Part 2, My Favorite Response

"Homosexuality isn't a personal choice, but bigotry is"

Letter to the Editor
Published May 2, 2006
Re: Homosexuality is about morality, not civil rights or discrimination, letter by J M H of Dunedin, May 1.


-- The writer of the letter makes too many assumptions for my tastes.

The first is, he assumes that everyone shares his moral code. While I can certainly appreciate his strong ethics and his need to adhere to his own personal moral code, I do not appreciate his assumption that everyone else shares and wants to live by that same code.

If the writer has a moral problem with homosexuality and the attendant lifestyle, then by all means he should not be a homosexual. He should not seek to obtain a same-sex marriage, a civil union or attend a celebration of the lifestyle. That is his right, and I support this right. But who is he to enforce his moral code on others?

He also assumes that homosexuality is a "moral choice." Perhaps the writer is unaware of the facts of the matter: There is evidence that there is a biological difference in the brains of heterosexual and homosexual individuals. How is this a choice? Also, homosexual behavior exists in the animal kingdom. Animals are not capable of making sentient choices, so this would argue that homosexuality is a perfectly natural behavior.

I have a good friend who realized his orientation as a teenager. He was beaten by his father, rejected by his mother, ostracized by his friends, and discriminated against in his employment and housing. He tried to "cure" himself so he could once again be someone worthy of the love he once had. The "cure" was worse than the ailment and he ended up trying to take his own life - a scenario played out entirely too often in our society.

For someone to say that my friend "chose an immoral lifestyle" boggles the mind. What person in his right mind would choose to suffer such pain and rejection?

By the letter writer's own definition, bigotry arises from things that are beyond the recipient's control. It is becoming more and more evident that in the vast majority of people homosexuality is beyond their control. It simply exists as another facet of a personality. It simply is. Bigotry however, is a choice too easily made in fear and ignorance - something our society seems to encourage wholesale these days.

I personally find it much more "immoral" to attempt to write legal discrimination of any form into our state and nation's Constitution under the disguise of legislating morality. That is an obscenity beyond words.

Kudos to you, Dunedin Mayor Bob Hackworth.


-- I F, Clearwater