BY ROB SALERNO – Straight people. They’re fascinating, and lately they’re everywhere. Running for the Republican nomination, complaining about their post-MS diagnosis ex-husband’s request for an open marriage on live television, or disclosing that the millions they pay in taxes is a rate lower than their secretaries.
And it turns out that sometimes straight people can become just like us. And I’m not just talking about the natural design sense and the recreational drugs.
Actress Cynthia Nixon, who played the ginger lawyer who everyone thought was a lesbian on Sex and the City, recently made headlines by explaining that she chose to be gay after her 15-year heterosexual marriage.
Nixon explains that she made a choice to be with her current partner, Christine, although she doesn’t like to use the word “bisexual” to describe herself.
For many gay people, the suggestion that being gay is a “choice” is very upsetting. After all, gay people believe that we were all born this way because Lady Gaga told us so.
Besides, we all know that straight people don’t “choose” to be gay. They just become gay naturally in certain situations, like prison or the navy.
Or during a college fraternity’s ritual hazing [nsfw].
Or when their girlfriends dump them and I invite them over and they have at least six beers and I promise that no one will ever find out. Right, Ted? 😉
Lots of gay people don’t like the suggestion that being gay is a choice, because that implies that we could all choose to be straight, which, ew.
It also plays into certain gay-haters’ beliefs that gays should just choose to be straight to get along with everyone else. But why give in to that argument? Whether or not being gay is a choice is irrelevant to the moral argument, which is that we should have the right to do anything we want with our bodies as long as we’re not harming anyone else. As Nixon puts it, “It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I
don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate.”
Besides, if we concede that straight guys can’t choose to be gay, we’re invalidating at least 60 percent of all gay porn, including most of the hottest scenes.
Meanwhile, straight allies are exercising their right to choice.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have famously pledged not to get married until gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. I was never clear how pledging to keep the world’s two most attractive heterosexuals theoretically on the market was supposed to garner support for gay marriage among straights, but it was a nice gesture. Well, it appears Pitt is now bowing to pressure from his own children to just get married already. Pitt has told People, “I don’t think we’ll be able to hold out.”
Funny, I said the same thing after I ditched school to go see Fight Club with my straight best friend.
And lastly, Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine has announced that his band is boycotting an unnamed Mexican restaurant in LA because of its support of Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. Good call on keeping the restaurant anonymous, Mr Levine. I guess I’ll just boycott all Mexican places next time I’m in LA to be safe.
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