Gay by Choice? (Or by Birth?)

For years we have been told that homosexuality is something people are born with - like the color of one's skin - and that it can't be changed. Gay-rights activists insist this is so, because, they say, if people don't choose to be gay, it would be wrong to discriminate against them in things like marriage, adoption, and legal benefits.

And heaven help those who disagree. Just ask actress Cynthia Nixon, who in a recent New York Times Magazine article, had the gall to admit that she chose to be gay.

Nixon, who played one of the characters on the old "Sex in the City" television series, was involved in 15-year relationship with a man that produced two children. Now, however, Nixon has moved on to a so-called "gay" relationship with a woman. In the article, Nixon is quoted about her sexual life, "For me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it's not, but for me it's a choice, and you don't get to define my gayness for me."

Curiously, gay activists, who in almost any other instance would celebrate a "woman's choice," are really upset. "Cynthia did not put adequate thought into the ramifications of her words," said Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out, which opposes programs that seek to cure people of homosexuality. "When people say it's a choice," Besen added, "they are green-lighting an enormous amount of abuse."

No, what Nixon is green-lighting is the dangerous idea that people make choices about their sexual lifestyle. And that's a clear and present danger to the agenda of the gay-rights movement. That agenda seeks to prove that the gay lifestyle is natural and inevitable. But friends, there is absolutely no proof, and there'll probably never be any proof, that people are "born gay."

University of California, Davis, psychologist Gregory Herek, an "expert on anti-gay prejudice," admits, "The nature vs. nurture debate really is passé. The debate," he said, "is not really an either/or debate in the vast majority of cases, but how much of each. We don't know how big a role biology plays and how big a role culture plays."

Wheaton College's Stan Jones, who has written extensively on the subject, says the best research reveals that homosexual attraction is the result of a complex and mysterious interaction of biological, psychological, and environmental factors that produce different results for different people. Jones, and anyone else who has looked at the evidence in an unbiased way, says that there is no "gay gene."

Thus, the project to - in the words of one pro-gay writer, "make homophobia as inexcusable as racism" - has failed. For some people, homosexuality is a choice, and to whatever extent that is true, the fact is we all have a choice about how we will respond to our various sexual inclinations and express our sexual brokenness.

And, contrary to what we hear, the different sexual choices people make are not all equal. Only one conforms to nature and nature's God.

No, God's Word does not give us a definitive word about the cause of homosexuality, but it is crystal-clear that we need to reject homosexual behavior as sinful, to embrace sex only in the context of marriage between a man and a woman, and to treat everyone we meet - homosexual or not - with love and respect.

“If homosexuality were genetic, wouldn’t it die off each generation? Am I missing something?”

Yes. You are.

I’ve come to the conclusion that most (not all) homosexuality — male homosexuality, as least — comes under the bounds of this rationale:
“A naturally-occurring aberration from the norm”.

I chose each word very carefully in that statement.

No, homosexuality is not and can never be “normal”.
Still, it exists, truly an “aberration” from the norm of heterosexuality.
And (again, for males), the _cause_ of that aberration occurs mainly in nature, not nurture or environment.

We see other types of naturally-occurring defects in humans, all sorts of them. A disease like muscular dystrophy is indeed “genetic”, so why does -it- not “die off” from one generation to the next?

I remember reading about dc generators that somehow become “mis-polarized” (i.e., polarized the wrong way), and thus “spun in reverse” when current was applied to them. Likewise a compass could get magnetized “the wrong way”, and its needle would be 180 degrees reversed.

I believe that embedded somewhere deep in the brain is a kind of “sexual compass” that directs what we (on the surface) call sexual “orientation”. This may not be based on any specific “gene” (hence, no proof that “a gene causes homosexuality”), but something exists there, and I believe that in time we will come to a clearer understanding of what it is.

And — if it’s there — there’s the possibility that early in life, probably in utero, this sexual compass gets “polarized” and the individual is forever “programmed” to behave sexually in a certain manner.

For the vast majority of males, the polarization is “correct”, and they are heterosexual.
For a minority, the polarization gets tangled and reversed, and they are drawn to other males.
But even this isn’t absolute. There may be “middle points” between the opposing poles of the compass — hence, those who are bisexual, others who are mainly heterosexual but can be “pulled towards” homosexuality, and, midway on “the other side”, those whose sexual consciousness began as homosexual but were able to “re-direct themselves” towards normal heterosexuality.

Women seem to be an entirely different story. I’ve come to the conclusion (as previously stated by a few others in this discussion) that the majority of lesbians _choose_ that behavior for some reason or other. Not all, though — there are some very “butch” females that seem to have been that way “early on”, suggesting innate characteristics that are not changeable. Just like the vast majority of males.

Having written all this, I realize that it is “the liberal argument” to argue that gays “are born that way”, and should not be discriminated against for that reason.

As a conservative, I see no reason to purposefully make the lives of homosexuals miserable.....
HOWEVER...
Go back to my original statement, that being, “a naturally-occuring ABERRATION from the norm”.

Because it -is- an aberration, it should not and should never be accepted as “the norm” by which society is constructed. Nor should we do anything to embrace it as normal.

To gays, I would say, “you are here, and you are different. We will not persecute you for being different, but, in return, you must not flaunt those differences in our faces, nor claim that what you are and what you do is ‘normal’ vis-a-vis the social constructs and mores of heterosexuality. Don’t try to rub our noses in your gayness, keep it amongst yourselves, and we’ll take a ‘live and let live’ approach towards you.”

“In short, we won’t deny you love, so long as that love dare not speak its name....”

Well said, I couldn’t agree more.

And in fact homosexual behavior has been found in other species besides human beings, which supports your theory.

When I look around and I see a man who, since a boy has behaved like a female, or I see a strongly masculine woman walking down the street, it makes me realize there is a huge natural spectrum of sexuality.

As a conservative, I believe it’s none of my business what others do with their lives. Whether homosexuality is nature (which I tend to believe) or psychological impairment doesn’t matter. These are free people and as long as they are not committing crime I think we should just live and let live. And I understand that it repulses some people, and that’s natural too.

I am straight. I cannot speak for what others’ orientations are, or what causes them. I CAN say that I have inclinations that, if given free rein, would land me in jail or in the hospital. Sometimes I like other people’s possessions, but it wrong to take them. Often I like the look of attractive women (in addition to my wife), but if I tried to “partake” that would be wrong. I don’t do that.

I have disclosed these admissions, but I didn’t have to. Neither do gay people. They can keep these desires to themselves, or can be discreet about their disclosure. No one has to know. Forgive the stereotypes, but lesbians don’t HAVE to wear flannel, and gay men don’t have to love show tunes. (Yes, I know these are not universal characteristics, that isn’t really the point.)

The point is, keep it to yourself. Live your life however you feel you must, but if you want to avoid critiques from others, there’s no need to let on.

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