The following is some preliminary thoughts on how positing a queer-by-choice position could affect the fight for queer rights:
While I remain supportive of those that wish to identity as queer by choice (and even see 'choice' as a significant element in my self-discovery), I do understand that there are likely implications for positing a queer-by-choice position in the mainstream. Consider briefly the same-sex marriage issue, and two absolute (hypothetical) situations. In the first situation, the gay community firmly believes that choice had no part in their identity. In the second situation, the gay community firmly believes that choice played a large part in their identity.
The justification for allowing same-sex marriage in the first situation might go something like this: Gay people cannot help being attracted to members of the same sex. It is who they are and it is natural for them. As they deserve the same rights as any other member of society, including the right to select a partner appropriate for them to love, marry, and enjoy a family with, same-sex marriage should be accommodated. This is an extension of marriage to their particular situation (over which they have no control); it is an adjustment to ensure that they have the same rights as heterosexual members of the society.
In the second situation, the above justification would not work as well. If I have chosen to be queer, then I could choose to be straight as well (or at least bi), and would therefore still have the same rights as anyone else. (Since I am still capable of finding someone to love of the opposite sex, I am still as capable of exercising my right to love/marry/have a family as heterosexual individual). So the justification would need to be different and may be something along the lines of ... the state has no right to tell me what biological sex a person must have in order for me to marry them. (Perhaps biological sex could be argued as an irrelevant criteria, etc). At any rate, it seems that the justification for allowing same-sex marriage in this case would also justify allowing same-sex marriage in the first situation. (So the justification in this case is stronger.)
Now, of course, we know that reality isn't absolute as in the above situations. But if you were an organization fighting an uphill battle for gay rights, what position would you want permeating into the mainstream?
bjorkboy posts
I'm afraid that I don't understand the idea of "choice" in your post. Maybe I am naive, but I have never believed that people have a choice when it comes to their sexual orientation. If someone "chooses" to be gay, that means there must have been a set of options naturally available to them. So, nominally, they are bisexual (or otherly multi-sexualled).
I don't think that we will ever have to worry about the gay-by-choice influence on gay marriage, as you described above. There are plenty of us that had no choice at all in the matter, and gay marriage should thus be available to us regardless of the existence of the gay-by-choicers.
On the other hand...I suppose there are some groups out there that are trying to deny the existence of natural gays. If they succeed, they could then use your argument above to weaken the prospects of gay marriage (assuming they are not arguing on religious grounds in the first place). All the more reason not to vote Conservative.
mekyla replies
First I just want to clarify something about my original post. It assumes a certain position on queer-by-choice that I don't think many queer-by-choice individuals would actually adopt (that is, everyone that is queer is that way by choice and this choice is direct/revertible). But when it comes to presenting a position like queer-by-choice, I think the mainstream has a tendency to misunderstand queer-by-choice in a rather absolutist binary-thinking way. There are some more complicated/subtle aspects to queer-by-choice that are important to understand. (And I think queerbychoice.com is a good place to start when it comes to understanding these) :).
Concerning people needing to be bisexual if they are going to choose to be gay ... I'm not sure it's that simple. Because then they would actually be bisexual :). Instead, one might look at the positive aspects of being queer and decide to, in a way, learn to experience feelings for the same sex. Maybe that implies an inherent bisexuality... though that person might not ever have feelings for the same sex if they didn't more actively seek to develop those feelings. (I consider myself to be in this category even though I quite specifically recall homosexual attraction before I even thought about sex/sexuality/etc, and before heterosexual attraction). Maybe some people have a more fluid sexuality than others. And for some people, it really can make sense to identity as queer by choice. If the sexuality is more fluid, is it inherent bisexuality, or more queer-by-choice (because if they didn't take a more active part in molding their sexuality, perhaps they would end up as the social default -- heterosexual).
You're right of course about gay-by-choice influencing the fight for gay rights. There are those that are not gay-by-choice and so that should override any argument against gay marriage on the basis of gay-by-choice. I am merely trying to understand those that are very anti-queer-by-choice, some possible reasons why they might be frightened by the idea of queer-by-choice getting into the mainstream.
I hope this makes sense. I'm not 100% sure what I think about the matter and am presently just putting out ideas for discussion more than strongly asserting a particular position.
more info
For more information on choice and sexual orientation, try the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_by_choice