Gay Marriage

The reaction by conservative religious leaders and political commentators to the decision by the ALP on gay marriage has been that this tilt will imperil the party at the next federal election. It may well do. But the reasons supplied are shocking arguments against a call for legitimising gay marriage.

I am not a member of the left-wing intelligentsia and I am not standing for office. But I am a believer in clear reasoning, and what has been written on the subject cries out - if not to heaven, then to the intellect - for a response.

The case for gay marriage has been advanced by various parties and it is not my business to defend their specific arguments or their political ideologies. But surely one might make the following argument for such a move, without regard - for the moment - to the moral prejudices of religious conservatives or the electoral analyses of the pundits.

Sexual orientation is not a matter of ''sin'', but of biochemistry. Gays are a minority that have long been persecuted and vilified in conservative religious societies.

This has too often forced much of their love underground and rendered its practice furtive, undignified and opportunistic. Making marriage possible would be a step in the direction not only of dignifying homoerotic relations, but of making them more moral.

It is surely important here to get a few elementary distinctions clear.

First, there is a sanctimonious claim by conservative Christians and Muslims, and perhaps Jews, that their "holy scriptures" confine marriage to heterosexual relations.

But the idea that any of us should still have our moral reasoning overshadowed by these arcane and morally dubious books is highly challengeable. Especially when it is my understanding that Jesus was on the side of the marginalised and the oppressed. And also that God is love. So if anything, the Christian faith should be advocating for marriage equality.

Surely a liberal, secular society will assess the merits of moral arguments on a more rational basis.

Such a basis might be that there is simply nothing inherently objectionable about homosexual relations and that making it legally and morally possible for homosexual lovers to form a lasting bond would be a constructive step in our society. Let those who insist that they derive their morals from ''holy scripture'' live their moral code without hypocrisy. But there is no sound basis for permitting them to dictate standards of morality in a liberal and tolerant society.

Second, it is argued that the ALP has been self-destructive in espousing a right to gay marriage, since this may cost it heavily in the polls. Cardinal George Pell has been quoted, from faraway Rome, as declaring that ''any Australia-wide party'' that supports gay marriage ''does not want to govern''. Perhaps.

But whether the ALP will suffer at the polls on account of its support for a right to gay marriage has no bearing on whether such support is morally sound or rationally defensible.

One could not, for a century, have hoped to win office in many southern states of the US if one stood for desegregation and civil rights. Did this make these causes morally wrong or intrinsically indefensible? One would not have thought so.

There are many issues, moral and practical, on which it is difficult to win the consent of a majority of our fellow citizens for a wide range of reasons. This may make it politic to avoid espousing them on the hustings.

Yet many of us decry the lack of courage and imagination shown by the political class. They are too driven by opinion polls and concerns in marginal electorates and the single-issue lobbying of special interests, it is again and again lamented.

Well, we have a case study right here. Let it be conceded that the ALP may have miscalculated electorally in this matter. This does not mean that those who support gay marriage are in moral error. It may simply mean that too many of our fellow citizens are narrow-minded, fearful, bigoted and led astray by clerics of one kind or another.

If those who have called for gay marriage are in error, let the case be argued on rational and empirical grounds and not on the grounds that such a moral and legal reform would be inconsistent with Deuteronomy or the Koran.

Those who are not gay, do not have gay friends or do not know gay couples are not well placed to have a sensible opinion on this subject; for it is the freedom of such lovers and couples to live open and dignified lives that is at stake here. Is there anything about actual heterosexual marriages that makes them the gold standard of morality and decency and fidelity? Surely not.

Love and fidelity in marriage are ideals we don't always live up to. Yet if those who see themselves as the moral guardians of our society - an office to which none of us elected them, incidentally - wish to see higher standards of love and fidelity in homosexual relations, might not marriage be a way of signifying precisely that?

And if they recoil from such an appeal, perhaps they need to be reminded that many of us - even if we might still be a minority - have long since repudiated their religious beliefs and claims to moral authority.

What we look for is an enlightened and open society, not a theocratic and reactionary one. We do not see the Bible or the Koran as having any weight in serious matters, moral, historical or scientific. Consequently, we applaud those who raise challenging issues and are prepared to stand up for reforms in the face of conservative reaction and popular prejudice.

Butch/Femme and Labels - are they really necessary?

If the straight world has defined lesbians falsely, even maliciously, then lesbians have, to some degree, acquiesced, by forgetting the I and playing themselves into stereotypes. Lesbians have labels for everyone, it seems: bull dyke, granola dyke, baby dyke, power dyke, butch, stone butch, soft butch, faggot butch, femme, stone femme, high femme, power femme, soft femme, futch, lipstick lesbian, chapstick lesbian, boi, androgynous, top, bottom, switch. It goes on and on, and these are the same labels that make it easy for straight people to misrepresent lesbians. We, as lesbians, have amassed names, symbols, and behaviors, and they are designed to tell us and the rest of the world who we are.

Some people take these labels pretty seriously. Others like to joke about them.

Can anyone really fit into one box? After all, the right to define ourselves is what we lesbians and feminists have been fighting for for so long! And if people force you to choose, then what does that say about our community and our acceptance of our own members?

These labels we so often put on ourselves generally reflect the dynamics of our relationships. A lot of women who identify as butch will claim that you're not a *real* butch unless you exclusively date femmes. Conversely, a lot of femmes will claim that you're not a *true* femme unless you only date butches. But what about all the butches that don't identify within the butch/femme dynamic? What about butches who date other butches? Why aren't they allowed to be called butch just because their preferred partners in this gender crime are not femmes? Who gives anyone the power to confer or deny whatever label they want?

Why is it assumed that all butches should be attracted to femmes? Maybe you're a faggot butch, did they even consider that? Everyone understands butch/femme because it seems familiar. Faggot butches on the other hand seemed to get scorned and derided and constantly questioned. A person can still be a butch without opening doors for girls or even fucking girly girls.

And what about femme on femme? Otherwise known as a lipstick lesbian. Generally, the term lipstick lesbian is used to describe a stereotypical feminine woman who is attracted to other feminine women. How come the heterosexual world can understand femme on femme? How come no one's threatened by two long haired pretty girls kissing in public? Yet why doesn't it read queer?

What *really* makes a person butch or femme anyway? Who made you (society) the Nazi police?

The concept of butch and femme identities have long been hotly debated within the lesbian community, yet even achieving a consensus as to exactly what the terms "butch" and "femme" mean can be extraordinarily difficult. In recent years, these words have come to describe a wide spectrum of individuals and their relationships. It is easiest, then, to begin with an examination of butch-femme culture and meaning from a historical perspective.

Butch and femme roles date back at least to the beginning of the 20th century. They were particularly prominent in the working-class lesbian bar culture of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, where butch-femme relationships were the norm, while butch-butch and femme-femme were taboo. Those who switched roles were often the butt of jokes... women held strong opinions, that "role distinctions needed to be sharply drawn," and that not being one or the other earned strong disapproval from both groups.

However, in the 1970s, feminists started pronouncing "butch-femme" roles as politically incorrect, because they believed that all butch/femme dynamics by necessity imitate heterosexist gender roles, leading to butch-femme relationships being driven underground. Many lesbians of this era critiqued butch-femme as capitulation to oppressive patriarchal standards.

Androgyny became the lesbian ideal. Criticism of butch-femme was usually based on the claim that these identifications are an attempt to replicate heterosexuality by designating one member of a couple as male (the butch) and the other as female (the femme). Even today this argument is frequently aired. However, it is highly problematic because of its own underlying assumption of heteronormativity - that is, the tenet that heterosexuality is normal, and that all other forms of sexuality are only weak imitations of it. Butch-femme need not be an imitation of anything; it is a unique way of living and loving.

A resurgence of butch-femme identities and relationships in the late 1980s brought this dynamic back to the forefront of lesbian culture. The resurgence of butch-femme may be due in part to the fact that gender fluidity has become much more acceptable in recent decades. After all, butch and femme are related not only to sexual orientation, but also to gender expression.

In recent years, "pansexual" and "polysexual" have joined "bisexual" as terms that indicate women's attractions to more than one gender. Another indication of that fluidity is the fact that one cannot always tell simply by looking whether a lesbian identifies as butch or femme. Butches are not necessarily tops; femmes are not necessarily bottoms; and butches and femmes are no longer expected to date only each other.

However, in spite of butch-femme's renewed visibility, many women now argue that "butch" and "femme" are labels that oversimplify, generalise, or pigeonhole complex identities into false dichotomies. Femmes have been dismissed both within and outside of lesbian communities as being "too pretty to be 'real' lesbians." And a common refrain among lesbians and bisexuals who do not understand the appeal of butch women is "If I wanted to be with someone who looks like a man, I'd be with a man!"

Inherent to butch-femme relationships was the presumption that the butch is the physically active partner and the leader in lovemaking....Yet unlike the dynamics of many heterosexual relationships, the butch's foremost objective was to give sexual pleasure to a femme. The essence of this emotional/sexual dynamic is captured by the ideal of the "stone butch," or untouchable butch....To be untouchable meant to gain pleasure from giving pleasure.

Stone butches, as described extensively in Leslie Feinberg's 1992 novel Stone Butch Blues, do not permit themselves to be touched intimately. They instead derive pleasure from making love to their partners, who often identify as stone femmes. Some butches may also choose to use male first names and pronouns (ie. hym and hys or ze and hir) because while they do not identify as men, neither do they consider themselves women. Yet often they still identify very strongly with the lesbian community.

Femmes are perhaps best described as lesbian, bisexual, and queer women whose manner and style falls along the lines of what is traditionally considered feminine. Whereas butches are sometimes accused of trying to be men, femmes are sometimes accused - by other lesbians--of donning accoutrements of traditional femininity to pass as straight in the mainstream world. Actually, however, femme lesbians subvert prescribed sexual and gender roles by co-opting conventional "womanly" traits to indicate their attraction to other women.

The label femme is often confused with lipstick lesbian in that femme women also have typically feminine mannerisms and characteristics. The difference is that a femme woman is often, but by no means exclusively, attracted to a typically butch lesbian, characterised by having strong male attributes in their physical appearance as well as their behaviours.

Another major difference is the notion that the femme stereotype doesn’t just apply to appearances; it also encompasses political feminist ideals and rejecting patriarchal values.
I personally think the term femme also describes a gay woman who has feminist ideals. It is about the choice to either abstain from typically feminine principles or to embrace them. I don’t think being femme is restricted to the application of make-up or anything; it is something deeper.

Butches may cross-dress and crop their hair not because they want to be men, but because they are expressing a different way of being a woman, or simply of being gendered. Rather than attempting to replicate traditional masculinity and heterosexuality, butches present a challenge to both in their rejection of how the dominant culture has decided a woman should look and act.

Some young people today (in the homosexual community) eschew butch or femme classifications, believing that they are inadequate to describe an individual, or that labels are limiting in and of themselves. Other people within the queer community have tailored the common labels to be more descriptive, such as "soft stud," "hard butch," "gym queen," or "tomboy femme."

It is important to note that those who identify as butch and femme today often use the words to define their presentation and gender identity rather than strictly the role they play in a relationship, and that not all butches are attracted exclusively to femmes and not all femmes are exclusively attracted to butches, although this was traditionally the norm.

Behaviours not sanctioned by lesbian codes of conduct are suspect in the "lesbian community," because they smack of conformity to straight life, and so called patriarchal (an absurdly over-used word) notions of womanhood. Lesbianism, for many, has become a lifestyle, complete with its own vocabulary, food, clothing, politics, medicine, and psychology. Dissent is no laughing matter. The cause is paramount, goodspeak the lingua franca.

Perhaps it’s part of human nature to stereotype and put people in a box. With the 90's came a genderqueer revolution where GLBTIQ people created new and innovative labels to describe themselves, while older labels were given new definitions. It can be argued that this is a positive step towards evolving language to be inclusive, or that embracing labels is a backward step.

Today, gender roles are a lot more fluid, hence why people may not be comfortable identifying with one label. Who cares if you can fit into a label or not? Most women I know, whether gay, bi, straight, transgender seem to have a little bit of all the gay stereotypes in them. Why should it matter?

I'd Rather Be Single Than Settle: Satisfied Solitude

There are generally two types of mindset when it comes to the prospect of being in a serious, loving relationship with someone. There are those who are quite content being independent and single, they perceive a relationship as a bonus, should someone special enter their life. They are quite self-sufficient and by no means need to have a relationship. They, by and large, are open to the idea, should life bring them in that direction.

Then there are those who crave a relationship. They yearn for a relationship, to such an extreme, that they make an unwise choice that leads to sadness, dissatisfaction and broken hearts. The majority of the lesbian single population fit into the latter way of thinking. Desiring a loving, nurturing and safe relationship, they do it: they settle.

Settling is entering into a relationship with a less than desirable partner for the sake of escaping the single life. It is quite common and only inevitably leads down a road of frustration. Caught up in the swirl of desperately trying to find "the one" and the constant ticking of the clock reminding people that they are getting older by the moment, can cause this to happen.

I've observed that the majority of lesbians live by a "just good enough" mentality. This paradigm (way of believing) has aborted more dreams than any other I know. Achieving your dreams means refusing to settle for "just good enough." A casual attitude toward life will only lead you to a place of disappointment and defeat. Mediocrity has infected lesbian society. It's like a magnetic pull on womankind. "It's good enough," rolls off most people's lips, rationalising what they know could be done better or even extraordinarily.

When everyone accepts just "good enough," then no one really has a fulfilling life long relationship, and failure is on the horizon. The moment you do not press forward, you drift backward. There is no neutral ground. You either embrace excellence or mediocrity at any given moment.

Why do we have to feel that we have to bow to societal norms and be partnered up like everyone else? We are raised to believe that the ideal life is one in which we fall in love, marry and then have usually have children. Creating our own family and growing old with our soul mate is instilled in our minds from a very young age. As we enter our late teenage years and early twenties, we are usually weaving our way through relationships, trying to decipher what type of person best fits our needs to sustain a healthy and loving relationship. If a person does not find a truly compatible mate, one that fulfills their emotional and physical needs, provides love, understanding, concern and support through life's difficulties, it is at this time that one may opt to settle.

My last long term relationship ended on the 1st January of this year. I ended it after a 6 month battle with myself as to whether I was making the right decision. I still don't know whether I made the right decision but I like to believe that I did.

I have been with 6 women so far this year. One girl per month. Well a bit more than a month but who's counting! It's been a rough ride but a huge learning curve.

The recurring pattern I've experienced of late is that you wait and pray for there to be a good woman left on this earth and finally one comes along and you find her boring or at least not challenging. Either that, or there is zero chemistry.

What is that? Am I crazy? Or am I just jaded and not giving them a real chance? Or is it just the reverse that I’m just not into them? Then the dilemma becomes do I let this great woman go and regret it afterward?

Why is it that the people we want, don’t want us. But the people who do want us, we don’t want. When there’s a rare exception to that rule, we call it love. I have only loved once. Well maybe twice but I'm still thinking about that.

The women I have been with this year have all been completely into me. Called, write letters, text, took me out, asked about my day, responsible, intelligent, understanding, respectful etc, etc.

We begin dating. Have tonnes of sex like any new couple would. It's okay, never mind blowing or anything. I’ve had much better, but I’ve had much worse too. They're relatively attractive but haven't been my usual type or taste.

I often question whether I'm just being picky? Anyone else would think she's a great catch. I think so as well but just…I don’t know why I can’t get seem to get into them.

So I ask myself, is there something more to dating and relationships than what someone does for me?

How about how someone makes me feel?

How about how I feel about her?

I think those two things are the essence of any relationship. And I think they get lost when we start focusing on checklists.

I have broken up with some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I recall one of them earlier this year. She had everything on my checklist – smart, silly, cute, good family, stable job, etc. What she didn’t have – and what I really needed – was a backbone. I just got the sense that I’d win every argument for the rest of our lives because she was such a pushover. And that wasn’t something I either respected or was attracted to. I broke up with her for another amazing woman. An amazing woman that I was not attracted to at all. Conversely, I have also dated women who were absolute stunners but were incredibly immature. Again, I realised I was settling.

I’ve broken up with women I really cared about after one or two months because I didn’t see a future. From the women’s perspective, the breakup came out of nowhere, since nothing was wrong - yet I have no doubt it was the right thing to do. I tell myself that I'm not doing her any favors by prolonging a relationship that I know is ultimately doomed. Not for a week, a month, or a year. Yet hanging on is what we do - to stave off loneliness, to prevent unrest, to protect her feelings. And it all comes at a cost. Every second you’re investing in the wrong person is a second you’re not investing in the right person. And every second that your partner spends with you when your heart isn’t in it, you’re stealing from her.

We can either *choose* to settle and lose the prospect of truly enjoying life bonded with someone we undoubtedly love or we can take the easy option and continue in a unfulfilling relationship. This year I learnt which was more important.

Lesbian Bed Death Syndrome

According to the stereotype (the u-haul phenomena), lesbians are all too ready to move from fiery romance to feathering the nest. And what follows is Lesbian Bed Death, a warm, cuddly, committed but asexual relationship.

The term “lesbian bed death” is used by faggots for the fact that once lesbians move in together and settle down, they tend to never have sex with each other ever again, unlike gays, who just have sex with any ass hole they can find.

I have a few theories which might explain this LBD Syndrome.

1. Women have lower sex drives
As anyone would know, it's difficult to get a woman into bed especially when she’s married. But when there are two women involved with no cock pestering them there is noone in the relationship who gives a shit about sex anymore, therefore causing lesbian bed death.

2. Getting too comfortable
It is also common knowledge that most lesbians become fat and fugly once they get comfortable in a relationship, making sex with them repulsive. When both members of the relationship are that unattractive of course they're not going to have sex, noone would.

3. Too time consuming
Unlike heterosexuals, lesbian couples take more time having sex. With lesbians, sexual interaction begins with whole body contact, and continues with 10 to 15 minutes of kissing, hugging, holding, and touching before any x rated contact is made. When a cock is involved, this time is cut down to a mere 30 seconds to 1 minute. On average, sex between heterosexual couples lasts about 8 minutes. Between lesbians, the time is usually 30 minutes or more. So the problem is that either lesbians will start the process only to fall asleep after about 10 minutes or so, or we simply can’t be bothered full stop!

Why are Women so Damn Complicated?

I have never understood why so many women can't just say what they mean rather than using this special language. They make us try to figure out what they're really saying. Here's how it works.

Words Women Use:

1.) "Fine!": This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

2.) Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

3.) "Nothing.": This is the calm before the storm. This means something and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with "nothing" usually end in "fine." (Refer back to #1 for the meaning of "fine.")

4.) "Go ahead!": This is a dare, not permission. Don't do it!

5.) Loud sigh: This is not actually a word , but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to #3 for the meaning of "nothing.")

6.) "That's okay.": This is one of the most dangerous statements a woman can make. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

7.) "Thanks.: A woman is thanking you -- do not question, or faint. Just say you're welcome.

8.) "Whatever!": Is a woman's way of saying YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!!

9.) "Don't worry about it, I got it.": Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told you to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in you asking "what's wrong", and for the woman's response to be, "nothing". (Refer back to #3 for the meaning of "nothing.")


Finally, women have this thing where they think of something and keep it to themselves, and they will not bring it up unless you somehow think of it and bring it up first. For example when my ex appeared angry I would approach her and ask her what’s wrong? She would then for some reason become angrier as if I were supposed to know what was actually wrong.

All I’m trying to get across is why the hell are women so complicated???

The Lesbian U-Haul Phenomena

Let's face it, ever since the days of Sapphos, lesbians have entered relationships at warp speed.

There's the age old running joke Q: "What does a lesbian bring on the second date?" A: "A U-Haul" and for some reason, all lesbians are guilty of going through this at least once in their dating lives.

I have to admit, I’ve been in two of these types of relationships myself. Most of us have at least once I think.

So what's the big deal, you ask? While the concept of dating can seem overwhelming or scary to many of us, the big deal is that U-Haul relationships don't ever seem to last and are not very satisfying in the long term. Worst yet, the process of ending one can be incredibly painful – speaking from experience of course!

Let me set the scene. You meet someone out one night – say at a club while busting your groove on the dance floor or while sipping on the latest coffee combo at a snug little coffee shop. You chat for a bit and then exchange a couple of flirtatious glances and slight nudges. She gives you her number, you give her yours. Maybe a week later (you’ve talked every night since) you’ve got those tingles in your fingertips every time you think about her and those butterflies swarming around in your stomach. She’s become the hot topic of conversation with all of your friends. Ah, you think… it might even be love. Suddenly your level head turns to mush, all rational decisions go out the window and you take the next “logical” step to further your relationship … you move in together.

Sound familiar?

This is the pattern that so many lesbian relationships adhere to for some odd reason and it has even become the norm. I’ve observed this pattern time and time again. It gets exploited in lesbian stories, television shows, and movies – so much so that you’d think we would have learned from it. But yet, the U-Haul still gets packed up without an inkling of hesitation.
When two women come together, there’s often an overwhelming connection.

I think because women are more emotional than men we look to have our needs met right away. When women feel nurtured and safe, we often don’t want to ever let that feeling go and it seems that we will feel that way forever. I call this period the “honeymoon” period because everything is hazy, wonderful and perfect.

Lesbians form intense emotional connections quicker than their heterosexual counterparts, and they jump into living together because of an inborn "urge to merge". This urge, which is not particular to lesbians alone, occurs when two people lose themselves in each other to the point that they lose their own individuality. They begin talking alike, dressing alike, displaying the same mannerisms, ideals and opinions. Eventually they become too codependent to function alone. Wikipeida.org says: "It has been theorized that this [U-Haul] "phenomenon" is used by lesbians as an escape from the risks involved with dating. That aversion to the risks with dating is linked to the stunted development of intimate relationships during the teenage years for most gays and lesbians who are normally in the closet at this time. With the freedom of adulthood, lesbians are drawn to the "U-Haul" relationships and the instant gratification and intimacy they create."

So what's up with lesbians and their tendency to progress in a relationship at lighting speed? Well, there are a few theories that I would like to discuss.

Theory 1 - The low-income theory
This theory targets the younger lesbian population, either students or recently graduated lesbians who have recently entered the working world. These women usually find themselves in crappy entry-level jobs which pay slightly over the poverty line. So if lesbian 1 happens upon a lady caller of interest, it immediately becomes apparent to her that having said lady move in would subsequently reduce their rent by 50% with the sharing of living costs. This would make paying for their already too-pricey apartment a lot easier on the wallet. With that said, the lady being courted might be encouraged rather rapidly to pack up her U-Haul and move on in.

Theory 2 - The ugly theory
The ugly theory is simple, so I won't waste too much of your time here. It targets lesbians who feel they are ugly and find they have to compensate for their perceived ugliness with a really fantastic personality. This breed of lesbian's fear of rejection and the idea of never finding true love may lead to slight delirium. In these cases, the delirium may cause the lesbian to attach themselves to the first woman that shows a vested interest in them. This can lead to attached-at-the-hip-syndrome and ultimately cause the delirious lesbian to invite their new girlfriend to move in as soon as possible. This false sense of security that comes with the idea that if you live with your girlfriend, than you must be in a stable long-term relationship. Given the reality of how lesbian drama in these circumstances usually plays out, this situation almost always ends up in tragedy for the not-so-happily married couple.

Theory 3 - The first girlfriend theory
This theory is for everyone, whether you dated guys first (unfortunately) or you have only been with girls, if you're a lesbian you had to start somewhere and that somewhere was your first girlfriend. Whether you spent just a few short weeks, or many long years together, there is no denying that they were probably some of the most intense moments of your life. You probably stopped calling all your friends, had more sex than you ever imagined possible, and disappeared off the face of the earth (and this is all within the first month). And with all those endorphins flowing, who could resist jumping on the bandwagon and getting your own place together? So the U-Haul pulls up and for a few months, all is happy in paradise, and then reality sets in. The true colors shine and you pack up your U-Haul and flee the nest in search of your next great love. Don't worry though, you'll certainly never forget your first girlfriend, you'll also never make that mistake again.

So here I will conclude this segment on theories of the lesbian U-Haul phenomena. The next time you're ready to pack up your stuff and run off with your new girlfriend, stop and think about your motives. Is it because she makes enough money to cover the cost of living and pay for the groceries? Or is it because you are simply too scared to be alone?

Is Being Gay a Choice?

Yes and no. I may not choose to be attracted to other women, but I can choose to hide that attraction or live openly as a gay queer. There’s no reason to be proud of being gay. But living gay is something we should all celebrate.

But what do we lose by insisting that being gay is not a choice? What do we lose by placing our identities out of our own control? What does it do to us to remove ourselves from our identity, to render ourselves powerless in our own selves?

To say that we have no choice in being gay is to say that being gay is only the desire to love another man or another woman, that it is only about sex. But being gay is not simply a desire for sex with the same sex. That’s homosexual. Gay is an identity, a culture, a community, a place. And while we are born homosexual, we choose to be gay. We must build the strength and develop the courage to forge our lives as gay people, to create a space in which we can define our lives as fundamentally and necessarily gay. And that is something we choose to do every day. It is a choice we may struggle with, a choice we make sacrifices for, and a choice we fight for. To deny our active involvement in that choice is to deny our active involvement in that struggle, in those sacrifices, in that fight. And to deny our active involvement is to deny our right to be proud.

Gay pride has always confused me a little. Proud of what? What did I do to be proud of? If being gay is just a biological fact about me, no different from my height or natural hair color, why does being gay warrant a parade?

Granted, if the whole world had been screaming for hundreds of years that my height was sick and wrong and immoral, and the whole world was constantly threatening to strap me to a medieval stretching machine to crank me to my rightful height, a counteractive Height Parade to scream back at them would be a relief. There are certainly a frightening number of people out there wielding medieval straightening machines just salivating over the chance to undo whatever trauma or confusion they believe to be the root of our gayness.

But that can’t be the whole point of our pride. We can’t live our entire lives defensively. We can’t forever think of ourselves in reaction to or opposed to what others think of us. At some point we need to realize that we are proud—truly proud—not just because someone else thinks we shouldn’t be, but because we are.

Why? Because we had a choice. We could have chosen to live in the shadows. We could have chosen a life of denial and deception. We could have hollowed out our insides and vigilantly stood guard against our natural desires every time they poked up from beneath the surface. That too is a choice. Not a comfortable choice, not a painless choice, but a choice nonetheless—a choice that many have made—a choice we could have made, but we did not.

The desire to love another man, to love another woman, we do not choose. It may not even be completely our choice when we act on these desires. But living our lives and creating our identities based on these desires, based on the nurturing and celebration of these desires, is our choice. And it is a difficult choice to make. We could have accepted what we were told about ourselves, about who we should be and what we should not do or feel. To make that effort is a hard choice, the choice less traveled. And the fact that we make that choice is something of which we can be truly proud.

Proud that we are creating a community of choice. Proud that we are where we are and that we’re going where we’re going. Proud that we are each continuing the daily battle against self-doubt and self-destruction as best we can. Proud that we are part of a culture, a legacy, that includes names like Ellen Degeneres. Proud that we are standing on the shoulders of those who loved before us. And proud of them and the choices they made.

To be clear, this is not to say that there is only one way to live a gay life. Nor is it to suggest that living a gay life means living a life consumed by pursuing and having sex. A gay person who has sex very infrequently if at all is still gay and living a gay life. Rather, this is about a gay identity, which is fundamentally based on finding comfort, love, kinship, beauty, and yes, sex, in people of the same sex. This is about the choices we make and the way we choose to build our lives based on that comfort, love, kinship, beauty, and sex; that we choose to make those things intrinsic and essential to who we are and how we live, not simply incidental. This is about the way we choose to live our lives: as gay people.

But if being gay—or rather if living gay—is a choice, doesn’t that mean that the Right is right, that we can unchoose, unlearn, be ungayed? No. There are two answers to those who would change us and come at us wielding their straightening machines: We cannot be changed because we had no choice, and we cannot be changed because we have chosen. It’s not that we can’t; it’s that we won’t. We won’t go back into hiding. We won’t accept your idea that we are sick. We won’t turn our backs on each other and the lives we are creating together. We won’t deny ourselves our identity. Because we don’t want to, and we’re that strong.

And no, the fact that we can but won’t is not justification for our legalised discrimination. Our sexual desires are a biological reality just like our sex and our race. The fact that we can choose to hide or deny those desires—unlike sex or race—but that we refuse to do so provides no grounds for discriminating against us. Our religion, for instance, is not beyond our control, not an innate fact about ourselves; we can choose to change religions or abandon religion altogether. Nonetheless, freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination based on religion is an essential tenant of our nation’s foundation. The fact that we can choose what religious doctrine to place our faith in does not mean we can be discriminated against on the basis of that choice. Similarly, the fact that we can choose to live a life celebrating our true emotional and sexual desires does not mean that we can be discriminated against on the basis of that choice.

We have a choice. We have chosen: life, this life, more life. And we will defend that choice and our right to make it with all that is strong and true and brave within us. We are warriors of spirit. We will smash the straightening machines simply by living, by choosing our lives. By reaching out for our lover’s hand as we cross the street, by finding comfort, love, kinship, beauty, and sex with one another, and yes, by marching the parade route of pride every year—not as acts of necessity or defiance but as acts of choice. And we will not rob ourselves of the pride we feel—the pride we have earned—at having made this choice by claiming it was never our choice to begin with.