Is having homosexual feelings a choice?

[angus]

overbearing mother or genetic anomaly?  we may never know, but I'm pretty sure we can rule out:  Oh, yeah, I like everybody to  with me and beat me up, so I think I'll be gay.  Still, I think I can still have an orgasm without a thumb in my bum.  though I have to admit that the older I get, the more I like it.  A choice?  or just a fettish?   who the  knows.  and, more importantly, who the  cares.

This thread definitely deserves a mullet.  Here's a little shot we call the Texas Cokehead (and yes, he's actually a close personal friend of mine):

[angus]

I really have no idea, and I don't care either. BTW, that was a great post Angus:)

not that it matters, but I still haven't figured out which team you're on.  maybe we need a purple icon.  and for the record, I'm a registered republican.

[angus]

I really have no idea, and I don't care either. BTW, that was a great post Angus:)

not that it matters, but I still haven't figured out which team you're on.  maybe we need a purple icon.  and for the record, I'm a registered republican.

Well...that's a little complicated. On some issues I'm very right-wing, on others I'm liberal, and on still others I'm moderate. I don't really feel comfortable with either party, so I'm an independent.

fair enough.  vote, do ya?  or just bitch?  well, anyway, I wasn't prying.  just observing.  I'm not too sold on either side either, but the rich folks seem to have better drugs at their parties.  I'm shallow like that.  Anyway, thanks for the response. 

Oh, and welcome to the forum cp. 

[angus]

used to be common courtesy.  actually, I'll admit it was for the other guy.  but if it makes you feel better, I don't have any recollection of anyone welcoming me either, and I started posting waaaaay back on Elvis' birthday in 2004.  That's a year and 16 days.  The dems didn't like me because I'm a republican and the republicans didn't like me because I was too weird.  There's really no third group that matters, so you pick the one that stinks the least.  I'm ever so slightly closer to marie antoinette than to karl marx, so the choice is made.  by the way, I do not necessarily think ideology is a choice, either.  Like sexual orientation, one's feelings about how wealth should be distributed is a function of many things, the least of which is choice.  (As if one wakes up in the morning and decides he actually wants to be in favor of school vouchers.  yeah, right.  it just doesn't work that way.)  But then I'm not a Calvinist, so I needn't square Free Will with anything else in the universe, for that matter.  Anyway, welcome to you too.  or, bienveneu, mon ami, as the serious assholes like to say.

a little advice:  never suggest Jesus was gay.  even if you really think that.  I assure you that you'll never hear the end of it. 

[angus]

so jesus says, "let him among you who is without sin cast the first stone."

and a little bony old lady walks up and, THWACK, pelts the bastard.

and jesus turns to her and says, "oh, mom, do you always have to show off?!"

ba-da-boom.



but tn2024 is right, let's not go trolling just yet. 

I content that no one would choose it, even if they could. 

[angus]

everytime I hear that line in that commercial, "twelve men, one boat, what could be better?"  I think about JC.  still, it's just a random free association, I suppose.  I'm no psychologist.  still, I cannot imagine how much coaching it took Rove & company to get the president to answer that line correctly at the debate.  I actually asked some folks that very question, both gay and straight, and they all claim that they never made such a choice.  I'm inclined to believe them.  who, among you, is such a clarivoyant that you can honestly say you know they're all lying? 

I retract the big turd I attempted to dump on your question, nclib.  I see now it was an excellent question.  my sincere apologies.

[angus]

everytime I hear that line in that commercial, "twelve men, one boat, what could be better?"  I think about JC.  still, it's just a random free association, I suppose.  I'm no psychologist.  still, I cannot imagine how much coaching it took Rove & company to get the president to answer that line correctly at the debate.  I actually asked some folks that very question, both gay and straight, and they all claim that they never made such a choice.  I'm inclined to believe them.  who, among you, is such a clarivoyant that you can honestly say you know they're all lying? 

I retract the big turd I attempted to dump on your question, nclib.  I see now it was an excellent question.  my sincere apologies.

Angus, you've just heard a heterosexual say that he cannot determine why he is straight.   I think that is honest answer.

Exactly.  I'm heterosexual.  i have no clue why I am, I just know I like women.  I didn't choose to think women were attractive i just do, same thing with gays.  They didn't choose to like other guys, or fine them attractive they just did

my feelings exactly.  still, I think I do rember seeing a clip of the president being asked whether he thought it was a choice.  I also recall that he said he thought it was.  Given that as Governor, Bush has named openly homosexual gay-rights advocates to his campaign steering committees, and that he's a self-proclaimed christian and says he loves Jesus, etc., I couldn't help but reflect on the intense amount of coaching it must have taken to get him to answer the question "correctly"

but apparently I'm remembering wrong, because a cursory search on the internet yielded the following result: 

When the candidates were asked whether they thought being gay was a choice or the way you were born, Bush answered, “I don’t know". 

Good for him.

on another note, Hughento mentioned something about "...before the more modern era, when it was slightly more acceptable to be gay..."  that was surprising!  care to elaborate?  I'm thinking that homosexuality was accepted in ancient greece, but then went out of vogue, generally, in the West, for a very long time, and only recently (circa 1920) became "acceptable"  In England, for example, you could actually be prosecuted under criminal law for homosexuality.  (Recall Oscar Wilde's 1895 trials for committing "acts of gross indecency with men," when he lost his freedom, his family, his reputation, his will to create, and even his will to live.)  Of course, in the East (e.g., Japan and China) it is still a huge social faux-pas to admit to being gay.  Or such is my impression.  But then I'm given to fits of alcohol and drug abuse so my memory isn't what it ought to be.