Equal rights are not “special treatment.” Nobody is trying to “force” you to do anything.

Human beings deserve human rights, period, end of sentence. You don’t have to like it, but you are going to have to deal with it.

The last sentence is really what all the fuss is about.

If you “choose” to dye your hair purple and paint yellow polka dots on your face…you should certainly be aware of the consequences of people reacting to such a queer image. And when persons react to that queer image, the purple-headed one should NOT run to the courts and demand special rights, privileges, laws, and try to overturn time-honored traditions.

So….it IS the business of the “non-queer” population when the gay/lesbian community starts lobbying the court system, demanding special treatment and laws, and overturning time honored traditions such as marriage and trying to force their beliefs as being “acceptable” upon us.

I like how you point out that the struggle for equality should not focus on whether someone chose to be queer, but that there is nothing wrong with being queer… I agree.

“If it’s against my religion it’s immoral” is never a good argument, and that’s the basis of pretty much every argument against same-sex attractions and relationships that I’ve seen. Let’s call this what it is and stop with the “genetic” arguments of “we have no choice.”

Brief detour: I don’t much like how pedophiles are made out to be huge bogeyman. Is it unethical to act on the impulse to the extent of watching anime porn? I knew a rather nice woman who made pocket money at the age of 12 flashing men. It didn’t seem to bother her any. Somehow it’s all one giant slippery slope to raping babies and I’m not sure I buy that any more than liking thrill sports is an inevitable path to suicide, or liking bondage is an inevitable path to autoerotic asphyxiation.

But back to the point. While “it doesn’t affect you enough for you to stick your nose in” is quite true, that’s a weaker position, because it does affect other people a little bit, and you have to argue degrees. (Or are you going to argue that gay social clubs plus the attitude that “condoms are for breeders” doesn’t have public health implications?)

Simply as a rhetorical argument, “could you choose to be homosexual?” is an excellent way to get through to Kinsey-zeros. It makes the point that even if they consider it undesirable behaviour, it needs to be treated as a disability and not a moral failing. Which, even if you don’t agree that it’s a disability, is an improvement on fag-bashing.

Now, there is a small weakness to that argument in that apparently for a lot of virulent homophobes, it is a choice; they feel homosexual attractions and are denying them. But it still works as an argument because they are denying them. And honest straights are a majority in the world.

Me, I equate it to being left-handed. The numbers (about 10%) for left-handed and homosexual are even roughly comparable. And left-handedness used to be considered seriously wrong; these days it’s something that celebrity gossip rags often don’t bother printing.

I agree that this leaves bisexual people out, and I’m sorry; ambidextrous people do exist. But I think that’s a subtlety we can get to after we get past “fags are evil”.