Glenn, I’ve been fascinated by the attempts to manufacture a scandal out of reports that Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus, runs a clinic that, among other things, counsels people who are homosexually inclined but wish instead to pursue heterosexual relationships. I do not know that the reports are accurate; if they are, what possible business could it be of anybody’s?
How remarkable it is that we as a society seem to believe that people can change their sex but not their sexual habits. A man who wants to have his genitals amputated, his breasts augmented, and his hormones manipulated may be accommodated, and we are in some cases compelled to pretend that he has in reality become a woman, while a man who wants to father children with a woman is a pitiable, self-loathing creature if for some reason he has not been attracted to women in the past but wishes to be. And a lesbian might count on her broadminded friends to shun her if she should suddenly decide her happiness required marrying a man, even though they would celebrate her if she should try to become one.