Being gay is a fetish.

[Esquilax]

Adding or dropping a team as an adult sounds like making a choice to me.

But you have to acknowledge that that choice is a fundamentally different one from altering your preference for either team; you can, after all, report as straight for years, even be married that way, before finally coming out of the closet due to being unable to hack the pressure. In that case you've technically changed teams, but your underlying preferences haven't changed at all, which is the point I was making.

Any studies along those lines that I've seen stop well short of saying they prove that sexuality is set at a young age. Links would be helpful.

I wouldn't say we've "proved" any part of this, or that we have enough available information to do so, since as a field of study it's relatively new that we're even talking about this; this is one more reason why it's ridiculous to start limiting people's rights at the moment. But the idea that orientation is a conscious choice that you make is patently absurd and directly refuted by the lived experiences of many of us; even you were unable to provide details of the moment you supposedly chose to be straight, and in fact, your argument relies on directly gainsaying the perspectives of other people, which I don't know why you'd think that's okay. If your position relies upon asserting that you know more about what other people think than they do, it is a presumptuous and flawed position; the absolute best you could say is that orientation was a choice for you, which is hardly a binding pronouncement on everyone else, especially since we can pretty well establish that sexuality is a sliding scale. You say you've gotten to choose, other people say they did not; your assertion does not take precedence. At best you've now identified two categories, one of which may only contain you.

[Heywood]

Sexuality is NOT like cultivating your flavor palate. I've never heard such bullshit.

The question is whether or not sexual orientation is innate.   Its an open question of science and the fact that you've "never heard such bullshit" doesn't suggest that is not true.  The fact that you've "never heard such bullshit" only suggests you're not well read.

---

So you're saying repressing one's sexuality and lead a miserable life is the way to go. I bet you never met a gay person in your whole life, cause if you did, you might have just talked to them instead of letting your ass do the talking about things you clearly don't understand and don't want to understand.

I've hired lots of gays to work for me.  I hired this one gay guy and he kept recommending different people to me who I went on to hire. It wasn't long before I had a buttload of gays working for me.

Now lets go on to what I am saying.  A lot of people would accept these premises.

Premise 1: Homosexual behavior is unnatural and immoral.
Premise 2: Gays choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
Conclusion: Gays make a willful choice to engage in immoral behavior.

So when someone says, "Being gay is a choice" they probably do not mean, "being attracted to the same sex is a choice".  What they probably mean is being gay means you have chosen to engage in immoral behavior.  The same people who claim being gay is a choice would probably also conclude that being a fornicator is a choice.

[thesummerqueen]

That's not what was being described, and you know it.

[abaris]

Now lets go on to what I am saying.  A lot of people would accept these premises.

Premise 1: Homosexual behavior is unnatural and immoral.
Premise 2: Gays choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
Conclusion: Gays make a willful choice to engage in immoral behavior.

A lot of bigots would accept these premises. A lot of people keep out of other people's bedrooms and don't give a damn about what's happening there. Nosing into other people's sexual behavior is quite telling in itself. None of anybodys business what you're doing there, none of anybodys business what anybody is doing there, as long as it's between consenting adults.

[Esquilax]

Now lets go on to what I am saying.  A lot of people would accept these premises.

Premise 1: Homosexual behavior is unnatural and immoral.
Premise 2: Gays choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
Conclusion: Gays make a willful choice to engage in immoral behavior.

So when someone says, "Being gay is a choice" they probably do not mean, "being attracted to the same sex is a choice".  What they probably mean is being gay means you have chosen to engage in immoral behavior.  The same people who claim being gay is a choice would probably also conclude that being a fornicator is a choice.

Try demonstrating premise one before you spin off on just assuming it's true... but then, we all know you can't.

[LostLocke]

Premise 1: Homosexual behavior is unnatural and immoral.
Premise 2: Gays choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
Conclusion: Gays make a willful choice to engage in immoral behavior.

I accept premise 2.
But for premise 1, it's not "unnatural". This has already been demonstrated.
For those of us who don't follow arcane, vague, random rules, it's not immoral either.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Now lets go on to what I am saying.  A lot of people would accept these premises.

Premise 1: Homosexual behavior is unnatural and immoral.
Premise 2: Gays choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
Conclusion: Gays make a willful choice to engage in immoral behavior.

A lot of bigots would accept these premises. A lot of people keep out of other people's bedrooms and don't give a damn about what's happening there. Nosing into other people's sexual behavior is quite telling in itself. None of anybodys business what you're doing there, none of anybodys business what anybody is doing there, as long as it's between consenting adults.

The god squad just can't help themselves though. They have a perverse fasciation with stuff with homosexuality. Wonder how many of them are in the closet?

Goes without saying that the above is BS

[robvalue]

I've heard "unnatural" quite a few times before from lots of theists, so I thought I'd write my thoughts on that.

It's a terrible defence, but particularly so from anyone who believes in an interacting God.

If God is fucking around and changing stuff all the time, and indeed making decisions about what people are like when they are born, then nothing about sexuality is natural. The word makes no sense for this belief system.

If it's some attempt to try and appeal to actual nature, that's rather bogus because it's now somehow become a godless world, but even so lots of other animals have homosexuality, and it's plenty natural.

In fact, for homosexuality to be "unnatural" that means it must be the result of supernatural intervention. So either God did it, or else he watched while some other naughty deity did something and refuses to stop them or correct it because "fruit".

Any way you slice it, it's one of the worst attempts to rationalize homophobia. Let's face it, what they really mean is "different from me".

[Heywood]

Premise 1: Homosexual behavior is unnatural and immoral.
Premise 2: Gays choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
Conclusion: Gays make a willful choice to engage in immoral behavior.

I accept premise 2.
But for premise 1, it's not "unnatural". This has already been demonstrated.
For those of us who don't follow arcane, vague, random rules, it's not immoral either.

First lets define natural.  There are two ways it is used in this debate.  The pro gay crowd defines natural as "occurs in nature".  The anti-gay crowd defines natural as "the usual and ordinary course of nature".  Very different meanings and each is equally valid.

Now you don't refute the anti gay argument by using a different definition of natural then they are using.  Using a different definition than they are using is refuting a straw man argument.  When the anti gay crowd calls homosexuality unnatural they mean homosexuality isn't the usual and ordinary course of nature.  

---

That's not what was being described, and you know it.

We don't know what causes homosexuality.  It can be something acquired.....like a flavor palate.

[One Above All]

Now you don't refute the anti gay argument by using a different definition of natural then they are using.  Using a different definition than they are using is refuting a straw man argument.  When the anti gay crowd calls homosexuality unnatural they mean homosexuality isn't the usual and ordinary course of nature.

Define "usual" and "ordinary".