The Human Rights Campaign published an article titled “Guide to Coming Out” that states, “Did you choose your sex when you were born? Sexuality and gender identity are not choices anymore than being left- handed or having brown eyes or being heterosexual. They are a part of who you are. The choice is in deciding how to live your life if you are homesexual.” So how would a homosexual person choose to live their life? There are many common feelings that gay men have expressed because they are too afraid to be openly gay, due to laws made by the government. Biology shows that homosexuals truly might not have a choice, and even though that may be true, there are therapists who have tortured these human beings forcing them to change.
According to James T. Martin, a gay man is exposed to fewer steroids in the womb, causing him to be more feminine. Magnus Hirschfeld in his book Sappo and Socrates claims that everyone is bisexual as an embryo, and typically males lose their feelings for other men making them heterosexual, but sometimes the bisexual feeling doesn’t go away which leads them to be bisexual or gay. Many people have tried to prove that there is a gay gene in existence, but currently that theory has not proven true. As stated by Kenneth Mconen in his article “Archives of Sexual Behavior”, there is no gay gene, but genes do play a major role in determining ones sexuality. In recent studies, scientists have noticed a significant difference in the X-chromosone of a gay male versus that of a heterosexual male. Despite all that has been proven regarding homosexuality, gay marriage still remains illegal in many states.
Clause 28 of the Constitution specifically states that government cannot promote gay acts or publish any material promoting homosexuality. It also says the government cannot tell school officials to promote homosexuality at their facilities. The Minnesota State Legislature explains that the Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage as being between two people of the opposite sex- one man and one woman- making homosexual marriages illegal. In the US alone, 37 states agree with the Defense of Marriage Act and only 10 give out marriage licenses to all types of couples. Clause 28 and the Defense of Marriage Act could be two main reasons why homosexuals are too frightened to be open about their feelings.
Avert.org interviewed sixteen gay males, all of them had been too scared to make their sexual preferences public. The majority of the men knew they were gay at a very young age, but went through a stage of denial, shunning themselves because of their sexual attractions. When these males described the announcement of their sexuality, they said they told very few people, and only people that were very trustworthy. The common hints leading the men to realize they were gay included getting butterflies around other guys, getting along better with females and portraying a large amount of feminism. Some men however, were not so lucky after admitting to being gay.
An example of trying to change a homosexual’s feelings is aversion therapy. Aversion therapy is a behavioral therapy designed to make someone give up a habit by putting them in an uncomfortable situation, making them associate pain with their habit. Emma Connolly, a psychology blogger, wrote about a horrific aersion therapy tragedy that occurred in 1962 . It involved a man named Billy Clegg-Hill who died during medically supervised aversion therapy after being arrested for homosexual offenses. Doctors at the time of the event reported that he died from natural causes, but an investigation thirty-four years later, in 1996, determined the cause of his death was anything but natural. The investigation showed that he never woke from his coma and died. He had convulsions due to several injections of apomorphine, a vomit inducing drug. When showing Billy pictures of men, therapists hoped that he would vomit from the apomorphine causing his body to think that pain was associated with having an attraction to men.
Some families don’t accept their child’s homosexuality either. Paul Bentley, a reporter from the “Daily Mail UK” interviewed a young man that is openly gay. In 2002, s a 12 year old, Samuel Brinton from Iowa innocently told his father that he liked a boy in his class. Samuel’s father beat him and told him that he had AIDS. He also told him that the government had killed all the gay men and they would come for him too. Samuel was forced into aversion therapy and tortured constantly because of his sexuality. For a month, he was electrocuted while being shown explicit pictures of men. When shown pictures of two men hugging, Samuel had his hands burned and then frozen to associate pain with intimacy among men. At one point in his life, Samuel was standing on his roof contemplating suicide, but his mother finally got him to retreat from the roof. He remembers her shouting, “I’ll love you again if you just change!” Since then, Samuel’s parents have kicked him out of the house and threatened that if he returns he will be shot. He has called his parents many times, but they have never answered or returned any of his calls. Patients who have been through aversion therapy are likely to come out with more anger and hostility than when they began therapy. It has been proven that once a patient leaves therapy, they are more than likely to return to their old habits.
Many gays don’t get to choose how to live their lives due to laws prohibiting them from being truly happy. Although biology may have proven that homosexuality isn’t a choice, homosexuals still have not been granted equal marriage rights. In addition, many people hide their homosexuality from others, being too scared of the outcome. When they do finally come out, many are tortured by words or beaten relentlessly to change. There are so many homosexuals that spend their life fighting for equal rights instead of being happy. Everyone was born with the natural rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, so why is that being stripped from these humans? It’s not up to a doctor, the government, or even a parent whether they can be happy, the choice is theirs.