Matthew Yglesias, from whom I seem to be getting all my ideas for blog posts recently, has a couple of posts on the relevance (or lack thereof) the question over whether homosexuality is “innate” or a “choice.” My take, not knowing a whole lot about the science of the issue, is that so many people seem to “know” at such a young age that if orientation isn’t determined by either genetics or fetal environment, then it’s still settled so early in life that it seems bizarre to think of it as a “choice” in any ordinary sense. Plenty of genetic predispositions need an environmental trigger before you get a definite phenotype anyway, so acting like there’s some bright line seems a little silly anyway.

Now, Matt points out, and I’m inclined to agree, that really it ought not to make a difference. Whatever the source of sexual orientation, it seems grossly immoral to go sticking the law into people’s consensual sexual relations, and even leaving the law aside, I’ve never quite understood how it was a moral issue who people love (as opposed to, say, how they conduct their relationships). I suspect that the issue is mostly contentious because of the way we typically think about the Fourteenth Amendment as it applies to laws that discriminate against homosexuals.

If “citizens” are entitled to “equal protection,” then one could at least argue that it matters whether “gay” is something that you, the citizen, are—in which case one set of citizens, the gay ones, are being singled out for unequal treatment—or whether it just picks out a certain class of behavior. In which case discriminatory laws are just one more instance of the state punishing disfavored behavior, like pot smoking or gambling or, in a few southern states, tatooing. The legal question, like so many legal questions, is over which metaphor to apply. Is “being gay” like “being black,” or is it like “being a smoker”?

Now, this seems like a silly way to make one’s distinctions as far as I’m concerned. If gay sex were actually somehow harmful to other people, then it wouldn’t merit protection any more than, say, a genetic predisposition to commit arson, if such a thing existed. Since, of course, it isn’t, then legal discrimination is odious whether or not it’s a matter of chance or choice.

It occurs to me, though, that precisely for someone like Matt, maybe it should matter in certain contexts. In my weltanschauung, freedom of association means that businesses are entitled to be evil bigots if they’re so inclined. But Matt, I presume, favors antidiscimination laws that would prohibit an employer for taking race into account in hiring decisions, but might (?) allow, say, an especially religious employer to deny a post to someone known to frequent casinos or strip clubs, even if that didn’t bear directly on job performance. If I’m right that Matt (or anyway, some liberal folks) wouldn’t prohibit the latter sort of discrimination, why? If it’s precisely the chance/choice distinction—that those are behaviors, while race is part of who you happen to be, then it seems as though that distinction does matter to them in at least some spheres.