Reframing The 'Gay Choice' Debate

Despite an ongoing recession, two wars and fleeting world power, our nation has recently found itself fascinated by a tired old question: "Is homosexuality a choice?"

Senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett and New York gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino both came under fire last week for saying that homosexuality is a choice. While Jarrett apologized for her remark, Paladino attempted to rectify his mistake by saying he "wasn't sure" whether same-sex love's a choice.

Even President Obama has gotten in on the action, and told an audience at MTV and BET's town hall that he unequivocally believes the biology behind homosexuality: "I don't think it's a choice. I think that people are born with, you know, a certain makeup."

Republican Ken Buck definitely doesn't agree with the President: the Colorado Senate candidate yesterday likened homosexuality to alcoholism. "I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things,” he said on Meet the Press. “But I think that, basically, you have a choice." His campaign later tried to clarify, "[Buck] was just saying there's an element of predisposition there and an element of choice."

It's unclear why this question of gay choice has suddenly become a meme. Since it has, however, I think this is a wonderful opportunity to take this controversy and turn it on its ugly head.

As simple as it may sound, the argument over whether or not homosexuality's a choice fuels a bonfire of "heterocentric" sentiment. Those who oppose equality wrongly assume that gay people "choose" to be gay, and therefore aren't worthy of legal protections or, in many cases, dignity. We bring hate crimes on ourselves by pretending, right? Blame the victim and all that.

The entire debate becomes completely dehumanizing, and the objectification often becomes completely unbearable, as was no doubt the case in a recent series of gay suicides. This objectification, however, can easily be remedied with a little flip of the script.

Back in 2008, when much of the nation celebrated Obama's presidential victory, I asked a dear gay friend whether he was excited, to which he replied, "It's hard to be excited knowing that so much of the nation hates you." He was talking about Proposition 8, the bitter pill so many of us swallowed that Election Day.

Those remarks have echoed in my mind ever since, and sum up the collective agony so many gay people have felt or continue to feel while navigating a world that can seem so hostile.

At the same time, however, it struck me as a shortsighted idea. No one hated him, my friend; they hated the idea of gay marriage. Ah, that's it: the idea.

This collective pain LGBT people feel when told they're making the wrong choice comes from something that doesn't really exist -- it's based on an imaginary concept of gay people, one that's projected onto us and must be shaken off.

Being gay and having lived the lavender dream, I can say with certainty that being gay is a completely natural, biological thing. It's not a choice. Period. And plenty of science backs me up on that one. If one accepts this essential aspect of homosexuality, then the idea that we "choose" to be gay becomes, well, somewhat laughable, and entirely erroneous.

People who dislike or even hate gay people because they think it's a "choice" don't in fact hate you, the gay person. They hate their idea of you, their stereotype. Their "hate," then, is about them, and should be pitied, instead of internalized.

Rather than letting these projections of "choice" and "immorality" dehumanize us, LGBT people should realize that it's not about us at all. We're living our natural lives, and if people want to perpetuate false gay models, we need to be mentally and physically strong enough to stand up and say, "I'm being me, and if you want to obsess over some concept of me, or an idea of me, that's your business," because clearly our opponents need someone to set them straight.

Photo credit: Bioxid's Flickr