Atheism and happiness

Is Homosexuality a Choice? August 15, 2008

Is being gay a choice, or is it hereditary?

I’ve noticed that in the last couple years the overwhelming majority of those around me have given up on this issue. “Who knows,” they say. The truth is, strong opposition to an issue is almost always led by some individual or group with a personal agenda. In this case, that opposition stems from the abrahamic religions.

Let’s get one thing straight immediately: Being gay isn’t a choice. Did you choose to be straight or were you naturally attracted to the opposite sex? Test it yourself: Try to turn gay. If it really is a choice, you can always choose to change back. Really, what husband chooses to destroy his career, hurt his kids and wife, and often even make himself an outcast among his peers? Look at the rich, powerful people in America who have given up everything because they couldn’t suppress parts of themselves any longer just to look ‘normal.’ There isn’t a single shred of evidence that shows homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle.

But homosexuality isn’t hereditary, either. Do the math. The genes wouldn’t carry over to many children for obvious reasons, would they? The social situation we are living in currently wasn’t the case 5,000 years ago.

The solution, then, is that events – and possibly also chemicals – experienced in a person’s life shape what their preferences become. This begins immediately – there are studies that show that even the hormones present in the womb may affect the child later in life. This change occurs over time both consciously and subconsciously, and it cannot be “helped.”

So who would say otherwise? You guessed it – those who want to defend and protect their religion.

If being gay is hereditary or cannot be prevented, then God makes people that way on purpose, and then punishes them for something in which they had no choice. Yahweh creates an ‘abomination’ by his own definition, and then punishes it for being an ‘abomination’. Is this loving? Just? Merciful? Wise?

To get around this, believers in the abrahamic religions will continue to argue that homosexuality is a choice until they have fully lost the social battle and begin to lose conversion rates because of it. Then they will “reinterpret.”