Homosexuality: A choice? A disorder? Or natural?

In his July 8 letter to Nunatsiaq News, Peter Scholz drew an analogy between same-sex marriage and polygamy, arguing that making marriage a “right” opens the door to marriages with multiple partners.

He writes that both his examples “use the same argument” that “marriage is a human right, not a definition.”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has already enshrined marriage as a right (article 16) and Canada has signed the document. While the UDHR does not come out and directly protect homosexual rights at all, it does guarantee equality to all men and women at the age of majority.

The most glaring problem in Scholz’s same-sex marriage-to-polygamy comparison is that homosexuality is not a “choice,” while polygamy is. This is a difference that is too often missed in the debate.

It had long been thought that homosexuality was a mental disorder to be “cured,” but the American Psychiatric Association took it off their list in 1973 and the World Health Organisation in 1992. The fact is, people don’t choose to be gay any more than others choose to be straight.

Polygamy, however, is most definitely a choice, often cultural. There is no evidence that a person can be “born polygamous” (in fact such a term doesn’t even make sense). On the topic of choices, there are a great many of them that Canadian and international law restricts — theft or murder, for instance.

The popular fear is that same-sex marriage has opened the flood gates for all types of marriage. This is both false and misleading. The Canadian government still has the power to limit which choices are legal and which are not. They just can’t place unreasonable limits on equality.

In short, the issue of polygamy is not a logical extension of the same-sex marriage debate and any group trying to legalize their marriages would be met with their own separate (infinitely more difficult) legal battle.

Bryn Boyce
Chatsworth, Ont.