Is Being Gay A Choice?
by Jeffrey Price

This article is in response and in coherence with an article written in 2004 for advocate.com titled "Do we choose to be gay?"

Recently I have been watching many videos and discussing many issues with regards to whether being gay is a choice and whether gay people should be proud. This is a very sensitive subject which I am aware can shock and offend a lot of people, however what has brought me to write this is actually a disgust of what people have been taught and want to believe. In a word I find it to be ignorance.

It is very easy to say that being gay is wrong. Most discriminates normally quote from the Bible. In Leviticus it is described as an "abomination" it is unnatural, it is against what God had intended. Believing this view some discriminates can take it to an extreme. They believe they can freely judge and discriminate against gay people by arguing they have actively chosen to go against God? will by making a decision to like the same sex. Some religious groups have gone out of their way to establish programs by which they mean to re-educate gay people and "heal" them to allow them to become heterosexual. I recently asked some Christians would it matter if Jesus was gay and recently saw a video on youtube also asking this same question. The response I got was that it would matter because Jesus is perfect. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone was sinless, "natural" and perfect?

By writing this article I am making a plea for people who do discriminate against gay people to start to rethink their views of what they believe. I am going to ask any Christians who believe that being gay is wrong to step outside of the Bible and to address this topic by listening to me as a person, a former Christian who has evaluated their belief and is on their own spiritual journey to find truth. It is fine if the Bible says being gay is wrong but whether you choose to be indoctrinated by this claim is another matter entirely.

Leviticus is not the only place in the Bible condemning the act of homosexuality, however as it is the source that most discriminates use against gay people, I wish to highlight that this book also tells us if people commit adultery or if a father lies with his daughter-in-law they must be stoned and put to death. The Bible is preached as a universal text that we can apply to our every day lives. Leviticus interprets that God commands his people to judge and kill others for their sin. Technically they must enact this judgment or they will be in sin since it is God's will. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is not here to over turn God's previous laws. In fact says he is to say that they must be followed.

After looking at this text and the grounds of belief against homosexuality the question I pose is what makes anyone think that they have the right to judge another? For people turn to God and other religions knowing that they have or are doing wrong and wished to be healed for it. If God is the judge then leave gay people to God. Do not condemn them when you are in no position to pass such judgment. Also a question I would pose to discriminate Christians, if a gay person was to respond to you; "Ok, I will not be gay because you are telling me not to be", does this actually bring them any closer to God or Jesus?

If I was to ask anyone "would you choose to be gay?" The most immediate response I could imagine any gay person saying is that it is not a choice. But that is not what I am asking I am asking 'would you choose to be gay?' This is not the same as asking "Is being gay a choice?" If it were a choice then we can rush the conclusion that because of prejudice most wouldn't choose it.

Scientists have come to the conclusion in recent years that sexual preference is biologically related. Quoting Jordan Roth; "The research shows that an identical twin of a gay person is twice as likely to be gay as a fraternal twin, that the brain anatomy of a gay man is measurably different from that of a straight man, that lesbians have finger lengths and blink reflexes that are more similar to those of men than of women, and that a man is more likely to be gay the more older brothers he has because of readjusted hormonal balances in his mother's womb."

In nature homosexual behaviour has been observed in over 1,000 species and has been well documented in 400. Watch National Geographic and you will know I am not misinformed. In nature homosexuality is not something that animals are hostile towards in fact in some species homosexuality is shown dominantly in animals of status. For example; who knew the lion lived a double life?

Conclusively being gay is not a choice nor is it unnatural. If you are heterosexual and you do not understand how homosexuals feel, it might just so happen to be the case that homosexuals do not understand you. I personally find it difficult how to grasp what bisexuals feel. However I do not believe that their sexual preference is not as natural as anyone else's. Since scientific studies do point to the fact that homosexuality IS significantly determined by biological make-up, a question I now wish to pose is what does this leave the gay community to be proud of?

From experience homosexuality is not a choice- but living as a gay man or gay woman is. By saying that to be gay is only to have the sexual preference of a person of the same sex is stating that being gay is only a matter of being homosexual. Being gay is more than this. It is a culture, a community, a place, an identity. Despite people are born homosexual they choose to be gay. Gay people struggle from day to day making sacrifices and try to establish themselves "fundamentally and necessarily as gay" (Jordan Roth).

This choice is very difficult especially when there are influences in a person's life telling them to be straight. However openly gay people have not chosen to go against their desires, they have not given into the years of taunting, the years of discrimination, the years of suppression but instead have chosen a choice that they should be proud of.

Anybody who believes there is one way to live a gay life (commonly known as stereotyping) is badly misinformed. People can be gay and live in isolation, people can be promiscuous and some people can just live life as it comes and create their own identity with their own individual set of beliefs. As Jordan Roth states; "A gay person who has sex very infrequently if at all is still gay and living a gay life. Rather, this is about a gay identity, which is fundamentally based on finding comfort, love, kinship, beauty, and yes, sex, in people of the same sex. This is about the choices we make and the way we choose to build our lives based on that comfort, love, kinship, beauty, and sex; that we choose to make those things intrinsic and essential to who we are and how we live, not simply incidental. This is about the way we choose to live our lives: as gay people."

When I talk to my friends about gay people some say they prefer to hang around with people who do not throw their sexuality in their face. Some do not understand why gay people find the need to have a parade every year.

If we think about this logically; if there are people screaming for blood for generations at the fact that people had huge eyebrows and this was seen to be sick and immoral. As a result people would probably be trying to force me into programs to make me change for the "better". I'm pretty sure as a result I too would personally march in an annual eyebrow parade to honour my slugs! There are a lot of people out there today who openly wish to discriminate and try indoctrinating gay people to "heal" whatever is the source of their gayness. I have met people who actively practice this.

After reading Jordan Roth's paper on 'Do we choose to be gay?' I could not help but think of some of my friends that have just come out, some people who have been out for years but never had pride, and people who are not too sure whether to come out.

If you have come out you have made a choice. You have chosen not to live in "denial and deception" You are in the struggle against "self-doubt" and "self-destruction". You have chosen not to live in the shadows and become hollow due to suppressing your natural desires. Your sexual preference has not been chosen in fact sometimes even your behaviour is not chosen, but establishing a life as a gay man or woman based on these preferences and creating a life of "nurture and celebration" of your natural desires, this is what you have chosen. I am very proud of all of you.

For those of you who do not know already, I am gay and I am damn proud of who I am. I am proud of all my friends who have just come out, proud of those who have been out and those people who throughout history have given me strength and have influenced my choices. To those people who say to me that I can change, I can be straight, I can be "healed" I can aspire to be what you define to be "perfect". I say that you are wrong. I cannot be changed because I have no choice in being homosexual and I cannot be changed because I have chosen to live. Quite simply because I refuse to go back into the closet, I refuse to deny myself happiness in this life and I refuse to accept the idea that homosexuality is sick. To my gay friends do not turn your back on the lives we all create together. "We are creating an opening for a society of choice" do not deny your identity you are all amazing. In the words of Jordan Roth; "We will not change because we do not want to and we are that strong."

The fact that I choose not to be straight because I choose not to hide my desires (which are natural to me) provides no grounds for discrimination. Religion is not beyond our control, it is not innate and we can choose to accept religion or abandon it. People choose one religious sector over another out of personal faith. At the end of the day the reason why it is known as faith is because it is impossible to be certain. The fact a person chooses one religious doctrine over another does not provide grounds for discrimination and neither should my choice to live a gay life.

So do we have a choice? Yes, but not in sexual preference. Should we be proud? Damn right we should and we should not deny this to ourselves either. To conclude here I wish to finish quoting directly from "Do we choose to be gay?" before I do I hope if you read this you will have a greater understanding of homosexuality and of those people who wish to lead a life free from discrimination for embracing something that they can not and should not change;

We have a choice. We have chosen: life, this life, more life. And we will defend that choice and our right to make it with all that is strong and true and brave within us. We are warriors of spirit. We will smash the straightening machines simply by living, by choosing our lives. By reaching out for our lover's hand as we cross the street, by finding comfort, love, kinship, beauty, and sex with one another, and yes, by marching the parade route of Pride every year - not as acts of necessity or defiance but as acts of choice. And we will not rob ourselves of the pride we feel - the pride we have earned - at having made this choice by claiming it was never our choice to begin with.

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