Beg Gay Not a Choice: Science Contradicts Ben Carson | Live Science

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?
• DO GAYS HAVE A CHOICE?
• IS BEG 'GAY' A CHOICE? SCIENCE SAYS Y (BUT NOT THE WAY YOU'RE THKG)
• BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice. If, on the other hand, you nsir someone to be gay only if they act on their same-sex attractn then beg gay n be nsired a choice pendg on an dividual's behavr.

Whether science n ultimately prove the blogy of beg gay or not, 's important to support all adults their choic no matter how they intify. There are doubtls many reasons for this, but one recurrg paranoia among many I’ve met (all of whom were men, out of tert) is that I’m gog to tell them that they’re gay. Bis, even if I did thk they were gay, ’s certaly not somethg I’m gog to brg up when first meetg someone, given how ’s a) irrelevant, and b) none of my damn don’t feel the same though.

WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?

Homosexual members of society n unfortunately expect to regularly be challenged, sctised and nmned by belligerent type who are seemgly nvced that homosexualy is a “liftyle choice” issue has e up aga (for what is possibly the 12, 456, 987, 332nd time) for several reasons. Also, UK prime mister David Cameron recently ma ments that suggt he nsirs homosexualy the aforementned “liftyle choice” (although this uld easily have been poorly chosen wordg).

A high-profile homosexual person dog this (or pretty much anythg) is certa to get objectns om those who “don’t approve” around the thgs is evable, and so is the whole “beg gay is a choice” accatn. Most ce relig beliefs, although the notn that relign is flat-out opposed to homosexualy is far om accurate, and gettg more uncerta as time progrs. The mastream media has always been somewhat blunt or ham-fisted s portrayal of even heterosexual relatnships (for evince of this, see pretty much any married uple an advert), so was a long shot that they’d show homosexuals accurately.

Normally heterosexual characters sudnly displayg homosexual leangs when a boost viewg figur are need is a mon trope the days, so you n sort of see how this might make some people thk ’s a “choice”, if they lack more realistic sayg that sexualy is set stone om birth is also not que right, the ma emphasis of those g the choice argument is that homosexuals have weighed up their optns and nscly cid “I am gog to be gay om now on”. This suggts that those who are about to choose their sexual orientatn look at the nsequenc of homosexualy and thk ’s a better optn.

DO GAYS HAVE A CHOICE?

This seems, to put dly,, as many have poted out, if sexual orientatn is a choice, then you should feasibly be able to choose to be straight aga if beg gay isn’t “workg out”. Comedian Todd Glass mak a brilliant pot his book (which is great, I got for Christmas), which is that if you genuely believe sexualy is a choice, then you’re not actually straight, you jt haven’t met anyone persuasive enough those who argue that homosexualy is a choice variably assert that is a wrong choice. So people who opt for homosexualy are nscly pursug anythg om timate relatnships to random sexual enunters wh people they are not physilly attracted to.

Overall, if homosexualy is chosen, the most logil reason people would make such a choice is that they’re attracted to people of the same genr. The Amerin Medil Associatn is agast therapy that is “based on the assumptn that homosexualy is a mental disorr or that the person should change their ’s important to know that there is nothg wrong wh lovg people of the same genr as you. Gay activists favor this perspective at least part bee survey data show that people are more sympathetic to gay if they believe that sexual orientatn is immutable.

It is difficult for most people to thk objectively about homosexualy, large part bee bias agast are lerally of biblil proportns. Thoands of Amerin pulps to this day repeat the old biblil junctns, which fuel disfort wh homosexualy at every layer of our society.

IS BEG 'GAY' A CHOICE? SCIENCE SAYS Y (BUT NOT THE WAY YOU'RE THKG)

In the 1968 edn of the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM)—the dispensable diagnostic tool ed by therapists—homosexualy appeared the sectn on sexual viatns as an stance of an aberratn which sexual terts are “directed primarily toward objects other than people of the oppose sex. It was largely gays themselv—unrstandably tired of beg viewed as eaks of nature—who began to assert that their orientatn was not pathologil.

Now lled the Stonewall Rts (named after the Stonewall Inn, which was at the center of the melee), they galvanized the morn gay-rights movement Ameri and iated a shift toward greater cultural acceptance of homosexualy. A mere four years later, 1973, the nomenclature mtee of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) set about reasssg the profsn's dark characterizatn of homosexualy.

In other words, isn't this therapy a retrenchment to the old disease mol of homosexualy that Spzer and his lleagu dispatched more than 30 years ago? As for the claim ma by Godey and others that homosexualy is the rult of poor parentg, there is simply no legimate scientific evince to support . Whereas is te that some homosexuals had poor relatnships wh their fathers when they were growg up, is impossible to say whether those fathers produced homosexual tennci their sons by rejectg them or, stead, whether some fathers simply tend to shun boys who are effemate at the outset.

BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON

As for the effectivens of reparative therapy, a landmark study published October 2003 the Archiv of Sexual Behavr, Spzer terviewed 200 men and women who once nsired themselv homosexuals but who had lived their liv as heterosexuals for at least five years. And send, if gen do help terme orientatn, do they actually create two distct typ of orientatn—gay and straight, as most people believe—or do they create a ntuum of orientatn? Although no one study is entirely nclive, studi of tws raised together, tws raised apart and fay tre suggt—at least for mal—that the more gen one shar wh a homosexual relative, the more likely is that one will be homosexual—the hallmark of a geic characteristic.

Whereas most people may believe that “straight” and “gay” are discrete tegori, there is strong evince that they are not—and this fact has important implitns for the way we unrstand the different ntroversi that surround homosexualy.

” In other words, sexual attractn is simply not a black-and-whe matter, and the labels “straight” and “gay” do not pture the plexi. If a person's gen place him or her toward the straight end of what I ll the Sexual Orientatn Contuum, he or she almost certaly n never bee homosexual. We also found an extensive mismatch between the labels many people e to scribe their sexual orientatn—gay, straight and bisexual—and their actual sexual attractns, fantasi and behavr.

THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

Studi by psychiatrist Niklas Långström of the Karolska Instute Stockholm and others suggt that the herabily of homosexualy is not much higher than that of handns—perhaps the range 0. It is unreasonable to say that he has been returned to a “natural” state, however; wh strong social support, he has simply chosen a new path for himself—one that his gen ma possible but that is almost certaly not possible for every gay person. Bee of the enormo prsur phg all of toward the straight end of the Sexual Orientatn Contuum om the time we are very young, is reasonable to assume that most of the people who currently live as homosexuals were probably close to the gay end of the ntuum to beg wh; other words, they probably have strong geic tennci toward homosexualy.

If you doubt that—and assumg that you are right-hand—try eatg wh your left hand for a day or two, and good luck wh your article was origally published wh the tle "Do Gays Have a Choice? ” Many people, cludg sex rearchers and scientists, believe that sexual orientatn is like a sle wh entirely gay on one end and entirely straight on the other. Ben Carson, a retired nrosurgeon and printial hopeful, recently apologized for a statement which he said beg gay is "absolutely" a an terview on CNN, the potential 2016 Republin printial ndidate mented that "a lot of people who go to prison, go to prison straight, and when they e out they're gay, so did somethg happen while they were there?

"Sce then, he has apologized for the divisivens of his ments, but hasn't backed down om the notn that beg gay is somethg people scientists would disagree.