Is It A Choice? Answers To 300 Of The Most Asked Questions About Gays And Lesbians – Eric Marcus

Page 9: Is it a choice? Why did you choose to be gay?

Just as heterosexual people don’t choose their feelings of sexual attraction, gay and lesbian people don’t choose theirs. All of us become aware of our feelings of sexual attraction as we grow, whether these feelings are for someone of the same sex, the opposite sex, or both sexes. For gay and lesbian people, the only real choice is between suppressing these feelings of same-sex attraction-and pretending to be asexual or heterosexual-and living the full emotional and physical life of a gay man or a lesbian.

Page 12: What are some of the ways mental health experts and doctors have tried to “cure” homosexuals?

In the past, some mental health professionals who believed homosexual people were mentally ill or physically sick tried to “cure” gay men and lesbians using a variety of techniques, including electroshock therapy, brain surgery, hormone injections, and castration. Other methods included aversion therapy, in which, for example, male homosexuals were shown erotic pictures of men as electric shock was applied to their genitals or they were induced to vomit.

Page 13: Do gay men and lesbians recruit people to become gay?

No, gay men and lesbians do not recruit people to become gay. Can you imagine how gay and lesbian life might be advertised to potential recruits? “You too can be a member of a despised minority. Join us and your parents will reject you, your boss will fire you, and absolute strangers will call you names or hit you over the head with a baseball bat for holding hands with your boyfriend or girlfriend in public.”

Now That I’m Out, What Do I Do? – Brian McNaught

Page 5: “But isn’t there a test to prove that you’re really gay?” No, it’s actually a question to determine if you’re really homosexual. It is: Are you exclusively or predominantly attracted both emotionally and sexually to people of the same gender?

Page 15: Gay people who grow in self-esteem generally leave unhappy heterosexual marriages or unhappy, unhealthy homosexual relationships.

Page 40: Nevertheless, I was able to learn for myself that my sexuality is more about who I am than what I do. It’s about my mind, body, and spirit experiencing themselves in harmony and at peace with the world. In that way, my sexuality is inseperable from my spirituality. What I do with my body for pleasure, affects, consciously or unconsciously, the expansion of my mind and the direction of my soul’s journey.

Page 52:

In short, we maintain that it is appropriate to ask whether specific sexual behavior realizes certain values that are conductive to growth and integration of the human person. Among these values we would single out the following as particularly significant:

Self liberating, other enriching, honest faithful, socially-responsible, life-serving, and joyous. [Anthony Kosnik, et.al., Human Sexualities, New Directions in American Catholic Thought: A Study Commissioned by the Catholic Theological Society of America (New York: Paulist Press, 1977 pp. 82,92.]

Pg 59: Poets, artists, musicians, and other lovers throughout the ages have described much better than I can the nature of this love. The words of Ruth to Naomi in the Old Testament, for instance, help capture the spirit of our bond. “Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you,” she said, “for wherever you go, I will go, wherever you will lodge I will lodge, your people will be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you will die, I will die, and there be buried.” [Ruth 1:16-17 New American Bible.]

Pg 154: When I tell audiences the story of Bob Stark, the track coach, stepping forward to ensure that my name remained on the high school award plaque, I recall a statement attributed to eighteenth-century British statesman Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.”