Evil Hamburger

gaywrites:

Today’s food for thought:

Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon was widely praised for coming out a few years back, but in a recent New York Times interview, she made comments about her sexuality that have drawn serious criticism - and some praise - from the LGBTQ community. 

To avoid paraphrasing poorly, here’s the entire section that’s got everyone worked up:

“I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

It’s pretty obvious why people would be angry with Nixon for making this statement. Saying that being gay is a choice negates the “born this way” argument of equality by implying that a person could just as easily choose to be straight. If gays are choosing the identity, this implies, why give them equal rights when they could just opt out of being gay altogether?

The Slate article above digs deeply into the issue that’s presented here: not necessarily whether being gay is a choice or not, but whether we can accept choosing to be gay as a legitimate way of embracing the identity. Is it bigoted to be angry with someone who says they chose their sexuality? Do we have the right to define someone’s “gayness”? 

I honestly don’t know how I feel about this yet, but I was definitely caught off guard at first read. What do you all think?

Okay, so, this got me going pretty good.

I’m what you’d call an individually minded person. I don’t give a damn about what others think and that’s the way it should be. When I read this it got me thinking about just how individually minded I really am; I don’t recognize myself as gay or bi or straight or asexual or whatever, rather, I simply live my life and let love find me when it wants to. I’m open-minded to the fact I may very well end up settling down with a man, and even embrace the thought. I’ll admit to liking guys, just as much and even more (at times) than I like girls, and I’m fine with it. I’m proud of who I am and I won’t let anyone get me down.

All personal bits aside, the thing am attacking is the fact that there are people within the gay community who are just as bad, if not worse, as the straight majourity when it comes to being close-minded. To get angry because someone says that they chose to be gay, to attack people for thinking that it’s not a genetic thing to be gay, it’s hypocrisy in my eyes. For a community of people who are looking to be recognised as equals to shun out people of their own community because they don’t believe they were born that way is simply turning around and attacking yourself. In other words, being selective as to who can and can not be given the equal rights.

If you think you have to be born gay to be an actual gay then do you believe there is a gay gene? Do you think we should go and isolate that gene so we can chose if we want a gay child or a straight one? Are we going to start doing blood tests to determine the quality of one’s gayness? Perhaps I’m taking this too far, or bending it into what I want it to seem, but to me that’s what is being done.

Feel free to disagree. I don’t care. I’m an inanimate object: an angry hamburger.