Choices

WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes came out this week. She also has said she believes that she wasn't born a lesbian, and that we choose our sexuality.

I certainly feel I was born this way; never in a million years would I have chosen this path for myself. That doesn't mean I dispute Ms. Swoope's assertion; I wouldn't dare. But I wonder for the gay rights movement, how much of our momentum comes from the belief or experience that orientation is biological? And, ultimately, why does it matter?

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Part of the broad legal strategy for achieving full civil equality for the gay community under the law in America is predicated on the idea that marriage is the constitutionally protected fundamental right to marry the partner of your choice; this is the response to the counter-argument that homosexuals are not banned from marrying in the United States, as long as they marry an opposite-sex partner.

I don't think there's any validity to the counter-argument, but I'm also not convinced that our legal strategy is necessarily accurate.

Love is not really about choosing; for me, that ties in with the whole issue of sexual orientation. It's not a question of my "choosing" a woman; the fact that I am emotionally and erotically attracted to men lies outside my power to choose.

But we also don't really choose the individuals we partner with. Not really. I mean, if I could choose who I wanted to marry, I'd have done it by now. But none of them were interested back.

So where does choice come in? Love is this bizarre, unexplainable phenomenon by which two people find themselves committed to one another in an emotional union. It's a force of nature, not something we reason out with ourselves and our partners. We don't say, "You seem nice, would you like to love me?" It doesn't work that way. How often have we met people who were perfectly nice, perfectly viable...but, we just didn't -- and couldn't -- love them in that way?

I have no answers, only questions.

Have a great weekend.