Once I was around a couple beer belly blue collar guys complaining about "butch dykes".

I sarcastically shouted, "6 BILLION PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET AND NOT EVERYONE WILL BE A CLONE OF YOU......CALL CNN!"

If homosexuals were having laws passed forcing heterosexualls to have gay sex, then they could bitch. But I dont see how two concenting adults behind closed doors is any concern of mine.

I've had gays hit on me. But I treat it just like a woman I am not attracted to, "Thanks, but no thanks".

What is the big deal? Women get hit on in bars all the time by guys they are not interested in. And heterosexual guys can be obnoxious and octopusses.

So I treat gays the same. I wont get offended if you ask, but when I say no, it is the same as a woman saying no to a man. I've also had my ass grabbed by women I wasnt attracted to, and unwanted touching is the same, no matter who is doing it.

Gays have been needlessly feared for far too long, and even IF I agreed that it was a choice(which I dont think it is) what business is it of anyone else. There is a thing called freedom and a thing called privacy.

Gays are just as human and just as deserving of equality as heterosexuals.  

This opinion is the result of your extensive census of the homosexual population?  Do you know any homosexuals well? 

Once you answer those questions, I will give you are more likely answer to the issue. 

Is it a choice? Is it not a choice? Is it something that someone acquires?

Your explanation falls into the answers to the third question. Child abuse can have a myriad of effects on the child and parental neglect could potentially have a myriad of effects as well. The problem with the question you answer is that it assumes that people become gay; that it's not some innate trait they can have. The question has more problems in that it ignores the gay people who have no history of child abuse or parental neglect, who were not abused by anyone in anyway, other animals that exhibit homosexual behaviour and the gay people who report to have always known they were gay. It's also been widely studied and it is accepted that homosexuality is not a mental disorder, which would be the case if all homosexuals were the result of child abuse and neglect. Homosexuals also cannot be 'cured' of homosexuality and they cannot 'become' heterosexual, no matter what reports you've read.  It is much the same as someone cannot be 'cured' of heterosexuality and cannot 'become' homosexual.  Human sexuality is also not black and white (people either being only sexually attracted to the same gender or not). Many studies have shown that human sexuality is most often 'fluid' in that it can change from time to time and sexual attraction may fluctuate. Studies have even shown that a considerable percent of the population has had some sort of sexual experience with a member of the same sex within their lifetime. There are few absolutes in sexuality. Homosexuality is not a choice, nor is it acquired as a result of traumatic childhood experiences. There is no reason to believe that the exhibition of homosexuality in humans is much different from that of other animals.

Why don't you start on wikipedia and look up the cited material at your library? 

Do some research on homosexuality. People are necessarily born gay.  There is a partcular theory that suggests that exposure to certain levels of testorterone has an effect on the organizational structure of the brain and that adolescent development and even manipulation of hormones can result in varying sexual behaviour.

 Edited: because I cannot read.

Maybe that author was pulling a Ted Haggard?

If sexual orientation was as maleable as claimed, I'd expect a much larger percentage of lesbianism attributable to sexual molestation and assault of girls and women. What we do know is it is predominantly men commiting sexual assaults. IF this actually "turned" anybody then molested girls would become lesbian in greater numbers and molested boys would be made even stronger HETEROsexual.

If we we(humans want to go by a NO SHIT SHERLOCK)axium it would be "Shit rolls downhill"

Abuse does lead to the abused abusing future generations. But that has absolutly nothing to do with a person and their sexuality.

Abuse is not a result of sex, it is a result of the perpitrator looking to assert dominance on a convienant target.

 If pediophileia were a gay crime, then why do men molest underage girls?

That is because gays and heterosexuals have nothing to do with crime. It has to do with an individual lacking self esteem and use sex to assert dominance in an attept to compensate for that deficite.

The perpitrators of molestation molest both boys and girls and most within this crim exibit mainstreem behaivor such as girlfriends and marriage.

We are not going to stop child rape by assuming every gay and lesbian want to have sex with under age children. We are going to stop these sickos by interviewing the captured and convicted to understand the tactics these sickos use.

Sex crimes, be it a man raping a woman, or a man molesting a child, have nothing to do with what is between the victim's legs as much as it has to do with the asshole commiting the crime asserting power and control.

I suppose like many phenomena there may be different causes. An individual's sexuality may be influences by any number of factors both natural and environmental. When it comes down to it we do not have a choice what sexuality we are. Gay people are just as likely to be born gay as heterosexuals are likely to be born straight.

I really hate it how people still try to argue that homosexuality, bisexuality, trans-sexuality, oral and anal sex, masturbation, and various fetishes are somehow wrong when they harm nobody.

I've had gay guys come onto me, and I see it exactly like Brian, flattering but I'm not interested.  

Does it matter if it's a choice or not?

Yes, it does.  If it were merely a choice there would be no reason to afford people who chose to be gay the same rights as people who are heterosexual.  Also, if being homosexual is a choice, then there isn't a reason to think that heterosexuality isn't a choice either or, on the flip side, heterosexuality would be the default and 'normal' condition and there would be something abnormal about being gay.  Of course, there is nothing abnormal about homosexual sexual orientation.  Homosexuality is known not to be a choice and sexual orientation is known to be 'untreatable'.  It was recently a mental disorder to be homosexual and 'treatment' was required to 'cure' homosexuals of the disorder.  Much more is known of the likely causes of hmoosexuality and none of the causes has to do with a choice that an otherwise heterosexual person makes to be gay.  Don't you think it's kind of insulting to homosexuals who report to have always been gay for it to be considered a choice by some people?  Homosexuals don't choose to live as marginalized members of society facing the potential threat of violence everyday.  It's absurd to think that people would choose that for themselves when they could just be straight.  Of course, no homosexual could just be heterosexual anymore than a heterosexual could just be gay.  Go ahead, try feeling phsyically and emotionally attracted to a member of your gender.  Go have sex with a member of you gender.  Go choose to be gay.  Tell me how well you're able to make that choice.

I have my reasons for being touchy.  I think I explained my position well enough.  Homosexuality has been a crime for ages for a number of erroneous reasons.  Most recently it was treated as a mental disorder.  Society didn't give gays the same rights.  Society, once, found it alright to enslave black people and to participate in apartheid and segregation for a number of invalid reasons.  There would be no reason NOT to afford them these same rights either, and yet they weren't.  There was no reason for women not to have the same rights as men and until recently they didn't.  You're right, that there is no good reason for gays not to have equal rights nevertheless they didn't.  Perhaps you should rethink my assertion, because it seems valid to me.  Exactly because homosexuality is known not to be a choice homosexuals have the same rights as other people.  Like women an black they fought to show society that they were deserved of equal rights and like women and blacks they're still fighting for exactly equal rights.

Fair enough.

I'm not sure I can at present. I will try, though.

My assertion is not what it seems to be then. I'm pointing out the reality as it has been. I don't find the reasons for refusing people, specifically the people I've mentioned, good at all. I abhor the fact that rights have been withheld for the reasons they have historically been.

I'm apparently unable to make myself clear at present. As I said,  will try. Regardless, choice is not a factor in anyone's homosexuality. That much should at least be understood.

edited: The quotes got really messy. 

None is taken. Actually the biologist is our best bet. The leading theories in biology on the subject actually have evidence supporting them. They are not conclusive and several of the theories fail to explain both male and female homosexuality, but the research appears promising and at least one of the theories makes a rather accurate prediction about the occurrence of male homosexuality.

The psychologist, on the other hand, has failed to show that homosexuality is 'caused' by any psychological factors. This lead the APA to no longer count homosexuality among mental disorders and research into sexuality has prompted them to state that homosexuality is not changeable. No psychologist would suggest that there are psychological factors that lead to homosexuality. It is outdated and an incorrect theory that suggests that homosexuality is a psychological condition. This does not mean that there aren't psychological factors that affect the occurance of homosexuality, but that should be obvious, as psychological factors have an influence on all sexuality and sexual behaviour regardless of a person's sexual orientation.

First, it must be pointed out that there are several issues being discussed here under the general heading of "gay rights," and this is creating needless confusion. As has been said by someone else in this thread, it is necessary to divide between, for lack of better words, "gay sex" and "gay love." That is to say, a person can have sex with someone of the same gender and not be gay (the person could be bi, or really drunk, or "curious", for example). However, this is to be distinuished from a person who feels attraction for people of the same gender, which doesn't require having sex, or any action at all.

The freedom to have sex with (pretty much) whomever you want is one which had been previously denied as a matter of law. However, having sex is really better classified as an activity, and it's illegality has already been declared as unsupportable, mostly on grounds of privacy. In regard to this matter, it is true that there is little concern about if people are born gay or not.

It is on the validity of love between people of the same gender, that the debate over choice comes into play. When is love ever a choice? By reducing homosexuality to nothing more than a behavior (an activity one chooses to engage in), opponents to rights are attempting to destroy the very concept of a person being a "homosexual." That is to say, if homosexuality is defined only by sexual acts, then essentially all people are heterosexual, but some of them chose to engage in homosexual behavior. If the only aspect of homosexuality that exists is chosen (i.e. sex), then there is no such thing as homosexual "love." By using the word choice instead of love, they can appear to be tolerant of homosexuality while actually denying its existence altogether (compare to the use of "pro-life" by advocates against abortion. nobody really wants to be "anti-life" and similarly an "anti-love" campaign would clash with the general "protection of the family" routine that rights opponents go through)

The existence of love between couples of the same gender is vital in the question of marriage. You may suggest that all people are being oppressed by current rules because no one is allowed to marry a person of the same gender (whether those people are gay or straight), and by changing this rule you would be freeing all people to do so. However, no advocacy group is currently making this agrument. It contains several weaknesses, the first being that equal treatment is by defnition not discrimination. Instead, the tactic that both feels more "right" and has been met with limited success in ceratain states, is that gay people deserve to get married the same way straight people, as in to those they love. We already know that marriage is not just about sex. Impotent people, elderly people, crippled people, and other classes of people incapable for whatever reason of having sex are all capable of being married. This means that sustaining an argument that marriage should be permitted between people of the same gender should be allowed solely on the basis of their preference in sexual activity would almost certainly fail.

Instead, we must look at how this country has treated the concept of marriage. Historically, the goverment has held a huge amount of special privilege for marriage, and on many occaisions it has been protected and described as a fundamental right for citizens. The biological attraction between men and women is obvious and "natural" and is given great weight by society as a whole, but people would deny that there is equal potential for attraction between two men or two women. It is under this rubric that the necessity of homosexual attraction as more than sexual preference becomes critical. If the case is that homosexual attraction is in all respects the same as heterosexual attraction (excepting the obvious difference in gender, of course), then we can say that my limiting marriage between a man and a woman, we are creating a barrier by which some subset of the population, by no will of their own, has been barred by law. If homosexual behavior is nothing but a choice, the essentially there is no difference between someone chosing to engage in such activity and someone chosing not to marry.

This terminology will never be found in any sort of legal argument, mainly because they are not the terms recognized by our courts and legislature. Insead, the language speaks of fundamental human rights, one of which is marriage. The question of what exactly marriage is and what it means to be a fundamental right are one open to interpretation, but it is clear that simple preferences are not necessarily privileged to the same degree of protection and respect.

Finally, there is the question of gays as a protected class under hate crimes. This is a topic which I have slightly more mixed feelings about, mainly because I have reservations about hate crimes as a whole, but in essence the choice/no-choice division again plays a part. Hate crimes include a preception of a person, and also generally relate more to what a person is as opposed to what a person does, but again, I personally feel less concern over this issue as a whole.

The bottom line is that, while you are correct that people are generally free to do whatever they want, and so you may imagine that gay people would be afforded the same rights as anyone else regardless of choice, few activities are institutionalized by the state. By claiming homosexuality is a choice, it is possible to deny the fact that a homosexual realtionship stands on equal ground to a heterosexual relationship. In such a case, there would arguably be no need to provide, and possibly a need to deny, those relationships equal standing under the law.

I'm Canadian so a great deal of this is moot for me.  Gays are allowed to marry, have equal rights, and are protected by hate crime legislation.  It's that way in the rest of the first world for the most part.  It seems that only America is hung up on these issues anymore.  I agree, for the most part, with you on the issue of choice.  Of course, it's been accepted by the psychiatric community worldwide that homosexuality is not a choice and there is research into this that provides proof for that conclusion.  Perhaps America will one day wake up.  I won't hold my breath and not just because I don't specifically have a stake in it.

It's not an unintelligent or invalid argument; however, I am a homosexual male who comes from an extremely loving, accepting family. I have never been mentally, emotionally, or physically abused in any way, by either parent. My childhood environment was a wonderful one. My younger brother is heterosexual, and has been raised in the exact same environment; therefore, I doubt that environment or relationships have anything to do with sexual orientation.

Also, I don't believe anyone who claims that they were once gay or once straight, or whatever. No amount of coercion, divine intervention, or therapy can alter someone's sexual orientation. I view it as being unable to accept and live with the fact that you are a member of society who will be blindly judged and discriminated against. I mean, let's get real, here: could you ever be sexually attracted to another person of the same sex? I think not.

Just a statement from an actual gay person.

I dated a tranny (post-op) before I knew it was a guy and really the biggest reason I didnt continue was because there wasnt the possibility of kids, besides that she was a very good fit for me