Some people are gay. Get over it’ — this was the slogan for a campaign against homophobia. A series of YouTube videos follows the same approach: a cameraman asks people on the street, ‘When did you choose to be straight?’ The subtext — that sexual orientation is innate, not chosen — has undoubtedly succeeded in promoting tolerance.
The only strange thing here is that the argument leans heavily on genetic determinism which in almost any other field of debate is anathema to most liberal opinion. Imagine putting up a poster with the legend ‘Some children are brighter than others. #Truth.’ Or ‘Women are crap at parallel parking. Just live with it.’ A more principled argument for tolerance is that your sexual behaviour, when harmless to others, is your own affair. But in this one instance everyone seems happy to accept the idea of nature over nurture — even though in other domains it would be unsayable.
This inconsistency bears out findings from the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt that our political and moral views are formed unconsciously in the brain.
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