It was the gaffe heard ’round the gay world: “It’s a choice.”

With those three words, Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico triggered a collective gasp of dismay and shock from gays watching the Logo televised debate sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign Aug. 9.

Visibly stunned by his answer, panelist and lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge said Richardson must have misunderstood her question of whether or not homosexuality is a choice. She then rephrased her question by asking him if he thinks “a homosexual is born that way, or do you think that around seventh grade, we go, ‘Ooo, I want to be gay.’”

Richardson backtracked a bit clumsily.

“I see gays and lesbians as people, as a matter of human decency," he said. "I see it as a matter of love and companionship and people loving each other. You know, I don’t like to categorize people. I don’t like to answer definitions like that, that you know perhaps are grounded in science or something else that I don’t understand.”

Richardson’s camp quickly followed up with an apology and a press release stating “he [does] not believe that sexual orientation or gender identity happen by choice” and “that no matter how it happens, we are all equal and should be treated that way under the law.”

The damage control didn’t end there. Congressman Barney Frank  (D-Mass.) jumped into the controversy by issuing a statement praising Richardson’s long history of fighting for equal rights for gays.

"Gov. Bill Richardson's apology for the mistake he made in saying that sexual orientation is a choice did not surprise me, because he has been a strong supporter of our right to be treated fairly throughout his public career,” Frank said.

POLITICAL FODDER

A Gallup poll conducted in May showed 42 percent of the 1,003 adults surveyed believe homosexuality is biologically determined — the highest percentage in 30 years.

And according to a Gallup press release on the poll, “substantive attitudes about homosexual rights are closely related to views on this question (on whether or not people are born gay).”

Gallup reported that four in five of those who believe homosexuality is congenital think it should is acceptable. Only 30 percent of those who think homosexuality is caused by environmental factors agree.

"Most people who are gay or lesbian can already tell you that sexual orientation is not a choice,” said Christopher Johnson, HRC director of public affairs. “Fortunately, a growing number of Americans believe that, too. Over the past couple of years, that has become a plurality. That's important because support for GLBT Americans is much higher among those who believe we are born gay."

Author Chandler Burr wrote his first book, “A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation,” in 1996 based on his March 1993 cover story in The Atlantic, "Homosexuality and Biology."

“This question [are we born gay?] has to remain in the political arena because of the simple fact this is what the American people care about,” said Burr, also a perfume critic for the New York Times. “This is the question that determines how people vote on issues of gay rights.”

Whether or not people believe we are born gay is a firm predictor of how they will vote on equal rights, he added, even if we wish it wasn’t so.

“Maybe they shouldn’t vote that way — maybe people should vote in favor of our rights because of personal choice or personal liberty, but the truth is that is not the political reality,” he said.

“And I’d rather deal with political reality. The science cuts in our favor. We should help the American voter with information so they will vote to give us equal rights," he said.

IRRELEVANT QUESTION?

But there are others who believe they can choose to be gay, that there is nothing biological about their choice, and pinning gay rights on a gay gene is the wrong path to take.

“Bill Richardson was absolutely right to point out that the question of whether we chose to be queer is completely irrelevant to the fact that we and our relationships deserve equal respect,” said Gayle Madwin, 31, of Sacramento, Calif.

Madwin founded queerbychoice.com, a website resource for people who say they choose to be gay, bisexual or lesbian.

“It was irresponsible of the other candidates to glibly assert that it's definitely inborn, and not acknowledge that even the best scientists in the world haven't resolved that debate yet,” she added.

Vera Whisman, author of “Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Identity,” watched the HRC/Logo debate and said while it was obvious Richardson was unprepared for the question, it was also obvious there was only one correct answer for Etheridge and the other panelists.

“The ally answer is to say, ‘Yes, people are born gay,’” she said. “If people say they choose or can choose to be gay, that’s anti-gay. This is the same conversation we’ve had since the 1990s and it seems we have not moved anywhere on this, at least in the mainstream movement.”

In fact, Whisman contends that insisting "I'm this way because I was born this way" is a weak, and possibly even homophobic, approach to the entire “nature versus nurture” debate.

“Identifying a gay gene is absolutely no guarantee we will have civil rights,” she said. Gay rights supporters can battle anti-gay rhetoric by asserting that "homosexuality is a perfectly reasonable choice to make,” she said.

Whisman acknowledged more women than men will say they chose to be lesbian or queer. A lot of women during the women’s rights movement chose to be gay because they wanted to escape the patriarchal system.

And that’s what happened to her — she chose one day to not be with men, she said. However, none of the women Whisman interviewed for her book said they chose to be gay as part of a “political statement.” That argument, she said, was made by women in the movement who disapproved of lesbianism.

The women who chose to be gay countered that they were more feminist because they did choose to be gay, she said.

“But that choice then becomes deep-seeded and the conscious choice affects all other choices — conscious or not conscious,” Whisman said.

‘BRILLIANT’ CHOICE

Ironically, Madwin says she experienced her queerness in a similar manner dramatized by Etheridge during the debate. Although she wasn’t sitting in a classroom and wasn’t in the seventh grade — she did have an “Ooo” moment as a teen.

“I turned queer on April 8, 1992, at the age of 15 and for me there was absolutely never any doubt that it was a choice,” she states on her website. “It was an incredibly mind-opening experience and I doubt that I'll ever make another choice quite as brilliant and life-changing as that one. I celebrate the day every year like a birthday.”

But Dr. Jack Drescher, a past chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Issues, questions people who say they outright choose to be gay.

At the same time, there is no real hard science to prove we are born gay, he said.

“We don’t know how people are gay. The question is often framed by people who believe it’s an immoral choice. The question is, ‘Is being gay a moral choice?’ and the answer depends on who you ask. If you ask scientists, they’ll say no. If you ask Southern Baptists, they’ll say yes,” he said.

Drescher does believe, however, that when people believe a person is born gay they will support rights for gay people. But there is something paradoxical in the entire debate, he added.

“It’s like the religious social conservative side is denying any science while some people on the gay side are relying only on science, even though there is no good science,” he said.

Drescher said he also sees national gay organizations moving away from the biology argument by framing political issues, such as marriage equality, around basic fairness.

“If people are free to choose their religion and are protected I feel they can choose to be gay,” he said.

Still, those who choose to be gay, or queer, fuel the religious right’s argument that if homosexuality is a choice, then people can choose to go straight as demonstrated by the “ex-gay” movement and conversion therapies, he said.

“I’m a psychiatrist. I talk with patients every day and there is no way to know why a person is gay,” Drescher said. “Like a colleague of mine says, the question is not, ‘Why gay?’ but ‘How gay?'"

"How gay" means how will you live your life as a gay person, he said.

It’s hard, especially for gay rights activists, to ignore the scientific research about homosexuality, which points to a biological explanation. For example, research shows identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genes, have a higher chance of both being gay compared with fraternal twins.

Scientists currently examining DNA samples from sets of gay brothers hope to find genetic linkages. The study, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, calls for 1,000 sets of gay brothers — the largest number of people studied specifically seeking gay genetic ties — to submit DNA samples as well as fill out questionnaires about their childhood and memories.

So far, about 600 sets of gay brothers have been tested and recruitment is ongoing. The researchers plan to publish an article on early findings next year.

In 2005, a study found gay men respond differently from straight men when they smell male sweat. Specifically, the study stated gay men’s brains responded similarly to women’s brains when the gay men smelled the odor of male sweat — or, more precisely, their brain showed they were sexually stimulated when they were exposed to a chemical in testosterone.

In 2004, Italian scientists questioned 4,600 people, both gay and straight, and found mothers and relatives of gay men, on average, had more children. The scientists believed the increased fertility could explain how a "gay gene" is passed on although many gay men do not have biological children.

However, the science does not sway Belenen Snow, a 24-year-old woman from Woodstock, Ga., who said she chose to be queer.

“I realized that in choosing to be heterosexual I was closing myself off from more than half of the population — saying that only men were allowed my deepest, most intimate connections,” she said.

“The idea that ‘if it is a choice, then they can just choose to be heterosexual and then they won't have to worry about discrimination’ is a false argument, because sexual orientation is a deeply personal choice, akin to choosing what religion you adhere to,” Snow added.

Madwin said she understands why gay people were so shocked by Richardson’s “It’s a choice” comment.

“The majority of queer people don't experience their queerness as a choice. It's very important to people to be able to feel that their experiences have been understood,” she said.

But when the other candidates eagerly assert that being gay is never a choice, their words have exactly the same hurtful effect on the smaller number of people who do experience queerness as a choice, she added.

For Drescher, the question is almost moot because it cannot be settled with a “gay gene versus immoral choice” answer.

“I’m not looking for an explanation,” he said. “There are more interesting questions out there.”