No Ben Carson, Homosexuality Is Not a Choice

If you’re a candidate dreaming of the White House with virtually no chance of actually winding up there, it sometimes helps to say something ridiculous—if only to get your name-recognition numbers up. That is the very best and most charitable explanation for comments by Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon, on CNN, arguing that homosexuality is “absolutely” a choice. His evidence? Prison. “A lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight and when they come out, they’re gay,” he said. “So did something happen while they were in there?” Prison, of course, is the worst of all possible examples Carson could have chosen—conflating sexuality with circumstance. Men confined together for years without women remain sexual beings and may take whatever outlet is available to them. Something similar was true in a less enlightened era of gay men and women who were forced to marry people of the opposite sex, and who dutifully produced children and tried to satisfy their partners despite the fact that they were getting little satisfaction themselves. Carson, who was blowtorched in both social and mainstream media for his remarks, quickly walked them back, issuing a statement that, in some ways, only made things worse. “I’m a doctor trained in multiple fields of medicine, who was blessed to work at perhaps the finest institution of medical knowledge in the world,” he wrote. “Some of our brightest minds ha...
Source: TIME: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Birth Order Brain Dr. Benjamin S. Carson ear drum Genetics hair whorl handedness Homosexuality Prison Simon LeVay womb environment Source Type: news