Clusterbuck

Yesterday, Republican US Senate candidate for Colorado Ken Buck—who opposes abortion even in cases of rape/incest and has engaged in professional rape apology—appeared on Meet the Press this weekend, where he endeavored to make it clear that he's not just a rank misogynist with intractable hostility toward the notions of autonomy and consent, but is also a gross homophobe who believes being gay is a choice, even though "birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things."

David Gregory: In a debate last month, you expressed your support for Don't Ask, Don't Tell [and] you alluded to 'lifestyle choices.' Do you believe that being gay is a choice?

Ken Buck: I do.

Gregory: Based on what?

Buck: Based on what?

Gregory: Yeah. Why do you believe that?

Buck: Well, I guess you can choose who your partner is.

Gregory: You don't think it's something that's determined at birth?

Buck: I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically you have a choice.

Gregory: That put him outside the mainstream of views on this?

Michael Bennet: I absolutely believe he's outside the mainstream of views on this.

You know, the funny thing is that I would not be axiomatically in disagreement with an argument that went something like: "I believe that sexuality exists on a spectrum, is fluid for many people, and, through some combination of genetic predisposition and cultural influence—nature and nurture, if you prefer—we all come to arrive at an individual sexuality along that spectrum, a journey which is less choice for some than others, but we should all be free to choose whatever we like for ourselves, including those with whom we consensually partner, and no one choice should be privileged above another."

Which it almost sounds like Buck could be saying—until he gets to that whole "ya know, like alcoholism" thing, which implicitly construes homosexuality as a disease. If pressed, I imagine Buck might come out with some evangelical mumbo-jumbo about how homosexuality, like alcoholism, is a test from god, a temptation that moral people are meant to avoid. I grew up hearing stuff like that: We're challenged not to steal when the collection plate passes by, and gay people are challenged not to succumb to their naughty, naughty same-sex urges. Because those are totally the same thing. (And "we" and "gay people" are always mutually exclusive groups.)

It's too bad that the language of choice surrounding sexuality exists almost exclusively in arguments about how queer people could choose to not be queer, if they really wanted to—because when the best argument against Buck's nonsense is, "Nuh-uh! Queer people can't help who they are!" that doesn't feel very much like a win to me.

In a better world, Gregory wouldn't be pointing out that Buck's views are outside the mainstream because he believes being gay could be a choice, but because he believes that, if it is, people should necessarily choose otherwise.