Is she or isn’t she?


A woman who gave birth to a child months before entering a same-sex civil union in Vermont is appealing a court ruling that granted parental standing to her former partner. Cheryl Barlow, who says she no longer is a lesbian, was united with Keri Jones, both residents of Utah, five months after Barlow became pregnant by artificial insemination in 2001.

I think the increasingly open sexual flexibility of women, while celebrated to some extent by the lavender lobby, is finally putting the nail in the coffin of the gay genetic argument. Is Ann Heche a lesbian? How about the many actresses and models who have had a dalliance or two with another woman? If one accepts a longtime married man’s declaration that he is now gay, one must likewise accept the word of a former denizen of the gay bars who asserts that he is now straight.

The truth is that one is not controlled by one’s inclinations. The fact that I’d rather like to plow my way through the entire Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader squad in alphabetical order does not mean that I have no choice but to do so. The fact that a young man happens to be aroused by an International Male catalog and remains indifferent to Victoria’s Secret does not mean that he is condemned to a life of venereal diseases and prancing about to bad electronic music. The fact that one has a greater prediliction for one action than another never excuses acting upon that prediliction; to say that it does is tantamount to arguing that a hot-tempered man cannot help but kill anyone who raises his blood pressure by cutting him off in traffic.

The truth is what it is. The fact that even one heterosexual individual can go gay or that one homosexual individual can go straight demonstrates that change is possible. The lavender lobby’s ridiculous denial of the possibility only demonstrates its intellectual dishonesty and its obvious fear of the implications.