Do gays have a choice? by Ian Boyne

Originally published November 15, 2009

Ian Boyne

It's nigh impossible to conduct a cold, rational, dispassionate discourse on homosexuality. It's not just the religious fundamentalists who seem hardwired for irrationality and emotionalism. Many homosexuals are also irredeemably intolerant, glandular and visceral, with scant respect for the canons of reason.

They have also taken to manipulating science in their propaganda war, making unsubstantiated claims which they pass off as gospel. They have been very successful as evidenced by the fact that a number of persons have softened their opposition to homosexuality, claiming matter-of-factly that 'homosexuals don't have a choice. They are born that way.' Now let's be clinical about this matter of choice.

I would grant that most homosexuals did not choose their sexuality the way they choose their careers, neighbourhoods and foods. They didn't decide that, "Hey, I think I want to be attracted to someone of my own gender rather than the opposite sex". And how many would do such a suicidal thing in a place like Jamaica?

As a boy, I did not choose to be attracted to girls. I found myself that way. Acknowledging that people don't 'choose' their orientation, however, is not the same as asserting that sexual orientation is purely genetic. (Some people, like most bisexuals, do choose, reflecting what Dr Norman Doidge calls "the plasticity of sexual desire" in his book The Brain That Changes Itself.)

It is now repeated as established scientific fact that people are born either gay or straight. Religious people and others who oppose homosexuality are derided as not just dangerous bigots and haters, but hopelessly ignorant. It's accepted mantra in the United States (US) National and Gay and Lesbian Task Force that gays don't really have a choice and, therefore, those who oppose homosexuality are oppressors, fools or both.

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