During a Thursday question-and-answer
session with young people broadcast on cabler MTV, President Obama
said being gay is not a choice.
The comments come after White House
Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett apologized for referring to a gay teen
who committed suicide as having made a “lifestyle choice.”
“You know, I am not obviously – I
don't profess to be an expert. This is a layperson's opinion,”
Obama said.
“But I don't think it's a choice. I
think that people are born with, you know, a certain makeup, and that
we're all children of God.”
“We don't make determinations about
who we love. And that's why I think that discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation is wrong,” he added.
Jarrett, who spoke Saturday at a
fundraiser benefiting the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest
gay advocate, had been criticized for saying that the parents of
Justin Aaberg, a gay Minnesota teenager who killed himself, had
“supported his lifestyle choice.”
“I meant no disrespect to the LGBT
community,” Jarrett said Thursday, “and I apologize to any who
have taken offense at my poor choice of words. Sexual orientation
and gender identity are not a choice, and anyone who knows me and my
work over the years knows that I am a firm believer and supporter in
the rights of LGBT Americans.”