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| You cannot save the galaxy until we cuddle, commander |
STOP!
Right now.
Stop fueling up the engine of anger on the jet of vigilant truth and gearing up your usual suspects of bible-thumper thwarting one liners and zingers.
Good. Now let's lay this out shall we?
In brief, I do believe homosexuality is a choice an individual makes. No, I don't remember the day I chose to be straight, but I still chose it and continue to choose it every day. Free will folks, it's a bitch. Let's explore the possible options:
1) Homosexuality/Heterosexuality is a social choice that a person makes.
2) It is an inherent trait that you are born with and cannot control.
Let's first explain why I think the latter is bunk. If this is a genetic issue, that is to say there's some "gay" gene that makes you decide to not be attracted to the opposite sex then let's get this gasp-inducer out here now: From a purely scientific standpoint, this would be an abnormality. A mutant gene, or something that in following evolution would be a negative trait. If a species is trying to procreate and survive, a genetic mutation that causes an individual to not want to be sexually active with the opposite gender would be a deterrent to survival. So since it is an abnormality, a mutation if you will, wouldn't a cure or treatment be something we should strive for? I realize how brazen that may seem, but that is precisely part of my reasoning of why that simply cannot be the case. If this was a genetic "decision" made on our behalf, it would be like any other "abnormality" and certainly someone born with this abnormality should receive medical treatment as any other abnormality. If you could determine a "depression" gene that was going to cause your child to grow up with severe depression you would want to treat it, right?
So I've given some reasoning for why it is not a genetic mutation/disease, but what makes it so clearly a choice? If I didn't choose to be straight, then I didn't choose to like redheads. I didn't choose to be cynical, I didn't choose to do basically anything. Let's brush up on some determinism.
I've never been a big fan of hard determinism. The concept that everything we do is pre-determined by some cosmic "umph" that kicked everything into gear and set all of the cogs in motion. Though it has compelling (and frustratingly difficult to disprove) arguments, hard determinism goes against every reason for living. If it is all predetermined, why even bother to care? There are those that go so far (Popper) as to be outraged by the idea of prisons because those poor people had no ability to control their destiny of being criminals. I feel that if for no other reason than to justify human existence and thought that we have to reject this level of determinism. That being the case, how can we argue that something as personal and intimate as the people we are sexually attracted to is out of our hands?
Where do we draw that line? If a person "cannot choose" what they are attracted to, why do we have bestiality laws? Child sex laws? Consent? BS, consent is an arbitrary age that we decided a person becomes an adult, in reality every generation gets "mature" younger. In ancient times there was nothing wrong with having a 12 year old spouse, anyone against this natural attraction is nothing but a bigot, right? Every psychology I've ever heard drum up sympathy for child abusers claims they typically come from an abusive past themselves. Why is this so readily chalked up to childhood abuse, but try that same logic with a gay man that grew up with a father that left at an early age, or was touched by a relative, etc and all of a sudden it is offensive and bigotry?
I subscribe to a concept of "Diminishing Free Will." In brief, we begin life with a blank slate, we are given impulses, ideas, and patterns from the world. Parents obviously play a huge role in what we become, how can this be debated? We are individuals but we get our blueprints to adulthood by the role our parents and other influences have on us. We never know what seemingly minor event changes a person forever. Did you know that I have a friend that gets utterly repulsed at the idea of chewing gum? Did you know that when I was in 3rd grade my teacher had me tell her a new joke every day because it was how she got me to interact with the class and be less afraid of speaking? Some of you may know I was a fairly bright kid that got into a lot of advanced classes, but did you know it was in part because my grandfather would sit down with me and have me read the encyclopedia for 2 hours every day when I wasn't even in school yet? There are major influences in our life that sometimes are easy to correlate. Sometimes, not so much. Why am I overweight? It's because I eat too much sure, but it's also because I lead a fairly sedentary lifestyle but why do I do that? Well because as a kid I was every bit of 5 foot nothing until basically my senior year of high school, so I was always a runt and even though I loved sports, competing with kids my age became near impossible so I began to get more involved with video games and computers, they tend not to hold the ball over your head and laugh....We all have little chains of events that make up who we are. I can put a positive spin or a negative spin on any of them, many of them I don't even know or realize, some if pointed out to me might, for whatever reason, offend me and cause me to lash out and deny, but it may still be true...or not. But these are the forces that shape who we choose to become. Did we choose to go work extra hard at being the best 5 foot tall basketball player we could be, did we call it quits and give up, or did we simply realize our limitations and choose another path? Any of these answers fit a different person, and help to define the person that we are and that we will become.
For all of this talk, the following is the most important concept to remember:
Ready?
NOTHING IS WRONG WITH THIS CHOICE. Just because I think it is a choice doesn't mean it's a bad choice or something to be frowned upon. I don't want a completely obnoxiously "flaming" individual to wear their sexuality on their sleeve and remind me every 4 seconds they are gay. I don't think that's being a bigot, if my straight friends ran around wearing a big emblem of heterosexuality and couldn't go 4 seconds without going "Boy I tell ya, i sure do love vagina" that conversation would get tiring quickly. That exception aside, I don't give a damn about your sexuality. Can you just shut up about it when it is inappropriate to discuss? Without attempting to "out" anyone or anything, just using my own facebook friends as an example I have several known gay friends. One I get along with and chat with on a semi-regular basis, the rest are hidden. The ones that are hidden are hidden because literally a day would not go by without some mention of their sexuality. Attention whores come in all shapes, sizes, and sexual preferences, and I don't want them in my life.
So should gays be allowed to marry? Absolutely.
Should gays be allowed to have rights to share benefits like heterosexual couples? Absolutely* (In the grand scheme of things I have issues with having to have a spouse to utilize this at all, it punishes those that choose to not participate in religious tradition of marriage, but as long as we're gonna have that system, it should allow ANY couple, not just straight ones)
Should a gay man have every right a straight man has? Absolutely, his personal choices in the bedroom should not affect this.
From what I've seen there is little proof or evidence that this "gay gene" is out there. This is an alternate theory for how something comes to be. Debatable? It is 100% debatable, but it's not "insulting" and it is not like trying to argue the earth is still flat, there's just as much evidence in psychology/medical science for my theory as there is for the "no choice" theory.
Teaching tolerance and acceptance should be about respecting the choices people make, not about begrudgingly accepting something because it was pre-determined.
As a final note in a more practical sense: We have to learn to respect the challenges of integrating homosexuality fairness into various situations. Let us never forget that one thing that is inherent in humanity as a whole (not the individual) is that we are greedy, sneaky, and we love to abuse things.
Your thought experiment/assignment for the day
The bathroom:
A men's and women's bathroom at an office or place of business is common practice. Which one does the homosexual need to use? The reason we separate these bathrooms is for the sake of privacy and it is divided between men and women for reasons that I really don't think I need to explain here. So if a genuinely gay man needs to use the bathroom, why shouldn't he use the women's room? Which obviously would be embarrassing for the guy since it is called the "women's" bathroom, but quirkiness of the example aside, what should we really do? If he is genuinely attracted to other men, I would feel uncomfortable using a urinal beside them the same as a lady would feel uncomfortable with me sharing the stall beside of her. So should they be "People who like vaginas" and "People who like penises" restrooms? What is the actual fair solution to this? A gay man is no less a "man" but take the semantics from it and what possible reason should he use the men's facilities? A gay woman isn't going to slide up to the urinal, but should she be in a private personal environment with people of the sex she is attracted to when they are in such vulnerable positions? Why should we not react with the same righteous indignity we would respond with if you saw me (a straight man) following a lady into the women's restroom?
So with that all being said, now how do you tackle the people who will say they are gay just to be able to go into the women's restroom?
Not every problem is cut and dry, it's not always that there is a "gays only" fountain to drink from...sometimes there are major and genuinely difficult concerns with integrating homosexuality as an "accepted" choice. The answers are not easy, and we as a society need to begin handling these decisions with maturity and rationality instead of raw emotion and back and forth attacks...
I'm sure we'll get on that as a culture right after we colonize the 8th galaxy of the galactic republic.
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