Sometimes I find the statements that come out of our leaders so mind boggling that I don't know where to begin.

Earlier I read that President Obama is complaining about a rise of "tribal attitude". It's one of my pet peeves too; I have written several posts about tribalism, which I think is indistinguishable from identity politics. Tribalism begets tribalism, and the struggles between oppressor tribes and oppressed tribes (whether the oppression is genuine or only perceived) fuel endless cycles, with each tribe taking "turns." While I am not saying that there are not occasional elements of tribalism on the right, for the left to accuse the right of tribalism (as Obama seems to be doing) is the height of hypocrisy.

I cannot think of a more classic example of modern leftist tribalism than gay identity politics. Things have reached the point where it is considered a form of "bigotry" to even say that there such a thing as a "gay lifestyle."

Glenn Reynolds (who was once accused of "demonizing" gays to strengthen his "cultural tribalism" by one of the leftosphere's leading gay chieftains) linked a post by Ann Althouse which attempts to examine how Obama spokesperson Valerie Jarrett ran afoul of the newest tribal rules, and was forced "to apologize for the heresy of calling homosexuality a 'lifestyle choice.'"

Here's what Jarrett said:

"These are good people. They were aware that their son was gay; they embraced him, they loved him, they supported his lifestyle choice," Jarrett told Capehart. "But when he left the home and went to school, he was tortured by his classmates."

Blogger Michael Petrelis slammed Jarrett for the reference, accusing her of taking "talking points from Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council," a socially conservative organization that condemns homosexuality.

Anyway, Jarrett groveled about her poor word choice:

"I meant no disrespect to the LGBT community, and I apologize to any who have taken offense at my poor choice of words," Jarrett said. "Sexual orientation and gender identity are not a choice, and anyone who knows me and my work over the years knows that I am a firm believer and supporter in the rights of LGBT Americans."

I remember back in the 1980s, in the radical enclaves of the University of Wisconsin Law School and similar places, when it was heresy to say that sexual orientation was inborn. I remember getting snapped at by a very prominent left-wing lawprof for referring without scorn to research that showed some evidence that sexual orientation was innate. It was all about choice back then, and the choice model was deemed to be the framework upon which gay rights would be built.

The idea that all gays are necessarily by definition born that way just reeks of identity politics, and tribalism. It violates common sense, and beyond that, I think it violates sexual freedom, because the implication of sexual attraction being innate reduces the rights argument and sexual freedom theory to irrelevancy. It is determinism, and I think determinism is tyrannical because it is at odds with free will. Determinists argue that none of us have any control over what we are or what we do, and I can't think of any system more calculated to lead to tyranny.

No one has the right to tell people how they have to be. Neither the bigoted gay tribalists (better known as Gay Inc.) or their bigoted opposites, the anti-gay tribalists (which I have called "Anti-Gay Inc."). The former like to say that being gay is not a choice, while the latter say it is a choice and an evil one.

I will grant that I think there are a number of people born with the gay propensity. Whether it's genetic or whether it's a result of the prenatal environment can be debated, but these people certainly exist and I think they have every right to be homosexually inclined, and they also have the right to live the "gay lifestyle" -- whatever that may be to them. That right is grounded in freedom, though, not in genetics. Genetics does not convey rights, nor should it. It mixes apples and oranges to suggest otherwise. But I don't see how anyone who is thoughtful and objective can deny that far from a single "gay lifestyle," there is a spectrum of lifestyles. I have long been puzzled over the idea, for example, that gay men should like the music of Barbra Streisand, or prefer certain occupations. It makes no sense. There are people who have homosexual feelings but do not acknowledge or express them. Call them "repressed homosexuals" if you will, but that is their lifestyle, and unless they are hurting anyone, it is their inherent right to live that way, even if they were born with an irresistible homosexual inclination. Then there are those we would refer to as being "closeted." There are many degrees of being in the closet; some are open to themselves and family, but not their workplace, while others are open in the workplace but haven't told their mother. Are these not lifestyle choices for them to make? Or should the ruling tribal leaders have a right to intervene? And there are of course, totally open and "out" gays who have told their friends, families, employers, and everyone else. That too is a lifestyle choice I would defend without reservation.

But just as lifestyles are not inborn, there is hardly a monolithic "gay lifestyle" which someone must choose or reject, and in that respect Jarrett was wrong. But that's not what she was made to apologize for; her crime was in saying something contrary to the determinist view, which has apparently become politically dominant in gay identity politics. I see an additional problem with her phraseology, though. To say that "sexual orientation and gender identity are not a choice," while that is apparently an endorsement of identity politics, it also means that there is no freedom to choose these things. Which is tyrannical in a free country. That means that not only does a gay man or a lesbian have no right to become heterosexual, but a man or a woman who is heterosexually inclined has to right to become gay. Why not? If there is a right to change one's gender, then why isn't there a right to change one's sexual orientation? What if you just want to do what doesn't come naturally? Who gets to decide what is natural? If you are bisexual and can enjoy sex with either gender, how is the way you have sex not a choice? Or is the fact that you have a choice said through determinism to be not a choice? Philosophically, that could mean that determinism has swallowed free will, which the determinists probably consider a delusion. Fine, but don't we have the freedom in this country to be as deluded we want in the eyes of some, and actually believe that they're the ones who are deluded? There is still a right to be wrong, is there not?

Who put Valerie Jarrett in charge of our sex lives?

And what about the Bonobo chimps? What gives them the right to screw around any way they want without being dragged into identity politics? Why should they have more sexual freedom than humans?

Sorry, now that I'm ranting, I didn't mean to neglect the culture warriors who insist that being gay is always a choice, and a wrong choice! and that gays must be encouraged to "leave the lifestyle." Presumably, these people think that teaching gay men the fine arts of penile-vaginal intercourse will benefit them and society, although I have never been able to understand why. Especially if you factor in the inborn/genetically gay people, it strikes me that if they were rounded up and forced to attend whatever kind of therapy sessions Anti-Gay Inc. demands, the success stories would consist mainly of those who learned to be facultatively heterosexual. More likely they'd be quasi "bisexual" -- a sort of gay equivalent of the straight guys in prison who learn to do without women and sexually use men as the equivalent. Common sense suggests that just as the straight guys in these circumstances seek women and not men after they leave prison, over time these "converts" would tend to revert to what they liked before, regardless of what sexual identity they might claim. In whose interest is that? Theirs? The women they've been hooked up with? For the life of me I don't get it, and I have never understood why so many cultural conservatives who insist that gay is always a choice and can be "cured" also tend to say that pedophilia can never be cured. Which is it?

I wish all of these various people didn't care so much about the sex lives of others, but it has become big business, and highly politicized.

I used to think that modern gayness in the western sense was a reactive stage (gay to anti-gay) of human evolution on the path towards full sexual freedom (which I would define as that point where people no longer cared about such things), for sex ought to be the business of the people involved.*

But sometimes I wonder whether some people just want not individual freedom, but sexual tribalism -- with endless reactions and counter-reactions to keep it going. Anti-Gay Inc. has at least as big an investment in gayness as does Gay Inc.

To not care is heresy.

*Barring harm to others, of course. (Accuse me of inconsistency if you will, but I don't think sexual freedom includes pedophilia or bestiality, because they are non-consenting activities that do harm.)