You know how people (well, OK, not people, religious people) say that homosexuality is a choice? I always considered it really stupid argument. So, to me, it's particularly offensive and dangerous when a person who is running to represent us, like the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Colorado, Ken Buck, takes the position that homosexuality is a choice. Adultery (if you believe in such a construct) is a choice. Drinking, as opposed to abstaining, is (to a large degree) a choice. But sex? Really, in the 21st century there are still people who believe that sex is driven by choice?
It's a stupid argument for me, because I never chose to like women. I was attracted to girls since I was a boy and never did it cross my mind that I might, one day, choose to be with men (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course). I think this probably goes for the overwhelming majority of human beings. Truly, if my life depended on it and I had to tell you the day I "chose" to like girls, I'd have to lie and make up a date. Because, in all honesty, that is one answer I don't have to give. I like girls, period.
Really, then, what religious people are asking us to believe is that it would be becoming, for our gay and lesbian (and bisexual) brothers and sisters, to give up their natural (god-given?) sexual orientation to please a god that chose to make them different... to do what exactly? To tease them? To make an example of them. Or, worse, these people really believe that sexual orientation is not a natural feature but a preference.
The way to silence these selfish and dangerous individuals, if they were able to stop and think and shut their gob in humility, would be to ask them to pinpoint, at least to the month and year, the time they choose to like girls and not boys, or viceversa. The usual argument from them, at this point, is that bestiality and pedofilia are also natural, so should we indulge people with such proclivities? That is usually the moment I have to bite my tongue until it bleeds, count to 100, and then say--as politely as possible under the circumstances: "Don't you think that, perhaps, what consenting adult do is different from what an adult imposes on a five year-old? Also, there are some really good laws against Uncle Timmy abusing his little niece Amanda." If that logic does not break trough their concrete brains, then I have to walk away in a hurry because my next instinct would be to punch them. And I am against using force as a mean to show others the errors of their ways.
To add insult to injury, these self-declared Christians and their elected representatives tell us that their religion is different because it's a loving religion, and because we can all choose to have a personal relationship with their god, and that their goal is not to establish a theocracy, unlike--say--Islam. Of course, it wouldn't be a theocracy. It would just be a place where gays and lesbians would not be able to serve openly in the military, one where they would not be able to get married like everybody else (unless we wanted people to go down the slippery slope of marrying donkeys), one where they could not adopt, or even one where they should not be able to teach the children of straight folks. Again, a big difference from a theocracy, why can't you see it? And these people have the gall to call themselves, their god and their religion "loving."
I still believe that there is hope for humans, but it pains me that it takes so long to win even fights with a certain outcome, so that most people won't be alive to reap the fruits of the seeds of reason they sowed. But the fight is worth fighting and it start with voting, to ensure that people like Ken Buck do not get the opportunity to advance their evil, discriminatory beliefs.
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