Graham writes:
"In December 2005, Kerry Pacer, then 17, was featured on the cover of the national gay news magazine The Advocate as its 'Person of the Year' — making her the youngest gay person to achieve that honor – for fighting for a 'gay-straight alliance' at White County High School in Cleveland, Georgia. But there’s apparently no embarrassment for the gay press....when she takes on a boyfriend and they have a baby"
Those opposed to or ignorant of the LGBT rights movement would undoubtedly- in their clueless, uncreative, and desperate attempts to use someone's life experience against the Gay Agenda- expect gay people to be "embarrassed" about this. Yet, the ignorants and antis are wrong. I am less than impressed for the failure to consider why this would not be embarrassing to the LGBT community. Perhaps some people's Anti-Gay Goggles prevent them from seeing other explanations for why a "lesbian" might now be dating a man.
Before I begin, though, it feels strange to speculate about Pacer's sexuality, considering that I don't know her. I don't care what she is. What matters is that she did good work for the LGBT community when she was a teenager. Thus, I don't think her sexuality is all that relevant to much of anything. Is it some sort of Startling Revelation that heterosexuals can be allies to the LGBT community? Yet, I find it even more creepy that those who aren't particularly sympathetic to LGBT rights are using her life experience to advance an anti-gay agenda or to ridicule and try to "embarrass" gay people.
There is no indication that Pacer is claiming to be "ex-gay" or that she is now dating a man because she has come to some sort of being-gay-is-an-abomination revelation. As she says, she simply fell in love with a man because "you can't help who you fall in love with." Maybe I'm just being logical, but the argument that one can't help who one falls in love with doesn't seem to support the argument that one can, actually, help who one falls in love with. In their zeal to play Gotcha! when it comes to matters of bisexuals, "ex-gays," and former gays, I think that those opposed to LGBT rights actively go out of their way to not find other explanations as to how or why a "lesbian" might now be dating a man.
So, let's help them out. Does the existence of a teenager who used to claim she was a lesbian prove that homosexuality is a choice?
OR:
1) Is it possible that she wasn't a lesbian to begin with? Apparently, Pacer came out as a lesbian when she was 12 and, for her work establishing a gay-straight alliance at her high school, was declared The Advocate's person of the year in 2005. I wouldn't be quick to set any teenager's sexuality in stone. While some teenagers know for sure that they are gay (I certainly did), these things can change for some people.
2) You guys, I think there's a word for people who date both women and men. Help me out here. Oh yes, is it possible that she is bisexual?
3) Is it possible that she was a lesbian, but she has chosen not to be one any longer? Well, actually, she sort of stated that she didn't choose either way. In fact, she fell in love with her boyfriend, not because it was a conscious choice, but because she "couldn't help it."
4) Is it possible that just because this "lesbian" (no scaretastic quotes intended, I just don't know how to label her) has fallen in love with a man it therefore means that every single lesbian on the planet can also fall in love with a man?
Possibly. But wouldn't that be an audaciously bold claim to make based on a "study" that included 1 person?
But wait, you say, what about all of those "ex-gays"? Anti-gay blogger Pearl, who can barely contain her excitement about Pacer's new boyfriend, reminds us that she herself has known ex-gays and, in fact, has "stood with hundreds of them, brought together by their shared experience of leaving homosexual behavior and finding freedom."
Okay, Pearl. The plural of anecdote is not "data." See also, above.
The fact that this women is now with a man, diminishes neither her courageous actions when she was a teenager nor her advocacy for the LGBT community. I notice that while Graham and Pearl are busy gloating over Pacer's new "choice" and laughing about how "embarrassing" this all is to the LGBT rights movement, they fail to condemn the abuse she and her friends suffered by those who persecuted and taunted them.
Save the children, indeed!
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