beckycochrane.com

It seems every week I read or hear about a new article/study/argument over whether people are born gay or become gay. And I’ve heard all the reasons for why this is so important to figure out, ranging from the answer becoming a basis for tolerance, to passion for unlocking the mysteries of science, but damn, really, I don’t care why. As Jim likes to say, “It is what it is.”

Should people be tolerated, accepted, or treated as equal only because of characteristics they “can’t help,” like being gay is some kind of pitiable genetic rarity? Will we stop unjustly accusing gay people of “recruiting” only when we find out people are born gay? Will we stop these ridiculous and often harmful efforts to “change” gay people only when we find out they are genetically wired to be as they are?

Or what if genetic predisposition to homosexuality is unprovable or disproved? Are we going to insist that all gay people find some way to change so as not to offend the sensibilities of the bigoted? Are we going to start sending social workers into homes to take children from parents who fulfill the Freudian hypothesis that cold father + overprotective mother = gay son? (And where the hell do lesbian and bisexual children fit into that equation? And single parents? And how is it that the same homes produce both homosexual and heterosexual children?) If gay and lesbian people refuse to stop falling in love and having sex and making homes and having children with one another, are we going to put them in gay prison? Sterilize or lobotomize them? Hang them, like they do in Iran?

Justice, fairness, compassion, tolerance, acceptance–to me, these qualities are not about arbitrary criteria for who receives them, but about offering them unconditionally because it is the right thing to do.