Homosexuality is not a choice (Ellen Goodman column)

[kweerwolf]

Somewhere along the way, the dividing line over gay issues picked up and moved. It’s no longer between red and blue states, or left and right wings, but between nature and nurture. Or to be more precise, between those who believe that homosexuality is a choice and those who believe that homosexuality is innate.

Remember the moment in the 2004 debate when CBS’ Bob Schieffer asked Bush and Kerry whether they thought homosexuality was a choice? The president answered, “I don’t know,” and the senator replied, “We’re all God’s children.”

Well, it turns out that the more you believe homosexuality is innate, the more accepting you are of gay rights.

A full 79 percent of people who think human beings are born with a sexual orientation support gay rights, including civil unions or marriage equality. But only 22 percent of those who believe homosexuality is a choice agree.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/13344199.htm

[joeybee12]

1. Plenty of evidence out now to prove it's innnate, none really that

says it's a choice. Besides, why would someone (like me) choose to be an outcast in society?

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. Because we deserve to be outcasts

The "thinking" seems to be:

1. Homosexuals are hated and despised.

2. Homosexuality is a choice.

3. Those who chose homosexuality are therefore chosing to be hated and despised.

4. The only kind of people who would chose to be hated and despised are the kind who deserve to be hated and despised because they are obviously deranged individuals who should be put down like mad dogs.

5. It is therefore my solemn duty as a God-fearing Christian to reinforce point 1.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I thought scientific evidence

pointed to the fact that it is something innate.

[DamnYank]

4. The fundies don't believe in science

[BR_Parkway]

3. So 21% of the folks who think I was born this way still don't think

I deserve to be treated equally? 1 out of 5? Fucking unbelievable

[Uncle Roy]

6. It's an odd question, really. It implies that heterosexuality is a choice,

too. But none of my heterosexual friends seem to feel that way. They all say "I dunno, it's just the way I am, I guess...". And I believe them.

Are these odd people, with their odd obsessions about homosexuality, really telling us that they could just as easily have chosen to be homosexual, but they chose to be heterosexual instead, for whatever reason?

I think they are telling us more about themselves than they realize. For these people at least, an alternate translation of homophobia might be fear of self.

[closeupready]

7. Increasingly, I believe many "heterosexuals" are lying, that homosexual

desires in their psyche are being either deliberately or subconciously repressed. It's sort of like a culture-wide lie. There's just too many rationalizations for situations in which men are permitted to have sex with men, too much heterosexual braggadocio.

That sexual warpedness really twists people, and I believe that this explains the underlying homophobia not just in Xtian fundies, but in some Dems and liberals, too.