By Gabriel Arana
Reposted from Box Turtle Bulletin
February 13, 2009
This is the fourth post in a five-part a series about anti-gay arguments that get the short shrift in public debate. We examine them here. Readers are encouraged to contribute to the discussion below.
#4: Being gay is a choice.
That old canard. In the past few years, the question of whether being gay is a choice has been posed to many politicians. Most recently, Gov. Sarah Palin, referring to an openly gay friend, said that being gay is “a choice I would not have made.”
It is really a two-part question. First, are homosexual feelings a choice? Second, is engaging in “homosexual acts” a choice?
1. The debate is really about whether being gay is a central, immutable component of one’s identity or whether it is malleable, subject to change. Even ex-gay therapists acknowledge that homosexual feelings aren’t chosen, but they do think you can choose to change them. Many groups — primarily religious ones, but also some professional organizations like NARTH — champion ex-gay therapy and argue that homosexuality is the product of psychological trauma during childhood (i.e. being too close to mom, not close enough to dad). Despite scientific evidence, they resist any acknowledgment of the role biology plays in sexuality, perhaps because if something is viewed as biologically encoded, then it is less likely to be changeable.
As someone who underwent ex-gay therapy for many years, I can confidently say that all the bonding time with my dad did nothing to change my sexual orientation — and there is little independent evidence that it does. Ex-gay therapists rattle off success percentages, but no one of them keeps track of how their patients do years out of therapy. To date, there are no long-term studies showing that gays can change except for the dubious Spitzer study. Many people involve themselves in the nature-versus-nurture argument about the origins of homosexuality, but it’s really academic: does it matter? Whatever the origin of homosexuality, for at least a good number of gay people, it is not something subject to change. And why change? The only reason people try to do so is because of social pressure.
One counterargument that I’ve always found slightly offensive is: if being gay were a choice, no one would choose to be gay; look, being gay is so awful and makes your life so hard. Without dismissing the actual hardship that many gay people across the country face, perhaps this response could be reformulated in a way that doesn’t make being gay sound like an affliction.
2. It is, however, a choice to engage in “homosexual acts.”
But the burden is really on those who hold anti-gay views to show why it is wrong for gay people to express themselves sexually. Sexual expression is a natural human inclination — and a basic feature of adult life. Depriving someone of this strikes at the heart of human dignity. What is interesting is that no one loves to talk about gay sex like anti-gay activists, who dissects it in vivid, pornographic detail. The disgust at things like oral or anal sex is nothing short of juvenile. It evinces discomfort with the human body; it takes the “eww” of fifth grade sex ed. and amplifies it.
Often people who say being gay is a choice refer to a ridiculous fantasy world they call the gay lifestyle — ah, those free-for-all nights of high-stylin’, drunk dialin’ on Fire Island, oral sex in Central Park, AIDS. It would be silly to deny that gays party on Fire Island or that anyone has ever had sex in Central Park, but this is not required of gay people. Gay people have stable relationships, some have families; the lifestyles of gay people are as diverse as they are for straight people. Straight sex clubs exist, straight people engage in public lewd acts. If you want to see promiscuity, go to the m4f section on Craigslist’s “casual encounters.” Yet we do not refer to this as the “straight lifestyle.” Anti-gay activists say being gay is a choice because they imagine a false dichotomy: you either live a morally upright straight life or you descend into the miasma of sex, drugs, disease and death that is the gay world. The real choice is between living a lie and not.
Gabriel Arana is the Assistant Web Editor at 
