Governor Richardson: The only choice is whether to be “out.”

By Robert-Jay Green, Ph.D.
August 13, 2007

The audience gasped when New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said sexual orientation was “a choice” during last week’s televised forum with Democratic presidential candidates on gay issues. The questioner, performer Melissa Etheridge, quickly tried to rescue Richardson, asking if he understood the question. "Well, I'm not a scientist," he said. "I don't see this as an issue of science or definition.”

The fact is that almost no Americans have had so much as an assigned reading or class lecture in school on the science of love and sexual orientations. Should candidates for president be held to a higher standard?  Here’s what Richardson and the American public ought to know.

Research on the causes of sexual orientation is still in an early stage.  Some intriguing studies suggest that, especially for males, levels of certain maternal hormones during pregnancy may affect the developing brain and sexual orientations in adulthood, and other research indicates a possible genetic contribution.  There is no consistent evidence that any pattern of family relationships during childhood affects offspring’s sexual orientations. Although the causes are unresolved, all of the major mental health professional associations agree that same-sex orientation (if defined as a predominant pattern of underlying attractions) is not a choice, is a normal variation in human sexuality (not a mental illness), and is all but impossible to change. 

There even seems to be growing agreement on this latter point from many former leaders and the current president of Exodus International, the major organization that encourages lesbian and gay people to seek change.  In June, three former leaders of Exodus (Michael Bussee, Darlene Bogle, and Jeremy Marks) apologized for the wrenching human cost of these ineffective programs:  "Some who heard our message were compelled to try to change an integral part of themselves, bringing harm to themselves and their families," they wrote in a joint statement. 
 
Exodus’s current leaders also began shifting their rhetoric recently, questioning the validity of their signature term “ex-gay.”  In a Los Angeles Times interview in June, Exodus President Alan Chambers admitted “By no means is it our belief that change from the complexity of issues surrounding homosexuality is often sudden or complete.”  Chambers elsewhere said that he maintains heterosexual behavior because “I deny what comes naturally to me.”  Other reorientation therapists now speak of patients “managing” same-sex feelings by becoming celibate or behaving heterosexually, rather than by eliminating same-sex feelings. 

 These shifts in “ex-gay” language seem to acknowledge that treatment programs promising a fundamental “change” in underlying orientation have been misleading the public.

The systematic research on this matter of choice and change, while imperfect, is still instructive.  Robert L. Spitzer of Columbia University conducted a widely-cited national study of 200 people who claimed to have converted to heterosexuality after reorientation treatments.  Most of these research participants came from “ex-gay” religious groups, heavily biasing the study. Even so, discussing his results in The Wall Street Journal in 2001, Spitzer concluded “I suspect the vast majority of gay people would be unable to alter by much a firmly established homosexual orientation.” 

Of serious concern, a major study of 202 reorientation therapy participants by Shidlo and Schroeder showed that many were severely harmed by the effort to change, suffering from increased self-loathing, depression, and suicidal feelings.  Almost all of these participants eventually accepted a lesbian or gay identity after their sincere efforts to become heterosexual collapsed.

What becomes clear is that there really is no free choice about one’s underlying same-sex orientation.  The only choice is about whether to be true to one’s given nature and find the courage to reach out for love.
Most heterosexual people understand these facts intuitively.  They know they didn’t choose to be heterosexual.  To Governor Richardson’s credit, he did issue a statement after last week’s televised program saying, “The point I was trying to make is that no matter how it happens, we are all equal and should be treated that way under the law.” 

Indeed, the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be more central to public policy on gay issues than whatever the research shows about choice.  The science simply lends support to the idea that lesbian and gay people are being denied full citizenship when their intrinsic needs for love and commitment are not treated equally by American society.

Bill Richardson had a crash course in the fundamentals of love and sexual orientation this week. Let’s hope his experience helps educate the other presidential candidates and the American public as well.

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Robert-Jay Green, PhD, is executive director of the Rockway Institute, a national center for LGBT research and public policy, and Distinguished Professor at the California School of Professional Psychology, a graduate division of Alliant International University.

Contact by telephone at 415-955-2121. Contact by email at rjgreen@alliant.edu