"Homosexuality is a choice" and its paradox

[genkaus]

Perhaps my examples mislead you from the substance of my post. I made distinctions between sexual practices, gender identity, and biological facts.

You either have the XX or the XY chromosome to make you male or female. Sex cannot be altered in actually, although the body can be modified so as to give the appearance of the opposite sex.

Sexual practices are activities voluntarily engaged in to satisfy appetites. These can include traditionally accepted normative practices like kissing, petting and coitus or they can move into various perversions like oral sex, anal intercourse, role-playing, "watersports", sadomasochism. Sexual practices are chosen.

Evangelicals categorize homosexuality as a sexual practice. Gay activists treat it as a biological fact and, as such, consider it a part of their natural being. I question both positions.

Gender identity seems to sit somewhere between your fixed biology and your self-selected behaviours at the intersection between cultural norms, social constructs, personality, and genetic disposition.

For example, transgendered people experience a dramatic mis-match between their biological sex, which is fixed, and their gender identity that, to a large extent, makes reference to stereotypes of "maleness" and "femaleness". Both homosexuality and heterosexuality are considered gender identities because they mix objective traits and subjective experiences. That mix is a presumably genetic predisposition (objective) to have certain (subjective) emotional responses.

Everyone agrees that some people handle anger better than others and some are inclined to depression. And most people agree that the normal range for acting on those emotions is based on cultural factors. For grief, temporary social withdrawal following the the loss of a spouse or child is accepted. Suicide after the death of a pet is not. For anger, taking legal action after being defrauded is a normal response. Road rage resulting in violence is not. Sexual arousal is just one among many emotional responses. On what basis do you elevate sexual arousal to an essential part of your personal being and not so other emotions?

In short, gender identity cannot be reduced to a either normative behaviour or biology. It's much more complicated than either gay activists or evangelicals would like to admit.

Your comparison with other emotional inclinations hits closer to the mark than you probably realize. The distinction between inclination and behavior is not a new one. But if you are looking at homosexuality from this point of view, the question of the "inclination" being a choice becomes irrelevant.

The evangelist - or rather, the conservative view is pretty simplistic. They regard a set of inclinations as "natural", usually the inclinations that lie within the normal paradigm. These are regarded as automatic and therefore not a choice. Therefore, anything outside this paradigm is obviously not natural and must be a choice. As long as it cannot be conclusively shown that it is not a choice, they'd continue to regard it as such. And this is not unique to the Christian community. Consider the different class-systems prevalent throughout history - whether it was the feudal system or Europe, caste system of India or slavery. The assumption was that there is a natural distinction of classes by which some people are automatically born better or higher than others and the lower classes were automatically more suited for menial jobs while the higher classes were suited for intellectual pursuits and any aspirations beyond their station were regarded as unnatural and choice-based. While the conservatives now see the error of that manner of thinking, they still apply the same logic when judging homosexual or transsexual inclinations.

Only when it is made abundantly clear to them that the inclination itself is not a choice that they shift their argument and start arguing that acting on those inclinations is still a choice and that should be disallowed. Since regarding the inclination as a choice is one of the major arguments used by evangelists, obviously the gay rights faction would attack that position and they can do so while simultaneously admitting that the whole issue is more complicated than the question of choice.

Having said that, let's turn to the crux of your argument. As you say, the emotional inclination towards something is usually not a choice, while acting on it is. For example, we may be able to determine the biological causes for specific inclinations, such as anger, depression, sexual attraction and gender identity. You question was why should we elevate sexual attraction/gender identity to such a level that it becomes a part of your personal being?

The answer is simple - because society makes a big deal out of it. The society's insistence on demonizing certain inclinations and condemning the behavior based on them is what causes it become a significant part of a person's identity. The action of trying to suppress it has the reaction of raising its significance. If the society were of the opinion that blondes should be sexually attracted to blondes and brunettes to brunettes, then you can be damn sure that being a blond who loves brunette would become a big part of that person's identity and that we'd be having debates and protests for and against hetero-hair-sexuals.

As I was writing this, a curious idea came to me. I image that gay activists would favor evangelicals revising their beliefs about homosexuality. Since most gay activists are politically liberal and presumably pro-choice, I wonder how they would react if evangelicals revised their stance on abortion instead and advocated killing fetuses with the "gay gene".

I assume that their reaction would be the same as society's reaction towards sex-selection. While a woman should be allowed choose, sex-selection (orientation-selection) is a symptom of a supervening social evil which must be eradicated. This selection perpetrates the idea that women (gays) are inherently inferior to men (straights) and could easily result in their oppression and deprived status. Therefore, despite being broadly for the woman's right to choose, sex-selection (orientation-selection) should still be disallowed because of the greater societal health being at stake.

---

If you can 'choose' said preferences, then to be consistent there'd have to be other preferences which, under this proposition, would also have to have been chosen. But that gets you nowhere fast.

Not quite. Just because certain preferences can be chosen does not mean all preferences have to be chosen. Your preference can be biologically innate, it can be cultivated by nurture, it can be subconsciously cultivated or it can be consciously cultivated based on rational choice.

If it is a preference as I think - and thus innate - that makes it an essential part of one's being. It has to do with what is considered in most cultures to be the most intimate act for humans. However, the difference between sexual arousal and other emotions is that with those other emotions, taking them to the extreme tends to put other lives at risk (i.e your road rage example). Would you classify homosexuality as the sexual equivalent of extremity? Because unlike with those other emotions, it doesn't tend to put others at great physical harm done safely.

You are wrong on few counts.

Just because a preference is innate, it still wouldn't make it an essential part of your being. For example, I prefer chocolate over vanilla - chocolate-eater is not regarded as part of my identity.

Similarly, sexuality being an intimate act has little to do with it as well. My sexual tastes run to a bit kinkier side and yet, that is not a essential part of my identity.

Also, I think you missed Chad's point when he compared homosexuality to other forms of emotional responses. The point is that in today's society being gay is regarded as a significant aspect of one's personal identity. A person identifies himself as gay without regarding other emotional responses with the same degree of significance. He wouldn't identify himself as "blond-lover" or "grieving" or "angry". He would regard these as incidental emotional response not essential to his identity and yet being gay is. My response is that it becomes essential because society makes it essential - the same way it makes "being black" essential or it used to make "being of high-birth" essential.