Can We Put People Back in the Closet?

[RobbO]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:24pm

if so, i nominate sheryl swoopes, the black basketball player who recently came out and declared publicly that her being gay is a choice.

please, if you're not helping, you're hurting. we don't need another anne heche situation to give anti-gay activists further fuel for their hate speech.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:27pm

Nothing can touch Anne Heche. Worry not, dear friend.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:28pm

I couldn't believe she said that. I say Yeah to getting her back in the closet.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:31pm

Is there any room in that WNBA closet?

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:38pm

I hate that people can't look at an Anne Heche situation and realize, "Oh, I guess he/she is bisexual--if even a lil, but enough to fall for someone out of their usual sexual orientation".

And, yes, Ms. Swoopes' assertion that she chose to be gay is frustrating indeed.

[Kringas]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:40pm

Anne Heche lost me when she said, "Glibble gleep glop glup. Ooka tooka ti."

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 7:15pm

I just thought Anne was a little crazy until I read her book, "Call Me Crazy." Now I think she is a f**king LUNATIC! Swoopes comment annoyed the hell out of me.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 7:16pm

WAS a lunatic. She's much saner now.

[Kringas]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 7:35pm

I miss Celestia.

[Act0r721]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 7:47pm

Where did you find this? I found:

"And I know there are going to be some negative things said, too. But it doesn't change who I am. I can't help who I fall in love with. No one can."

"At the same time, I'm a firm believer that when you fall in love with somebody, you can't control that."

http://sports.espn.go.com/wnba/news/story?id=2203853

[kjklo]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 7:48pm

But what does it matter if some people feel that their own sexuality is a choice, even if others don't feel that theirs is? Must everyone feel obliged to either live up to someone else's pre-approved notion of political seemliness or else keep their mouth shut. It seems like an intolerance bred of defensiveness, and defensiveness only holds people back.

I well understand that it's an axiom on the homophobic right that being gay is always a choice, but I don't believe that a proper response is to insist on a rigidly deterministic opposite model merely in reaction. In that case, you're still permitting others to define you, when the point is to discard and transcend all the definitions and categories.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 8:30pm

I don't have a problem with people saying they chose to be gay. They're called BISEXUAL.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 8:32pm

Thank you!

We can choose our actions, but we can not choose who we are inside.

[kjklo]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:23pm

I happen to agree completely, but I'm not about to tell anyone else how to feel. I just want a world where people feel free to think and say and do and be whatever they want, whenever they want, without having to worry about anyone else's approval--whether it be Christian fundamentalists or Gay activists or just plain bitchy busybodies (NOT referring to anyone here!).

[Plum]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:26pm

I think we need to get to the point where you can just love who you love. If you think it's inherent, fine, if you think it's a choice, that's cool, too. We'll know we've made some progress on the issue when that isn't even a primary consideration.

[harris007]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:30pm

i've tried it, it doesnt work , worst year i ever had

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:32pm

Plum, the problem there is, as long as something is a proven choice, it can be more easily countered as "illegal" or some kind of moral wrong. If Christians had the cold hard truth shoved down their throats and realized it isn't, they wouldn't be able to argue it as successfully, unless they manage to convince the government that demon possession should be made a legal precedent in some way.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:36pm

Well, I will add this: being born gay shouldn't have to be a factor in our civil rights anyway. You aren't born with a biological religious belief and THAT is protected.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:37pm

Remember, Jerby, when it comes to choice, you do have a choice! You can choose our choice or none at all!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:37pm

Well, I AM pro-choice.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:42pm

When they come to round us up and bring us to the camps, they're aren't going to care if we were gay or bisexual. They're gonna consider us queers if we had same-sex sex. Period.

And that's gonna go for the married men who had bookstore, rest-stop or webcam sex too.

As our pre-Stonewall elders used to say, "In the paddy wagon, we're ALL fairies, Mary."

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:45pm

I love it, PJ. So true.

[kjklo]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:46pm

I guess I just believe in fighting for human rights on the basis of freedom and dignity and autonomy for all, not on a "but I can't help it, I was born this way" rationale.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:50pm

Men cluster to me
Like moths around the flame,
And if their wings burn,
I know I'm not to blame.

Falling in love again.
Never wanted to.
What am I to do?
I CAN'T HELP IT.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 9:50pm

I WAS going to commend you on your wanting to protect all gay people and their feelings about how they came to be gay, but after that holier than thou comment, for. get. it.

I am WELL AWARE of all the things you are saying. And, if Ms. Swoopes was standing in front of me telling me about the sunny day in Houston when she DECIDED to start munching carpet, I would respect her feeling that this is so.

But, secretly, I would think girrrrrrllll has some issues to work through. And, that's ok. I'm allowed to believe that inherent sexual orientation is something we were all born with--and what comes to fruition and when and what is all a matter of our individual timing. And, Cheryl is free to believe that she chose to become something the country and her own community despises as a whole.