Do you imply then that heterosexuals are making a choice to not be homosexual? Freud felt similarly I think. In his book "Totem and Taboo" he described primitive aboriginal tribesmen and their various taboo prohibitions. According to him, touching a religious idol, for example, was prohibited to everyone except a priest of sufficient rank or, possibly a king. He believed that it was prohibited because once common tribesmen saw other common tribesmen touching the religious idol without any divine consequences, the power of the God would come into question as would the power of the priest and the King. What's more, the violator himself would become taboo. To look upon him would invite further violations and, as such, violators of the taboo prohibition had to be punished lest the entire tribe succumb to their temptation. Punishment typically meant death of course. It's an interesting book chocked full of useless tidbits like this.
Homosexuality is unnatural. It is destructive to the body and causes disease. It goes against Natural Law Theory which is what our legal system is founded on. It should never have been taken off of the APA list of disorders where it sat for centuries.
It is a learned behavior and encourages child abuse. Primitive societies that promote the behavior have lots of it and the ones that discourage it...have little of it. Look at the homosexual Afghanis who sodomize their boys and dress them as girls. They do it because they were sodomized by men when they were boys. It has gone on for centuries as it did in Greece and Rome until Christianity was the paradigm of Western Civilization. It is sick behavior because it is the perversion of nature and it is caused by child abuse—either rape or emotional demeaning of the sexual identity of the child in formative years.
Where are the homosexual animals in nature? But of course, you can make animals homosexual in perverse situations in captivity like they did to penguins and Rhesus monkeys. (Although the penguin dumped the male for a female later. Monkeys that were denied maternal care ended up as anti-social, killing others of its kind and unable to procreate...practicing only abnormal homosexual sex. There is abundant proof that it is abnormal, learned behavior. There is no “gay” gene.
Its been 30-35 years since I had any coursework in psychology or sociology, but yes, I think individuals make a conscious choice about behavior. Every society has norms concerning concepts of “right” and “wrong”. I believe the fact that there is such a concept implies a moral absolute outside ourselves. Sociologists would tell us that we conform to norms because we are social and recognize some behavior is better for the social group. Sanctions, formal or informal, serve to deter aberrant behavior.
From a strictly secular social viewpoint, a group of humans would recognize that survival of the group over time requires procreation. “Nature” would select quickly against groups that don’t reinforce this concept, to throw some Darwinism in. Homosexuality would seem, then to be against “Nature”, hence social sanctions.
One could choose “right” to avoid sanctions in the social model. In the moral absolute model, one chooses right in order to please God or avoid his punishment.
This is becoming a ramble, but to try to close the circle- sheer Darwinism, or sheer instinct(lust, hunger, etc.) would lead one to be quite selfish, greedy and disrespectful of others. We would take from the weak, young or old or disabled for our own need. But, if something inside tells us this is wrong, we do just the opposite- a choice.
I believe in the free will of the individual, and that the concept right and wrong comes from God.