July 12, 2013Dear Sir,Progressive Labour Party leader Marc Bean’s assertion that homosexuality is voluntary is difficult to reason out. If it were true, why would anyone want to be so? If sexuality of any kind were voluntary, sexuality would not resemble the activity it is. Would you like to be a homosexual?Here are the facts; your range of sexual choice in the population drops by 90 percent instantly. In most countries of the world you can be beaten up for the reason of your sexuality and you will have no legal recourse. Your choice isn’t even valid in the eyes of many people. You become a sort of silly human toy to be mocked with impunity. Your presence reduces many people to gibbering beasts because they cannot find a way to accept you. Few religions will respect your choice.So why would you choose to be gay? Well probably for only one reason — you like people of your sex — in other words you are gay. It’s like deciding one day to hate the colour blue. You can’t hate blue because you want to. You just do or you don’t, that’s all.Let’s look at heterosexuals as well. Love and sex go together in unaccountable ways, some good, some not good. If you are of any sexuality you probably are physically attracted to certain people, regardless of their personalities. You meet someone utterly unsuited to you and …. well its all ineffable isn’t it. This is a famous problem.But if sexuality was a choice, you could simply decide that the acne-covered, poor, underachieving, short, ungraceful and unendowed saint with one eye is in fact the person who drives you mad with passion. You could easily look past all that.You could then fall in love with this decent person of your dreams and stop chasing rich, handsome beefcakes or accomplished, beautiful tail, depending.Mr Marc Bean and his apologists should itemise a list of times people have changed their proclivity, because it would be astonishing if they got past five or six instances. When it does happen, it is considered noteworthy because it is very rare. Perhaps Mr Bean can chop and change and always do the right thing. Perhaps he is a saint. But not us. And by us I mean almost everybody else — us who didn’t really get to choose, and by the way are mostly happy with the way it turned out, all things considered.John ZuillFormerly of Paget, now Australia