Are you referring to the mortality studies of Paul Cameron? Those are bogus. The clue that they're bogus is that the average age of death of the men in the obituaries was in the low 40s even when the cause of death wasn't AIDS. It turns out that the readership of these papers was young men. But we can stick with that Ontario study I mentioned that gave the range of 8 to 20 years (the uncertainty being the result of a lack of knowledge as to what percentage of men actually have sex with men). The average of 8 and 20? It's 14. Not particularly encouraging to smokers, to know their habit is as unhealthy as gay sex. Not particularly encouraging to gay men, to know their lifestyle is as unhealthy as smoking. < grin >
Choice? Gay men usually say they can't chose who they're sexually attracted to (just as most straight men have absolutely no attraction to men). Of course, they can choose celibacy, but to not have sex? That's pretty tough. Now compare to smoking. That's not exactly a choice either for many smokers. I know smokers who tell me they tried to quit and a year later, the cravings never went away. Smoking is, yes, addictive.
Gay men usually say they can't chose who they're sexually attracted to Yes, "usually" is the key word. The ex-gay men don't say that at all. Although their behavior choices don't to count when activists want to say that acting out in homosexual manners is genetic. Some of the bestiality people say the same thing as well - "it's genetic what we want to have sex with so legalize and endorse it."