Is There a Choice or Are you Born That Way?

Today, I will go in a different direction. I know it has been a long time since I wrote in this blog, and that I've let my presidential candidate review slip, but today I have a thought that I need to express.

On my way into work today, I was listening to the radio and the person there was talking about how many people thought they were "Christian" simply because they were born into a family that was. She was making the point that you must be "born again" into the faith in order to truely be a Christian.

This comment got me thinking about discrimination. Have you ever noticed that most prohibitions against discrimination are stated this way: discrimination according to race, age, gender, religious affiliation, or sexual preference will not be tolerated. Why sexual preference? Is this a stealth way of admitting that people are not, or may not be, homosexual by a predisposition but rather by personal choice? I'm not a homophobe or a strict conservative by any means, I just am trying to figure out what the stance of gay rights groups is. Most of the time, you hear them speaking about how it is not a choice, they can't help being born that way. If this is the case, why use preference in the language?

I believe that discrimination is wrong, for many reasons. I also think that the science of determining whether it's a choice or not is still undecided. I just wanted to say that if someone believes that there is no choice, they should not talk in terms of preferences. If it is a choice, that the fight for equal rights loses merit. The rights afforded someone who choses to be unconventional in sexual activities are no more protected than someone who choses to get a tatoo.

People have varied opinions on this, and mine is just one. I hope that I might encourage you to look at people's motives behind the rhetoric that they are pushing. Being conservative, I am aware of efforts to diminish our cultural morals. People who are pushing for acceptance of behaviors previously held to be deviant are continually working to lower our standards and erase our moral background. My fear is that if they are truly successful, our whole society is in peril. At any time in history, you can see that when a societies moral basis crumbles, the entire society follows shortly thereafter. I don't want to see that happen here.