It seemed like a softball question at first. During LOGO's August 10 gay-rights forum for the Democratic presidential candidates, panelist (and rock star) Melissa Etheridge asked New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, "Do you think homosexuality is a choice, or is it biological?"
Richardson, who has a strong gay-rights record, responded, "It's a choice. It's…"
Several audience members gasped. Wrong answer! Etheridge interrupted, "I don't think you understand the question," prompting nervous laughter throughout the studio. She tried again:
"Do you think I-a homosexual is born that way, or do you think that around seventh grade we go, 'Ooh, I want to be gay'?"
"Seventh grade" is right: at that moment Etheridge seemed like an indulgent schoolteacher, trying to feed a quiz answer to a hapless student. Multiple-choice: A or B (hint: it's obviously not B).
Richardson missed the hint. Instead, he rambled:
"Well, I-I'm not a scientist. It's-you know, I don't see this as an issue of science or definition. I see gays and lesbians as people as a matter of human decency. I see it as a matter of love and companionship and people loving each other. I don't like to, like, answer definitions like that that, you know, perhaps are grounded in science or something else that I don't understand."
Audience reaction, and the subsequent commentary, all suggested that Richardson's response was a disaster. One editorial referred to it as his "macaca moment" (recalling Virginia Senator's George Allen's fatal use of that slur during his last campaign).
Richardson should have been prepared for this: Bob Schieffer asked the same question during the 2004 presidential debates, prompting Bush to respond "I don't know" and Kerry to give his infamous "Mary Cheney is a lesbian" answer. Why do smart people stumble over what seems to be a simple question?
Let me hazard a guess: because it's not a simple question. In fact, it's a confused question.
Take Etheridge's first formulation: "Do you think homosexuality is a choice, or is it biological?" The question actually jumbles together two distinct issues:
(1) How do people become gay? (By genetics? Early environment? Some combination of the above?)
and
(2) Can they change it (i.e. choose to be otherwise)?
The answers to these two questions vary independently. My hair color is biologically determined, but I can change it. The fact that my native language is English is environmentally determined, but I can't change it. (Of course I could learn a new language, but given my age it would never totally subsume my native language.) The point is that a trait's being acquired doesn't mean it isn't deep.
Etheridge's revised version makes the false dilemma even starker: either we're born this way, or else it's an arbitrary whim- "Ooh, I want to be gay." Since it's obviously not a whim, we're supposed to conclude that we're born this way.
"Born this way" is a virtual article of faith among gays. Call me a heretic, but I neither know nor care whether I was born this way. I don't remember the way the world was when I was born (neither do you), and I can't discern my genetic makeup by simple introspection (ditto).
What I do know is that I've had these feelings a long time, and they're a significant part of who I am. Whether I have them because of genetics, or early childhood influences, or some complex medley of factors is a question for scientists-not columnists, rock stars or politicians. In that respect, Richardson's profession of scientific ignorance was both modest and reasonable.
The question "Is it a choice or biological?" involves gross oversimplification. Homosexuality is both, and neither, depending on what one means.
Although we don't choose our romantic feelings, homosexuality (like heterosexuality) certainly involves choices-about whether and how and with whom to express those feelings. When Richardson said "it's a choice," he probably meant that we have the right to make such choices. Good for him.
At the same time, homosexuality (like heterosexuality) surely has biological underpinnings. We're flesh-and-blood creatures. At some level, everything about us is biological, regardless of what causal story about sexual orientation one accepts.
But don't we need to prove we're "born this way" to show that homosexuality is "natural"? Not at all. I wasn't born speaking English, or practicing religion, or writing columns-yet none of these is "unnatural" in any morally relevant sense.
I don't blame gays for being disappointed with Richardson's forum performance: he seemed unprepared and lethargic. But let's not insist that he embrace dogmas that should have no bearing on our rights. Whether or not we're "born this way," there's nothing wrong with our being this way. Thankfully, Richardson seems to get that.
33 Comments for “Richardson was Right (Sort Of)”
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Sorry, John, but I’m not buying this. The growing scientific consensus is that homosexuality as an orientation is inborn. In any case, there is no more reason to entertain such questions about gay people than about straight people, about whom their sexual orientation is taken for granted. The very phrase “sexual orientation” explicitly refers to one’s orientation and not to how one chooses to act on that orientation.
It is not a matter of dogma, but of rejecting the double standard by which the very existence and legitimacy of gay people’s orientation is constantly disputed. I entirely agree that being gay would be a good thing even if it were a choice, but all that we know tells us that it is not a choice. And that is not an ambiguous statement. I referred to “being.” My memory does not go back as far as my birth, no, but I do remember when I was two years old, and I was always drawn exclusively to other boys, long before a sexual dimension emerged.
We should reject any discussion of causality that does not explicitly mention both homosexuality and heterosexuality. The cause of one is no more “obvious” than the other. The fact that the human race would die out without reproduction does not explain why a particular person is heterosexual as opposed to homosexual. The fact that heterosexuality is the majority orientation and is routinely taken for granted is not an explanation.
Richardson’s pro-gay record as governor certainly is not erased by his bumbling performance at campaign forums. But the fact that we are not scientists does not mean that we must accept the reality of our existence constantly being called into question. Setting aside the science, which supports the idea that we are born this way, we exist and for that reason alone we have a right to equal treatment under the law. The whole question of causality is a big fat red herring.
posted by Bobby on
Richardson should have given the answer Bush gave, “I don’t know.” Instead, he tried to please everyone with an answer that pleases no one.
“Why do smart people stumble over what seems to be a simple question?’
—Because they’re straight and don’t care about gay issues enough to prepare for those questions. Only two people really care about gay issues, gays and homophobes, everyone else is pretty much ignorant.
posted by Andrew on
It’s interesting, Richard, that you begin your comment with “John, I’m not buying this” and conclude it with “[t]he whole question of causality is a big fat red herring,” when the entire point of John’s essay is that the question of causality is a big fat red herring. Did you even read it all the way through?
I’m also not surprised you claimed “scientific consensus” is on your side without providing any kind of citation. For all I know, it is, but I’m guessing that you don’t really know and just hope that’s the case.
That being said, I agree with the author that whether being gay is a choice is almost completely irrelevant in the context of this political debate. A more important question would be, “Do you think there’s a problem with being gay?” Governor Richardson’s answer would clearly be, “No.” And that’s all I need to know about that.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Andrew,
Oh, please. This is a comments board. When I make unsupported claims in a published article, then you can fairly criticize me. I have read plenty of material on the science of it, but I don’t have a photographic memory and I see no need to dig up sources for these purposes. There is little scientific dispute on the subject, based on what I have read in recent years.
As a matter of fact, I did read John’s entire piece before commenting. I recognize that John and I are not really far apart in our positions, but I wasn’t comfortable with the emphasis he gave. It is true that Etheridge asked the question, so it’s not as if Richardson brought it up. And I don’t give the same importance to the whole thing that the gay press has given. As to Etheridge, I’d say that her narcissism is more environmentally influenced than inborn.
posted by MMMM on
I agree with the author that Richardson seemed less prepared than the others and lethargic, and that he did present a friendly record on GLBT issues. I left the interview thinking that he’s no leader, but definitely a political friend. I think Etheridge’s complex question did conflate two distinct issues, exactly as the author says. I also think Richardson’s response was far more cautious that it should/could have been. We know enough know to admit the possibility of several different ways of being and becoming both straight and gay. Any enlightened friendly political response could admit that easily without going into specifics. The important consequence, of course, is to dismiss any socially conservative (sic) notion of suppressing GLBT rights and social inclusions. So while she could have phrased the questions better, they are important questions, and Richardson (and others) could have easily responded with more clarity and self-assurance.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
I am a straight, black woman. And I remember that question asked John Kerry during the 2004 campaign on whether being gay was a choice. I remember distinctly thinking what MY answer would be if I were Kerry.
Here t’is: “I as a heterosexual, am not qualified to answer that question. However, why do heterosexuals ignore or dismiss the MILLIONS of gay people who say it isn’t? I, as a man, would no more lecture a gay person on their own identity and destiny than I would presume to know what it’s like to be a woman and what a woman should do with their lives.
We are better served always to listen to gay people and those of us that have, have found little difference in how we CAME into ourselves, or what we want and expect for ourselves.”
That is at the crux, I think of how anti gay people debate the issue. I have NO reason to believe ONLY straight people are expert on gay lives, and rudely lecture a gay person as if I were.
How utterly STUPID!
There was no excuse for ANY of the candidates now or THEN to be ‘unprepared’. As long as gays and lesbians have been a universal, indigenous and distinct part of humanity, there is no excuse NOT to be prepared.
Very often, I ask to know what makes the anti gay so expert on gay people, without any social or empirical experience WITH a gay person. Then I tell them that any ‘truths’ claimed by straight people, cannot be possible if gay people aren’t participating in the forum or have the option of showing themselves fully.
I had a lot of friends in that LOGO forum, I’m proud to say. On more conservative journals and comment threads on that event that are at TH.
I called each anti gay person on their references, especially to Pride parades.
I told them that very forum was the REAL demographic of gay people and that’s what gay folks look like from day to day.
Not at entertainment fueled events like parades.
As a straight person, I simply don’t take it for granted I know more about being gay than a gay person would.
Even less have I convinced myself that heterosexuality is a virtue and indicative of anything more than a basic human condition of which NO ONE has any control or choice.
And plenty of us have borne witness to ‘passing’. THIS is what has confused straight people forever.
I’m sure that this concept and that of GAY kids, doesn’t even occur to them.
This is patently a symptom of arrogance and supremacist values, not human or compassionate ones.
With the coming out process occurring in younger and younger children, I think the straight folks will get over it and realize when they never had the upper hand on this subject to begin with.
posted by Lori Heine on
“This is patently a symptom of arrogance and supremacist values, not human or compassionate ones.”
— Exactly right.
In truth, I have as much right to question heterosexuals about whether their orientation is a choice as they do me about mine. The arrogance and cheek of the question quickly becomes apparent to them when it’s turned upon them.
I no longer even answer that question, except with this one: “What gives you the right to ask me that?”
Answer: nothing. End of game.
posted by anon on
People, it’s not rocket science. Orientation isn’t chosen. Behavior expressions are, at least for grownups. Same for straights. They didn’t choose to be straight, but they did choose to cheat on the wife or whatever.
posted by anon on
and sorry Lori, I agree it’s a dumb question and you can teach them something by turning it back on them, but please teach nicely… human curiosity is what gives them the right to ask you. They probably go silent because they weren’t wanting a fight with you.
posted by Lori Heine on
Anon, when somebody asks the question out of genuine, innocent curiosity, I have quite enough sense to be able to tell that. And of course they get a kinder and more patient answer.
I am primarily speaking not of innocent questioners but of fundies and the like — people who keep asking the question, no matter how many times we answer it, but don’t respect us enough to accept our answer. Their very asking of the question is dishonest, because they’re really not looking for any answer other than the prefab, prejudiced one they’re already determined to provide.
I’m not an idiot. I can tell the difference between the former and the latter. Most other GLBT folks can, too.
posted by Michigan-Matt on
John, you hit the right chord with your article. And Richardson’s post-forum apology seemed to me to be as sincere as DonImus’ nappy headed ho apology.
What isn’t going to be addressed by commenters here is the nature of how liberal gay activists nearly treat the issue of a gay gene as an article of faith for the real, “true believers” amongst us. Just like liberals never doubt that mankind caused global warming, that religion is the enemy of reason or that America should begin it’s foreign policy on the predicate of accepting guilt for the world’s plight… a true gay should never ever doubt that sexual preference is predetermined by nature.
Environment has no role? Raise a child and tell me that nuture doesn’t often trump nature… it does, but the victimhood society in GayLeft can’t be a victim anymore if it isn’t nature.
A red herring? Hardly. Except to the high priests of the GayLeft enforcing their version of orthodox belief.
There’s nothing wrong with being gay. Just like there’s nothing morally wrong with being heterosexual, bisexual or asexual.
posted by quo on
‘The growing scientific consensus is that homosexuality as an orientation is inborn.’
What evidence can anyone present that such a consensus actually exists? The idea that homosexuality specifically or sexual orientation generally are inborn is widely doubted, and not only by committed critics of ‘biological determinism’ such as Anne Fausto-Sterling, or Ruth Hubbard, or Steven Rose. James Watson, for example, the co-discoverer of DNA, has expressed a very cautious and skeptical view of the issue.
If it seems to Richard J. Rosendall that there is little scientific dispute on this issue in recent years, however, that may well be because the fairly small number of scientists who claim that sexual orientation is purely biological generally do not bother to respond to their critics any more.
As for the idea that, ‘all that we know tells us that it is not a choice’, Rosendall should speak for himself. Some gay men and lesbians claim that they did choose their sexual orientation, and science cannot as yet prove them wrong.
posted by Brian Miller on
Why does it matter, either way?
The idea that “in-born” versus “learned/developed” should be an issue is a socialist concept, from those who believe that government and related institutions should “mold good citizens.”
I happen to believe sexual orientation is “hardwired,” but even if it isn’t, so what? *Why* I am gay (or male, or east-coast-accented, or a good speller) is irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is that government is being used as a coercive tool by people who aren’t like me — through “choice” or otherwise — to force me to be less like me and more like them.
If the shoe was on the other foot and I was applying the same standard (and force) to them and their “choices” or inborn orientations, they’d be screaming bloody murder — and rightly so. Just look at how outraged right-wingers get when some idiotarian gay rights activist uses government force to make them “change.”
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
quo, I have been out for 29 years, and have talked to thousands of gay people, and very few have ever claimed that they “became” gay or chose to become gay. The few who did had been lived under deeply repressed circumstances, with homophobic families and communities. Those people were no more heterosexually oriented before coming out than Oscar Wilde was, who fathered two sons.
posted by Matt Sigl on
I think John Corvino is dead right in this article. The gay community has put all it’s eggs in the basket of biology. Most of the discussion I hear about biological causes for homosexuality are built upon very bad philosophical and theoretical premises. A few points:
1. The biological innateness of homosexuality, should it exist, could never prima facie justify homosexual behavior if such behavior could be demonstrated immoral for good ethical reasons. Unless the biological component of a homosexuals make-up literally compels him (in a way that actually undermines his independent agency)to engage in homosexual acts, then the biological argument lacks purchase. For no circumstance could exist in which the innateness of the desire could justify the immorality of the act. Perhaps pedophilia is also biological. The pedophile hardly can use his biology to excuse his behavior; explain perhaps, but not excuse. The justification for homosexuality must come for good normative reasoning not hysteric politically correct biology.
2. The popular media over-reports the progress of science in the study of human sexuality. The confluence of gays who want to naturalize their sexuality (and in doing, they hope, legitimize it) with evolutionary biologists who seek to reduce all behavior and dispositions to biological data has created a groundswell of interest in this topic but, when all is said and done, little actual understanding. Given the overwhelming complexity of human desire, this is not suprising. Frankly, the idea that a complicated behavioral disposition like homosexuality could be reduced to something as causally simple (and physically quantifiable) as handedness strikes me as ludicrous notion indeed. I am convinced that without better theoretical house cleaning the science of desire is never going to get of the ground. When one actually looks at the methodology of important gay researchers, like fmaous gay scientist Simon LeVay, the results become highly dubitable.
3. Even if I did one day simply decide that I wanted to become gay and could will myself into desiring the same sex (why? perhaps I like Appletinis or the feel of lycra) I should nonetheless have the right to do so.
posted by aj on
I second Matt Sigl points and I know Rosendall is wrong to imply a scientific consensus that sexuality is exclusively genetic. Modern genetics teaches us that gene expression is influenced by environment. “Gayness” results from a complex interaction between biological tendencies and life experiences. For my part, I clearly recall a shift in thinking from exclusively heterosexual to bisexual thanks to some precocious friends in 8th or 9th grade… ahem, Boy Scouts ;).
posted by Lori Heine on
I prefer not to be studied like a lab rat, thank you very much. The whole debate is demeaning. Some of us simply choose not to participate in it.
Not that the subject isn’t at all interesting in and of itself, but it’s used as a cover for “why are those awful gays so awful, anyway?”
Yuck, yuck, yuck. Sitting still for such a scrutiny derives its Uncle-Tomness primarily from the fact that straights will not submit to it. (Try them sometime and believe me…they won’t.)
posted by Charles Wilson on
Every communication of every kind, at every moment, has both a text and a subtext. People who deal with only the text of the question that Richardson was asked, as John Corvino did, miss the point of the debate.
See, when gay people say that they didn’t choose to be homosexual, they are making a literal statement but in the subtext they are saying, “Look, this is who I am. Accept it.”
People who say that homosexuality is a choice are making a statement that’s narrowly true if you focus solely on behavior. But that’s not their point. In the subtext they are saying, “You could be straight if you had the willpower to repress your nature, which is what we want you to do.”
Yes, the question posed to Richardson was clumsy. It assumed a false dichotomy: either you chose to be gay, or you were born that way. Much more likely, in my view, is that people are born with predispositions that are then shaped by environmental factors.
Still, to focus on the semantic flaws in the question ignores the salient debate, which takes place entirely in the subtext. Whether he likes it or not, to Corvino to embrace the “choice” argument is to also endorse the subtext that gives the argument its force and meaning.
You’re young, Mr. Corvino, so I’ll give you some leeway for not having been around as this insidious coded debate has arisen. Let’s just say that you need to pay more attention to what the right-wingers actually MEAN when they make the “choice” argument. They want gay people — and that means you, John — to go back in the closet and stay there.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
In a way, I’m glad that gays and lesbians cannot be segregated by color the way black people could be.
What’s important to know is that orientation isn’t at issue. How straight people CHOOSE to respond to it is.
Because of more seamless integration, gays and lesbians have proven themselves to be sexually competent, socially responsible, compassionate and talented with MUCH of merit to contribute to society.
What pisses me off, is the devaluing, mytholizing and dehumanizing of gay people to the extent that discrimination and casual violence doesn’t concern the majority the way it should.
And it SHOULD because a gay child is ultimately possible in anyone’s family with at least the regularity of having a left handed child.
I don’t appreciate this dismissal of gay orientation as a casual feature, and as an excuse to suspend integration and human rights.
No person should have to assert their humaninity and willingness to participate in ordinary situations like this.
While the hostile straight folks see it as asserting one’s sex life instead.
How STUPID!
Once I see a straight person talking down to someone gay as if they are a child, that’s when you easily know they think they are supreme.
They don’t want to be contradicted, criticized or see gay people as equal in great potential.
And what HAS been accomplished, isn’t acknowleged or believed to have happened.
This is the treatment that black people know well. And this is what I empathize with gay people on.
I’ve seen anti gay TEENAGERS talk to a gray haired gay person as if they were a child.
And screech sermons at them as if that gay person hadn’t heard the same Biblical references since before that young person was BORN.
We are at a time in our lives together as Americans, for illumination. There is all this opportunity to know gay folks better and respect the goals of gay people as the same as any normal heterosexual would want.
It’s that simple.
Without full integration, straight people are walking around ignorant and hostile for no reason and for no good.
They can’t point to ANY social good that comes from such institutional discrimination and that’s the only thing they must prove justifies THEIR behavior.
THEY have the responsbility since they are so insistent it’s THEIR institutions that are seeing incursions by gay folks.
We’ve seen this movie before and history isn’t on their side.
I know that their fears are unfounded. I like being ‘proof’ so to speak, that being gay and straight is a natural symbiosis. We could compliment each other if we looked for ways to do that.
I feel like a tiny voice in the wilderness sometimes. But that’s the healthiest way I can deal with my straight peers.
posted by Brian Miller on
Not that the subject isn’t at all interesting in and of itself, but it’s used as a cover for “why are those awful gays so awful, anyway?”
Bingo, Lori.
The Democrats/”liberals” say “it’s inborn, so gay people cannot help the fact that they’re deviants and need to become wards of the state — so give us more government money and laws so we can ‘protect’ the poor perverted darlings.”
The Republicans/”conservatives” say “it’s a choice — they CHOOSE to be deviant perverts and must be punished! Give us more government money and laws so we can force them to be straight and prevent any other people from ‘becoming’ gay.”
Libertarians/rational people say “it’s their business, not yours, and they owe you nothing and you owe them nothing other than equal treatment under the law and not defrauding each other.”
The third argument is most unfashionable because not only does it remove the eternal religious “debate” about choice, but it also removes the logic that allows Democrats and Republicans alike to feed their fatal addiction to more government (and more government money) for themselves.
posted by Zeke on
Here’s another question:
Do you think left-handedness is a choice or is it biological?
I think this question has all of the exact same variables discussed above as the sexual orientation question but without all of the moral and religious baggage attached.
Is it genetic? Biological? Environmental? A combination of all of these things?
It seems that the vast majority of people NOW believe that, for most people, there is an inborn, innate predisposition to favoring one hand over another, almost to the point of exclusivity, at least with certain tasks (writing, throwing a ball etc.) Though a very small percentage of people would be considered truly ambidextrous, most people are identified as right or left handed.
There is no more scientific proof as to what causes handedness than there is for what causes sexual orientation.
People should no more be discriminated against based on sexual orientation, regardless of cause, than they should be for handedness.
Michigan-Matt, is there anything that you don’t turn into a tirade against the GayLeft Gaylibs? You’re like a broken record bubba. Very annoying.
posted by dalea on
Actually Zeke, lefthandedness used to be a moral issue. The Latin for left is ‘sinistra’. A sign of demon possesion. Into the 1940’s, schools forced left handers to write with their right hands.
I do not think being gay is a uniform phenomena. There appear to be a wide variety of activities going on in the gay world. Putting diesel dykes, screaming queens, gay guys, leather numbers, granola dykes etc into one category may be convenient but does not appear to be helpful. Instead, to say that homosexuality is a wide range of behaviors that have a wide number of paths and an even wider felt states of meaning seems to me logical.
Awful gay leftist Nevins even wrote a book about this called “The Soul Beneath the Skin”. In it he surveys many studies of gay men and reports the consistent finding that gay men are statistically different from straight men. Distributions of traits and apptitudes are mirror images. Fascinating book, filled with the gay conservatives’ mortal enemy: facts.
One option left out here is hormonal. At some point, either in the womb, early in life, or at pubedrty; some slight hormonal change nudges people on the road to being gay. This is one option that needs a further analysis.
posted by Zeke on
In the 1940’s? How about in the 1970’s.
I can remember my best friend first being brow beaten, and eventually physically restrained, in a Presbyterian school to keep him from writing with his left hand. He was told that if he wrote with his left hand he would grow up to be a social outcast and a psychopath. This comes from the ?if you stop the rooster from crowing you could stop the sun from coming up in the morning? school of logic.
Today, my friend is a left handed person who writes (terribly) with his right hand. I watched him grow up and I can tell you that this forced handedness caused him many psychological problems that had nothing whatsoever to do with what hand he wrote with.
Incidentally, he also turned out to be gay.
Here?s yet another question. Do animals choose to be homosexual? Contrary to the oft repeated statement ?homosexuality can?t be natural, not even the animals do it? we now know this to be completely false. In every species that has been studied, in relationship to homosexual activity, same-sex sexual interaction, sometimes exclusive interaction, has been observed. Now of course those same people who once claimed that ?not even the animals do it? are saying ?so what if animals do it! Animals also eat their young; does that make it right for humans?? You just can?t win when you try to use logic and science in a debate with a person who bases their opinions 100% on their religious beliefs and fear of homosexuals.
Anyway, since there is clearly homosexuality in many, if not all, species of fauna, does that not indicate that there is, at least primarily, a biological component to sexual attraction?
By the way, biological does not necessarily mean genetic, as has been mistakenly assumed in some of the comments here. Biological could mean genetic but it could also mean hormonal or the combination of the two. Sex is determined by genes but secondary sex characteristics (like body hair, voice pitch, etc) are determined by hormones. BOTH are biological processes.
posted by Sean on
This is one of my favorite topics to bring up in a room full of mainstream homos; the idea that gay politics are now driven by the idea that being gay is inate is inane and counterproductive. The operative question should be: ‘so what if it is a choice? My right to chose who I love is as unalienable as my right to chose to bear arms, to chose to practice a religion, to chose whether or not to quarter government troops (hrm), to chose to testify against myself…
posted by James on
Let’s say that someday a gene is discovered which indisputedly causes homosexuality, and you could test for that gene during pregnancy. Would a woman who didn’t want a gay child have the right to abort that child?
posted by The Promiscuous Reader on
Wow, and article on this site that I not only agree with, but that doesn’t make me feel embarrassed for the author.
I’m a “gay leftist”, and I’ve been taking this very stance for decades. For instance, I wrote this piece for the local student newspaper in 2000, getting me some interesting hate mail from a gay graduate student in Psychology:
http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=1114
It was the position of the radical gay movement when I came out in the early 1970s that homosexuality was not inborn, and that questions of cause were not significant. As the movement slid to the right, that changed. The claim that we are Born This Way became popular long before the spate of research that got so much publicity in the early 90s, which means that the claim was made without any evidence to support it. The evidence that is proffered nowadays isn’t worth much, and it has been gay scientists like Anne Fausto-Sterling who’ve criticized it most harshly. Edward Stein’s The Mismeasure of Desire is also a good discussion.
That Born This Way is the “growing scientific consensus” doesn’t mean much; it used to be the “growing scientific consensus” that male homosexuality was the result of a Close-Binding and Intimate Mother and an Absent Father. The “science” involved now is of The Bell Curve” variety, and it constantly amazes me to see people who’d never use such arguments about race or (sometimes) gender leap to grab at them where homosexuality is concerned. That in itself shows to me that wishful thinking is involved, not science.
There really isn’t any danger that homosexuality (or heterosexuality) will be shown scientifically to be a “choice,” because choice is not a scientific concept. Probably that doesn’t speak well for science, or at least for scientists.
As I’ve also said many times, gay people should not spread misinformation about us; that’s the bigots’ job.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
I’ve seen enough anti gay people insist that homosexuality is ‘dangerous’, ‘deadly’….or make the inference that it’s infectious around young children.
THESE are the most ignorant and too oft repeated assertions about homosexuality that I find the most frustrating and patently stupid.
I don’t have to tell you all that the conflation of homosexuality with murder, and theft and adultery are also the most easily refutable as not having the same results, nor social impact nor exclusivity.
What I resent most is that these assertions can be made as if they ARE undisputable truth.
What the anti gay SHOULD be concerned with is social function, talent, and the contributions that a person can make REGARDLESS of being gay.
And in disputing, dismissing or ignoring ALL the positive attributes
a gay person has…even if it’s in their own child, ARE displaying bigoted and prejudiced behavior.
Something they hate being called and also have no desire for further illumination on the subject.
It is THIS further illumination and experience that requires full integration in society, and nothing else that will get at the truth.
Even the most religious people out there don’t have a good track record when it comes to having their bubble burst through experience and evidence they simply choose to not deal with.
Being religious and what kind of religion is a choice that no one has to interfere with anyway. That is definitely a fluid lifestyle that’s not enforced on those who want it. So it shouldn’t be on those who don’t.
If anything, ‘choosing’ to be bigoted, or ignorant to me is inexcusable. When lives and quality of life is at stake that every citizen has a right to pursue. Particularly when it won’t interfere with straight people doing the same.
Why the anti gay demand the right to interfere with gay people is at issue.
And they do so in ways that are more about spite than social consciousness.
AND they have no social improvements to point to, to justify the practice of discrimination in basic institutions.
Their behavior does more harm than good. We an start from there, since arguing over whether being gay is a choice seems to be pointless.
The question probably could be: Could you handle the truth if it isn’t and in what ways do you really want to find out the truth?
posted by James on
It is rather like the conservatives who promote an “English-only” society. If gay is not genetic, and it is a choice, then you can choose to be something else. Speaking Spanish might be more natural to you given your culture, but it’s a choice, and you could learn English if you wanted to. Americans do not have to accomodate those who choose not to learn English. By the same logic, Americans do not have to give marriage rights to those who choose to remain homosexual.
That’s the argument we’ll hear if we ever say that sexuality is fluid and being gay is a choice.
posted by James on
If the “gay gene” is ever discovered, two things will happen: 1. People will be tested for the gene, and if they have it, they will be put in “re-education” (concentration) camps. 2. Women who discover themselves pregnant with a child who has the gene will abort the child.
A “gay gene” is not going to help the gay community gain rights. In fact, it will put us all in danger.
posted by Jimmy Gatt on
Why does anyone like anything? My son recently asked me that, and I had to tell him, “Nobody really knows.”
Being “gay” is, in fact, a choice. You choose to be out. You choose to admit to your friends and family what you like. That’s because “gay” is a social definition, not a physiological definition. A man who likes men and does NOT like women, yet lives a straight married life with trips to public parks for discreet encounters is NOT a gay man. He’s straight because that’s how society perceives him and how he chooses to be perceived by society.
As far as what we like goes, I think that it’s very common that those of us men who like men report liking men from a very young age. I certainly fall into that category. I think that such a thing is inborn, not created by society. I also think that women’s sexuality is much more fluid than men’s sexuality is, but I can’t tell if that’s a matter of culture or not. Our culture certainly gives women much more latitude in sexual matters than it gives to men.
posted by Michigan-Matt on
Zeke offers: “Michigan-Matt, is there anything that you don’t turn into a tirade against the GayLeft Gaylibs? You’re like a broken record bubba”
Sorry if you think so, Zeke… maybe that’s because you see yourself as part of the GayLeft and are defensive when anyone dare question that noble institution? Maybe it’s that you don’t like me suggesting that the gay community hasn’t come all that far under the failed, single-party “leadership” strategy of nat’l gay groups espousing to be “our voice” and you don’t like that miserable record assailed?
This was a thread about a GayLeft darling Democrat Party prez wannabe who stepped in a pile of PC… at a GayLeft managed media event… with only Democrats in attendance. Juicy that Richardson took on a GayLeft orthodox tent like the nature v. nuture, eh? Go figure, eh, Zeke?
And to answer your question, yeah… the GayLeft is such a huge target, how can be make progress as a community unless we toss out the bums who have been “leading” us? And if you don’t think the panel at that forum was pure GayLeft, then you need a swift and healthy dose of reality, bubba. Thanks for making my case.
posted by Brian Miller on
If the “gay gene” is ever discovered, two things will happen: 1. People will be tested for the gene, and if they have it, they will be put in “re-education” (concentration) camps.
Placing 10% of the population in concentration camps is an impossible task, and wouldn’t be supported by even a plurality of the population.
Besides, if such an attempt was made, the individuals attempting to collect the individuals would learn the meaning of the phrase “sisters stick together and can target shoot.”
posted by Brian Miller on
how can be make progress as a community unless we toss out the bums who have been “leading” us
They’ve never been “leading” me.
Leadership comes from speaking out and doing what’s right — not sitting in a stultified organization and selling out to the highest bidder.