Judge Not...Yeah Right!

I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her dearly. And she is not my “gay friend,” she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made. But I am not going to judge people.--Sarah Palin

When I heard Mrs. "Joe Six Pack" talk about one of her best friends "who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made," and whom she says she has known for 3 decades or so, I had to wonder how--after all that time knowing her friend--she still believes her friend actually chose to be a lesbian. I really don't get how people like Sarah Palin think that such an innate part of our human-ness, our sexual orientation, is subject to change on an apparent whim, akin to choosing a salad with the #7 combo instead of fries.

And her line that she's "not going to judge people"??? In my humble opinion, the mere fact that she asserts that we chose something that is not choose-able is a judgment. Palin appears to couch her judgmental words in love & friendship, but the judgment still comes shining through. As the old saying goes, you can put lipstick on a pig & it's still a pig!

I don't know about Sarah Palin, or her friend, but, in my own life, I never got the chance to choose to which gender I am attracted. There never came a time in my life where I thought, "Hmmmm...which will it be? Males or females??" I can almost guarantee you that almost everyone (regardless of their orientation) would say the same thing. If I ever did have a choice, I'd have to be either psychotic or a sadist (or both) to choose a sexual orientation that I had to work so hard at hiding & which would cause me to be treated like a second-class citizen & that would put me at odds with the vast majority of others & cause people who don't even know me to hate me & wish to do me harm & which would cause me to be subjected to such venom & such vilification by so much of society (especially by people I once considered my family in Christ).

How could I ever have had a choice & then intentionally choose the most difficult path, when being one of the "normal" people would have made my life so much easier & so much less painful??? Considering the foregoing, the idea that any kind of "choice" is involved where sexual orientation is concerned is ridiculous on its face. I don't know if Sarah Palin ever remembers having to make a choice to be attracted to male of the species at some time in her life or not, but I'd wager she would tell you she didn't. How typically hypocritical for people like her to say that they never chose to be heterosexual, but that I did choose to be homosexual. Can they not see how illogical that is, or do they just believe that logic is too science-y & too much of a threat to their obviously-adored dogma & preconceived notions??

I have to wonder if Sarah & friends ever even really pay attention to the words coming out of their own mouths, or if it's just an automated party-line response to which they don't even give a second thought. To be fair, a second thought implies that they were thinking in the first place. My bad. :-/

Ultimately, I know that people like Sarah Palin have to cling for dear life to this old, discredited line that we are choosing to be something we really aren't, because if they ever admitted that we didn't choose our sexual orientation, then they'd have to admit that--like the heteros--we are who God made us, and that it's all about how our hearts work and not how our genitals work. Then they'd have to deal with all the guilt I'd at least hope they'd have over the real harm & real pain they've caused so many of us.

Maybe that thought is just too much for them to bear. Maybe it's just easier for them to choose to continue to spread lies & misconceptions about non-heterosexuals.

It's apparently one of the things that Sarah Palin has chosen to do.