Got your attention? Well, after reading this, you won't be either!
Staring out using the words of a famous South Carolina teen beauty queen, I personally believe that U.S. Americans have the freedom to be who they are, and that someone's sexuality isn't a CHOICE.
It sounds almost silly to write those words, and most of you reading this are in my "camp", so to speak. There are people out there today who still believe that one night, I went to bed a heterosexual, and then after a restless night of dreaming, woke up, popped out of bed, and just decided to try the gay thing on ... I guess because I longed to be fabulous?
Case in point:
The Right continues to believe that people make "decisions" about their sexuality, and keep pounding the point home in speech, after speech, after website, mailing after mailing, Klan rally after Klan rally. I used to think that it had to do with their fear of difference, and that by labeling us as a "choice", it made it easier for them to deal with us.
Can't you hear their thinking? "After all, if you can "choose" to be gay, then you can "choose" to be straight and return to the fold. And then I don't have to fixate on all of those nasty things you do in bed anymore." Like I spend anytime worrying about what Dubya or Cheney do in their beds .... yuck.
Anyway, I've been doing some reading as of late (reading, always a dangerous thing in America nowadays), reading up on some foundations of Constitutional law, and now I have a new theory as to why the Right insists that I can change my sexuality like I can change my dirty socks after I run (which I mostly do).
Here's the beef:
It's all about the law.
You see, in America, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution offers "equal protection of the laws'. This clause contains two parts, sort of a test, to decide whether or not a law is discriminatory.
First, the law or action must be against someone's "immutable" trait. An immutable trait is a trait that is cannot be changed, such as race, nationality, or gender. It makes common sense, no? It is unfair to pass laws that penalize people for things they cannot change.
The second requirement has to do with people being "similarly situated", meaning that everyone is in the same position relative to one another. In the book I'm reading, the author uses a golf tournament to explain; the people in the tournament all of an equal shot at winning at the start of the game.
So, the equal protection clause states it is unconstitutional to treat people who are similarly situated in a different manner, based on an immutable trait. The Supreme Court has invented different tests to "scrutinize" laws, but I won't go into that here. My new dawning of understanding comes with the first part of this Equal Protection test: immutable traits.
If, by any chance, that my sexual orientation becomes an immutable trait (as I believe it is), then we start building our credibility as a protected group, and thus, we can be protected by the Constitution. And that scares the Bible verses out of the Religious Right. Better they simply keep proclaiming "It's a choice! It's a choice!" so that never happens.
Which is ironic in a way. The Right so doesn't believe that a woman can make a choice about their own body, yet they do believe that I can make a choice about my sexuality? There is some odd obsession here with choices. Maybe they just don't trust in people enough to make the right ones (or the Right ones) that fit their world view.
As of 2007, in a CNN poll, 56% of Americans now believe that I was born the way I was, which isn't stellar, but an important from the 1970's when it was about 20%. Until it gets to 80% (the remaining 20% are George Bush lovers and continue to debate whether or not photosynthesis exists), I'll continue to wake up in the morning, go to my closet, and "choose" if I'm going to try on my gay today.
And I always do. :)
Also, as an aside, I have to personally thank Kos for being so upfront and public about his support for those of us in the LGBT community on his blog. It's meant the world to me.