[lbo-talk] Re: Diet Pills = Gay Babies . . . Not!

[John Adams]

On Dec 13, 2004, at 3:50 PM, Michael Dawson wrote:

> Then why are you so hostile to somebody suggesting that being gay might
> sometimes be a matter of socialization and choice?

I suspect I'm a little bit older than Brian, because one of my 
formative movement memories was contact with the lesbian separatists of 
seventies northwest Arkansas. Some of them were straight women, 
pre-separatist movement--then became lesbians during the movement--then 
became straight again (and quite a few didn't). It wasn't a "phase they 
were going through" in the demeaning sense of the phrase, but part of 
their coming to a fuller feminist consciousness. To the best of my 
knowledge, there are women still going through that passage today. I 
wouldn't tell those who identify themselves today as lesbian that they 
are not lesbian, and I wouldn't tell them they weren't straight if they 
later identified as straight.

People who are homosexual have a right to be homosexual, period. Why 
they are homosexual is an interesting question that I would be 
fascinated to hear them answer, should they want to do so, but it has 
nothing to do with whether or not they have a right to be who they are 
and do what they do.

Trust me on this--bigots don't care why you're different from them, 
just that you are different from them. They won't say, "Are you 
naturally gay? You're okay, then."

All the best,

	John A