"...but I respect your opinion."
I know, I really shouldn't lower myself to youtube comment wars, but sometimes the temptation is too much, and dammit, I've had to choke on this asinine comment until I've practically wanted to vomit.
The discussion, unlike other comments, was rather peaceful, but this person was still under the impression from their own personal experience (from initially being "gay" and then falling in love and marrying a woman) that they had overcome homosexuality and therefore so too should others. They concluded that homosexuality was indeed a choice since they were able to choose to be with a woman.
I argued they were merely bisexual - not homosexual/heterosexual, and due to the fluidity of that orientation it is possible they were simply mistaken in thinking they had made any choice at all. In fact, they were still bound by their bisexuality with all the helplessness of any homosexual or heterosexual individual.
This person quoted a little scripture, went back and forth, and they finally ended with the agree to disagree bunk, in which they state their opinion is still unchanged despite evidence to the contrary and essentially calling for the "tolerate me" card. I wasn't having any of it. I've had to swallow that shit far too much and far too often.
So, with my final response, I spoke my mind. I know this individual will never change their opinions, but these things needed to be said anyway.
This is what I wrote:
Scientific evidence shows that homosexuality is not a choice, anymore than the natural color of our eyes or the color of our skin. There are those of us who feel the pressure to conform to societal standards of the "right" orientation, sometimes involving pain, suffering, and shame... and yet, our eyes see beauty in the same sex and our heart yearns for a soul mate of the same sex. Changing that by willpower alone is like spitting against the wind. People are dragged behind cars, hung until dead, stoned to death, and die gruesome deaths all around the world because they can't "change." Much like their straight counterparts, gays are at the mercy of the compulsion of love... that emotion bordering somewhere between insanity and the highest levels of self-lessness. When we fall in love, it is real, it is true, and it can be just as soul-freeing and soul-crushing as the love any straight person may ever feel. Believe contrary to the evidence around you that homosexuality is a choice, but nobody would choose to be so misunderstood, hated, and have their family turn so ruthlessly on them.
Homosexuality is merely another facet of the diversity of mankind that must be accepted as true if we are to ever to progress closer to truly being unified as a species. Mankind will never find peace in this world if he cannot accept that which he (or she) does not like or understand about his own kind.You say I am not slum, and yet you treat me as though I were a lesser person because you do not listen to the evidence that only a homosexual can disclose - the homosexual perspective. Bisexuals can fluidly move between the two main sexualities thinking they've converted over. Heterosexuals and homosexuals remain locked in the orientations chosen for them before their birth, and you have the audacity to call that a choice?