According to characters on two popular
television shows, being gay is a choice.
Choice is at the heart of anti-gay foes
who claim gay men and lesbians have the power to decide their sexual
orientation. Gay activists counter that straight folks don't flaunt
their heterosexual choice.
On the Fox animated comedy's latest
episode, titled New Kidney in Town, Peter Griffins' daughter
Meg suggests that choosing to be gay is the inborn talent.
When Meg's brother Chris asks if she
learned about hope in school, Meg shoots back that such a talent is
not a learned behavior.
“You can't just learn creative
writing, Chris,” Meg insists. “It's gotta be inside you. Like
musical talent, or athleticism, or the ability to choose to be gay.”
“I don't think they choose that,”
Chris responds.
“Oh please, they choose that,” Meg
says with a sour face.
The question gets a more thorough
airing out on the CBS legal drama The Good Wife.
In the season's tenth episode, titled
Breaking Up, Mary Beth Peil's character of Jackie Florrick is
also adamant that being gay is a choice, but holds a rather novel –
and in some ways liberal – view of the subject.
When Jackie asks Owen, played expertly
by Dallas Roberts, how he knew he was gay, the visiting professor
jokes: “You mean before or after I fellated my first guy?”
“I don't like that word,” Jackie
chides.
“I'm sorry. Before or after I
fellated my first man?” Owen replies.
Owen goes on to argue that being gay is
a matter of biology. To which Jackie counters that being gay is a
choice, and since Americans are being asked to believe that it's a
valid option, gay folks should stop pretending that they had no
choice in the matter.
“What I don't understand, is why it's
so important to say people were born gay. If it's so good, people
should be allowed to choose it, shouldn't they? They should think it
wasn't forced on them, they would just prefer it,” Jackie tells
Owen.
“I think people want to think it is”
about biology, she later insists.