]

Those who say it's a choice...I don't think they're particularly straight to begin with. Otherwise they'd know it's not a choice.

[Deleted12]

These people believe that gay isn't something you are, it's something you do.

One of the things that really, really depresses me about the Christian right is how myopic they are about gay people and gay families. Like, "Gays are all a bunch of disease-spreading whores so we're going to make it as difficult as we possibly can for them to get married and have families." :(

I think most American Christians do not understand that it's their religion that tells them that being gay is wrong and that we just can't make laws based on the Bible.

[FundiesInMyFamily]

I was amazed when Ted Haggard said somthing like 'I am a hetero male who was affected by homosexuality'.... AFFECTED? come on Ted!!

I'll have to dig up the quote now

[emmiedahl]

... if it WAS a choice, no one would choose to be a part of a group so marginalized by society. I'm sure it would make a lot of gay people's lives easier if they were straight. In fact, I'm sure many wish they were straight, at times, especially when they're young and being gay is this huge and complicated thing that their friends and family may or may not accept. So if it were a choice... well why would you choose it?

Am I the only one here who had a gay friend in hs trying to be straight? And after a decade of struggling and hating themself, the person finally accepted that they are gay.

If you could choose it, few people would.

It gets a little interesting with people like me who are attracted to both genders. I could totally choose either way. I am straight and monogamous, but I could have chosen to be a lesbian. I am attracted to women.

Most people don't fall in the middle of the spectrum like that, though. I think the people who have been successfully "reprogrammed" to be straight probably are like me and not like the typical gay person. They aren't proof that gay people can choose to be straight; they are proof that bisexual people can choose to be straight.

[xDreamerx]

I think this whole choice vs innate thing is pointless to the Civil Rights aspect of it. Obviously, it is not a choice. But even if it were, we live in liberal democracies (in the Political Science sense, not in the "those damn liberals" sense). We believe in freedom of choice, association, religion, speech, press etc. Why not orientation? As far as I am concerned it should be a fundamental constitutional right.

[mcintyr1]

Dan Savage has since amended the challenge to include the phrase "while maintaining a glass cutting boner". which i think was completely necessary because as everyone knows the crazy people are willing to do almost anything out of spite and stubbornness. This makes it basically impossible for them to "cheat" and fake their way through a blow job just to win the argument.

[higgledypiggledy]

While staying up late, way too late, not long ago I saw a pbs documentary on plastic. Well--sort of on plastic. More like how we've fundamentally altered our human chemistry with all the crap we are exposed starting before birth to the day we die. One of the environmental mds and a few other researches talked about how exposure to certain chemicals during pregnancy altered FOREVER the sexual development of human beings. Their research seems to come down on the "It is not a choice, it is bio-chemistry" side of the debate. I don't find anything wrong with being LGBT but I find it fascinating that the chemicals we are pumping into our bodies are raising the number of people likely to experience those particular sexual developments and identities. Should probably confess here as a potential bias that I am attracted to both men and women. I was totally upfront with my spouse about it. I fell in love with and chose to make my life partner a man--but I could have just as easily fallen in love with a woman. (Which I have discovered from some of my lesbians friends makes them uncomfortable.)

edited because I am a typo queen

[Linnea]

Those who say it's a choice...I don't think they're particularly straight to begin with. Otherwise they'd know it's not a choice.

This.

I think that closeted, in-denial gay people are way overrepresented among fundies. If you grew up drinking the "homoseckshuls are evil" Koolaid, you'd probably want to be straight too, and would do your best to pretend that you were. Some of these people probably do experience making a "choice" to be heterosexual - or at least to act heterosexual (with varying degrees of success).

It almost seems that the louder some prominent bible-thumper proclaims that homosexuality is wrong, the more likely he is to be caught in a scandal with some rent-boy or intern. Look at George Rekers . . .

(BTW, I couldn't remember his name, so I googled "luggage lifting", and it was the second result, after a Samsonite ad :lol:)

[Edited because I just figured out how to add a smilie.]

[Shirley MacLaine]

I think this whole choice vs innate thing is pointless to the Civil Rights aspect of it. Obviously, it is not a choice. But even if it were, we live in liberal democracies (in the Political Science sense, not in the "those damn liberals" sense). We believe in freedom of choice, association, religion, speech, press etc. Why not orientation? As far as I am concerned it should be a fundamental constitutional right.

Cosigned.

[lilwriter85]

I read about Dan Savage's suck my dick quote the other day and I think it is a clever response to choicers.

When I was in college, I took a sociology course course titled Family Collaboration and Community. It was interesting course and the instructor was very big on how to deal and understand different types of families and dynamics. This course was recommended for people going into early childhood education and other education majors. One of my classmates was a woman in her 40's who was very religious and whenever the topic of homosexuality came up, her theories were that "it's a choice" or another time she said she would was surprised that her brother didn't turn out gay because he was the only son in the family and he spent a lot of time with his sisters. In her warped mind, she said that she felt some men became gay because they grew up in environments with mostly women.

This woman was pretty stupid and there were times I felt like punching her in the face. At time the younger brother of my boyfriend at the time had come out of the closet. In my ex's family they are four boys. I told that dumb bitch about how my ex's brother, who grew up with nothing but boys was gay. I then said something like, "Well if some gay men are gay because they grew up mostly around females, why is a teenage boy who had three older brothers and a father who took his sons hunting, fishing and encouraged them into playing sports and doing other things gay?" She didn't know what to say and she never really spoke up in class again. I felt her theory was so backwards that I was glad I shut her up. The instructor in the class also brought up the fact that not all gay men are effeminate and that not all lesbians are butch and this woman just stared at him weird.

[defrauding]

So if it were a choice... well why would you choose it?

Because homosexuals make it look so gosh darn fun.

[fundifugee]

Then there is the impressive rate of homosexual experience in true fundy societies (mainly Muslim) where frumperism and masculine supremacy is taken nearly as far as it can go. None, or very few, of the men involved would self-identify as gay, but I heard of a study that showed that by middle age over 80% of Pakistani males had experienced gay sexual contact; and it is a culturally enshrined principle in Afghanistan for powerful men to have boy toys. I know it has never been admitted or publicized, but I hear it is the same in Saudi Arabia -- this from a friend who WAS a boy toy to an Arab prince at the age of 13.

[bananacat]

Being religious is a choice, and we don't use that as an excuse to take rights away from religious people.

I don't think that homosexuality is a choice, but also think the entire topic is completely irrelevant. It almost comes across like "Sure, we all know being gay is bad, but the poor little things just can't help it. It's not their fault so she would be nice to them anyway."

Even if homosexuality were a choice, it would be a perfectly legitimate choice to make.

[deelaem]

Sorry, but I happen to think Dan Savage is a misogynist tool. And as usual he misses the whole point. Being gay is a lot more than a guy giving another guy head. He always thinks his "shocking" pronouncements are so edgy, but he never puts any real thought or research behind them.

[dcmhejbl62]

Hmm. This is an interesting topic to me. Do you think it is ALWAYS present from birth? Like the old line about "everyone experiments in college"... if someone did "experiment" with a variety of sexual behaviors including homosexuality, is it possible that person could develop tendencies? For instance, there is a lot of homosexual behavior in prisons, though many supposedly don't go in homosexual at the beginning. When they are released, do they go back to strictly heterosexual relationships, or has the boundary been broken, so to speak?

I've also wondered about the effects of molestation on children of a certain age, especially boys. It seems like some boys who are molested right around puberty by an adult of the same sex go on to be gay, moreso than in the general population (I say "seems" because I have no numbers on this at all, but I've heard it often enough that the question has come up in my mind). Does anyone know if this has been investigated, or if studies have been done?

If all these things were 100% true (which I am definitely not claiming), it still doesn't prove homosexuality as a choice. And I definitely believe some, or even most, gay people felt gay from birth. But do we know for sure that environmental factors do not have some influence in some people? I ask sincerely, because I honestly do not know, and it's something I'm curious about.

FTR, I have no problem with the gay community, lifestyle choices, do not condemn it as sin, etc.

[darkplumaged]

Sorry, but I happen to think Dan Savage is a misogynist tool. And as usual he misses the whole point. Being gay is a lot more than a guy giving another guy head. He always thinks his "shocking" pronouncements are so edgy, but he never puts any real thought or research behind them.

Good point, re: the bolded. I'm a straight woman, but I enjoy looking at beautiful women and might even be able to be physically intimate with one, though I have no desire to do so. But I'm not emotionally attracted to women at all and would never want to be in a romantic relationship with a woman. Making out with another woman just to prove (disprove?) a point wouldn't mean that I'm actually gay or even bi. And maybe that's Savage's point... but yes, there's a lot more to sexual orientation than whether you can endure (or enjoy!) a sex act for a few minutes.

[SamuraiKatz]

I tried to fix gay by getting married, becoming a fundie and birthin' a bunch of babies. It didn't work. It was a disaster I was still the same Samurai...attracted to women and not men. I do not believe it is a choice any more than whether or not you get brown or blue eyes.

I did get four great kids out of the deal and wouldn't trade them for anything. And neither would my dear significant other.

And those oh so holy rollers who rant the loudest are probably the deepest in their individual closets of denial.

This is one of my hot button issues....

SamuraiKatz

[Wendy]

It gets a little interesting with people like me who are attracted to both genders....

Me, too! I'm monogamous, and have enjoyed the hell out of my husband's plumbing for 25 years. But I also grew up in a weird family and craved the normal.

[aubrietta]

If it were a choice, why are there so many miserable, ostracize from their (often Christian) families, suicidal young gay people? Who would CHOOSE that on purpose?

[alphaeta08]

I agree with a couple other posters re: even if being gay was a choice, so what? Who people are attracted sooo shouldn't be a big deal at all; seriously, who cares? I love what someone else said: being religious actually is a choice, but we let children be raised in religious environments, rightly or wrongly.

[lawfulevil]

I actually wonder if being religious IS a choice. I tried very very hard to believe from the time I was a little girl and went through all the actions with all my energy. I believed that I was a horrible person but I couldn't quite make it all make sense, I couldn't cross the bridge into faith. I didn't believe in the tooth fairy by the time I lost my first tooth. It wasn't ever a choice I made.

On the other hand, I know people whose lives are ruled by reason and science who think atheism sounds CORRECT but aren't atheist in their hearts. My ex-husband, despite a master's degree in engineering and persistent logical rejection of the whole mess, is still a theist. So is my best friend, also a very rational person.

It doesn't make sense to me, but I support them. They're my family.

[Patsy]

Yeah, I agree, being religious isn't reeeeeally a choice. Maybe some aspects of it, maybe you choose some of the stuff that ends up leading towards you believing certain things, but you can't choose what to believe.

If you go to heaven for accepting Jesus' gift, then that means you can choose it and anyone can have it. If you go to heaven for accepting Jesus and following him, then I also think anyone can choose it (but it's a committment, then, so you'd need good reasons to do it). But if you go to heaven for accepting Jesus' gift and believing in the Lord, then you can't choose that.

Totally off-topic tangent:

It's a distinction I've never seen anyone really go into (sure, they go into reasons to believe, but not the distinction that if you have to believe, you can't just choose that), and... like, I technically have done the first: "Um, if this Jesus thingy is true then I accept that gift, or whatever?", along with "Hey, God, if you're a consciousness that can communicate and feels like doing so... mind making yourself known?" back in the days where I fought to be as open-minded as I possibly could - I would (multiple times) open myself up and talk to higher powers I didn't believe could exist, because I had to leave myself open and not be a close-minded atheist, right?

Also why I get annoyed when I hear "If you let him, you will hear him" and "God answers all prayers" and the like - no, not true in the slightest.

/OT

Okay, but all that being said: being religious is a choice in the same sense that being gay is. People choose to act religiously in various ways, where they could otherwise suppress the outward manifestations of their beliefs.

[Patsy]

And to get back to the REAL real topic at hand: If I could choose to like men, I wouldn't, because I find the concept of being with a man personally horrifying and disgusting to me. Because I'm gay. Funny, that :P