About a month and a half ago, I told my mom I was gay. The reaction I received from a catholic, Mexican, most stubborn, and ignorant woman fell none too short from what I expected. Her world, her view of her son, was crumbled. She held in her tears showing her inner strength. As she calmed down, she asked, "Why do you want to be like this?" I explained as best I could to a stubborn person, that being gay was an innate quality of my psychological, biological, and genetic makeup. I said, "It is not my choice." Who in their right mind choose to be gay with all the prejudices, fears and violent acts directed toward gays by society? Therefore, one's gayness is not a choice.
             I am gay and so are a lot of others. As the world sees it, in some way or another that I have yet to understand, our sexual lifestyles not only determine what we are, but who we are as well. My mom and society see gay men and women as people who have same sex relationships. Society has decided that being gay is a sexual preference, one's sexual orientation, that he or she is a homosexual. Yet society does not apply the same logic for straight men and women. They do not consider themselves to have a sexual preference, but they do consider themselves to be heterosexuals. This type of logic is sure to promote a misunderstanding of the gay population. I for one do not prefer male to female; girls are not even an option to me, so my "preference" of males is inevitable. If it were a choice, that would mean sometime ago, gays made the choice. If that were the case, why do we not remember? "I remember when a reporter asked Dan Quayle whether he believed that a gay person's homosexual!
             ity was a matter of his or her psychological makeup or whether it was a matter of choice. He answered that he believed it was mainly a matter of choice. Two weeks later, Barbara Bush was quoted as saying that sexual orientation is mainly a mat...