A Slight Case of Overbombing Part 1 – Why people do not choose to be gay.

This one is an absolutely crazy mad one. It will probably run to 3 parts, but I don’t know yet.

Our federal government just gets more and more reactionary. And eventually they get to that point where you have to ask, “What is the deal?”

Readers will know that over the past two years, there has been a move by several jurisdictions around the world to have gay marriage legalised.

Most people would, of course, say, “Why not? What’s wrong with that?”

This writer is about to get married, and so this rings a bell with him. That is, myself.

(My word, this talking about oneself in the third person can get confusing).

The point that I have steered away from, is that the Australian federal government, has for those of you who don’t know, shored up the legislation regarding marriage so that it specifically refers to marriage as being a Union between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others.

Mmm. Now if this isn’t homophobic discrimination, I don’t know what is.

First of all, let’s look at the underlying issue. Gay men and women would like to get married to each other.

In some bizarre conclusion, the federal government, headed up by the socially progressive PM John Howard and his equally small-l liberal Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock have concluded that gay marriage is “anti-family”.

Anti-family?? What drugs are they smoking?? And where can I get some??

The whole thing about gay marriage that I thought would appeal to the increasingly conservative Einsteins in Canberra, is that marriage is supposed to encourage a monogamous family unit, which is about as family as you can get.

OK. So we can safely say that the anti-family line is outright bullshit. The government is certainly pandering to groups that claim to be “pro-family”, however, the family issue with regards to this is clearly a red herring.

This position is unacceptable to gay Australia, and quite rightly so. But I don’t think that the government fully comprehends the implications of what they’ve done.

Take a hypothetical gay couple who have decided that they wish to get married. We’ll call them Chuck and Randy. They now do not have that choice, unless they marry someone from the opposite sex. This is unacceptable to them, as they are in love with each other.

If they have a civil “commitment ceremony”, this is not considered, in the eyes of the law, anyway, to be the same as a wedding between a man and a woman. This leads to all sorts of problems with regards to things like estate planning, child adoption, tax, superannuation, name changing etc.

Chuck and Randy are pretty much screwed, unless they can do some tricky legal manoeuvring.

And all because they are pre-disposed towards members of the same sex.

Now it is generally agreed these days that most of the evidence suggests that gay humans are genetically blueprinted to be gay.

There are still idiots out there who believe that one chooses their sexual preference.

Let’s run with this.

Do you remember when YOU chose your sexual preference?

I don’t remember. I don’t remember because I DIDN’T GET TO CHOOSE. I WAS ALWAYS ATTRACTED TO WOMEN, AND I WAS NEVER ATTRACTED TO MEN.

This speaks volumes for the minority of people who believe that one’s sexuality is a matter of choice. Logic dictates that anyone who chose to be straight falls into one of the following camps (an unintentional pun, but I think I’ll let that one slide, hee hee):

1. The obvious conclusion is that they are clearly bisexual. This is just common sense – if you are mentally saying, “I will only chase chicks, and not blokes, even though I am also attracted to them,” well, you bat for both teams, sunshine. There is no other conclusion that you can arrive at.

2. On closer inspection, however, another possibility presents itself. Once upon a time, people who were gay were heavily discriminated against. Oh, wait a minute, they still are. Anyway, if you were a chick who was into chicks, and you were terrified that you would be marginalised (which sadly still happens), you might make a conscious decision to pursue a relationship with a bloke. In other words, you are gay and you are choosing to be straight.

3. Lastly there are a few people out there for whom options A or B do not present themselves. Given the logical impossibility of a straight person choosing to be straight, let’s say that you don’t harbour a sexual attraction to either men, or women. For simplicity’s (and countless other’s) sake, we’ll also assume that you aren’t into animals, kiddies, ashtrays, fire hydrants, etc. By choosing to pursue a trans-Platonic relationship with someone from the opposite sex, you are pretty much denying the fact that you are asexual, bub.

So, those who chose to be straight are clearly gay, bi or “a”.

Which begs the question – what must you be if you choose to be gay?

And given that people usually choose to be straight in order to avoid harassment, persecution, violence, bigotry, stigma, etc, what reason would one have to choose a gay lifestyle?

We’ll look into these in our next instalment.