Throughout the course of a lifetime, a person makes a countless number of decisions. We choose who we want to be when we grow up, where to go to school, where to live. There are many personal concepts we cannot control, however, some of which being skin color and intelligence. One of these personal concepts that is often debated is homosexuality. Because homosexuality usually reveals itself later in a person’s life and because of the pressure to be straight, much of society believes homosexuality is a choice. However, there is collective evidence that this is not the case. After observing the scientific factors, it becomes increasingly clear that homosexuals are born with the sexual orientation they identify with.
According to Sigmund Freud, gay men are the way they are because their father left the family and their mother was overbearing, while gay women consider themselves castrated and express their anger by taking a female as their sexual object. Obviously, this theory is altogether ridiculous. There are many gay men who have grown up with both their mother and father, and the Freud’s theory on lesbians is nowhere near logical. The reason that there is no way of pinpointing the exact social and emotional situation that creates a homosexual is because a person is gay the second they are born.
Many people, will argue that homosexuality is unnatural. This isn’t necessarily true; even though most of the animals on earth are straight, there are many species that show homosexual behavior. According to an informative internet video entitled “Being Gay Is NOT A Choice,” scientists have seen gay relationships in “zebras, baboons, dolphins, sheep, buffalo, ducks, foxes, elephants, horses, gorillas, moose, house cats, pigs, mice, rabbits, swans and lions to name a few.”-1. It is clear that, in fact, homosexuality occurs quite often in nature.
The most recent scientific evidence has to do with genes and hormones. One of these studies focuses on identical twins. This is explored further in the video:
“When one twin is gay, the other twin is also gay 70% of the time, far higher than would occur if genes played no role. In fact, this study showed that genes play a greater role in determining sexual orientation than they do in whether or not a person is right or left handed.”-1
Another argument made against the possibility that people are born homosexual is the creation of ex-gay ministries. Some homosexuals, after being tormented and ridiculed, will visit an ex-gay ministry to “find Christ” and become straight. In the video, it states:
“However, even these places don’t claim to change a person’s inner-sexual desires, just his or her sexual conduct. If these ministries really worked then why don’t they all use the same technique? Why does each ministry experiment in its own way? Furthermore, many members and leaders have recanted earlier claims that they were changed.”-1.
In the end, the men and women returning from ex-gay minitries have not been made straight, they’ve just been taught how to hide something that isn’t wrong with them in the first place.
We all have choices to make, and our sexual orientation is not one of them. One of the upsetting facts about this is that there are many gay people who wish they could have chosen otherwise, just to escape the torment and ridicule. If anyone has any doubt, it may be important to point out, as it says in the internet film:
“The American Medical Association, The American Psychiatric Association, The American Psychological Association, The American Psychoanalytic Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, and The National Association of Social Workers have all stated that homosexuality should not be treated as a mental disorder, that they oppose attempts at reparative or conversion therapy, and that homosexuality is not a choice and cannot be changed.”-1
Works Cited
1. Being Gay Is NOT A Choice [video]. (2010). Retrieved December 12, 201, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-4WSgiiYR8
