Cynthia Nixon's comment on whether
being gay is a choice has been used to support “ex-gay” therapy.
Maggie Gallagher of the National
Organization for Marriage (NOM) used the comment in discussing the
gay community's opposition to “ex-gay” therapy, which attempts to
“cure” gay men and lesbians.
“I think honestly, partly, it's that
personally, people still find it quite painful to come to terms with
being gay and the way they do it is by saying, 'I'm born that way,'
'God made me that way.' So it becomes part of their identity
structure for coping with what was probably initially not very happy
feelings about it,” Gallagher told EqualityMatters.org.
“There are a lot of women who will
tell you that they made a choice to be a lesbian. In fact, some
famous celebrity just did this.”
Nixon, a co-star of the HBO series Sex
and the City, told The New York Times that being gay, for
her, is a choice. She later expanded on her statement, saying
that she is bisexual.
“I believe bisexuality is not a
choice, it is a fact,” Nixon said. “What I have 'chosen' is to
be in a gay relationship.”
Gallagher suggested Nixon had been
pressured to change her stance.
“And then they all dumped on [Nixon],
and she retreated and said her orientation is bisexual. So, I mean,
that's part of the definition too. I think it's definitional. If
you could have a relationship with both – a non-gay relationship –
that means your orientation's not gay. Your orientation is bisexual
by definition, right? … If you could change, that would show that
you weren't really gay. I don't know how you get to decide who's gay
and not gay, but it's an interesting conversation.”
“It's hard to be gay in America, so I
guess that probably does deeply relate to it,” she added.
(Related: Maggie
Gallagher denied gay marriage opposition increases gay teen suicide.)