Pop Theory: What's (Legally) in a Choice?

Before Herman Cain’s “Pizza Express” to the presidency got derailed by (re-)emergent charges of sexual misconduct and infidelity, he was the frontrunner in the GOP Field of Crazy — one reason, I think, for his preliminary success was due to his unapologetic, unwavering opinions, including his opinion that homosexuality is a choice. In an interview with Piers Morgan, he plainly stated:

I respect their right to make that choice. You don't see me bashing them. I respect them to have the right to make that choice. I don't have to agree with it. That's all I'm saying.

Implicit in this statement, although I’m sure he wouldn’t comprehend the logic (poor thing seems a bit slow), is the idea that all sexuality is a choice.

Of course, his opinion drew derision and critique, most notably from the LGBT political arm, the HRC. “It Gets Better” creator (and advocate of the poly-monogamous marriage) Dan Savage even proposed to Herman Cain that he “suck his d--k” to prove that sexuality is a choice.

Dear Herman,
If being gay is a choice, show us the proof. Choose it. Choose to be gay yourself. Show America how that's done, Herman, show us how a man can choose to be gay. Suck my d--k, Herman. Name the time and the place and I'll bring my d--k and a camera crew and you can suck me off and win the argument.
Very sincerely yours,
Dan Savage

What Savage does not acknowledge is that, by giving Cain the choice (to suck his d--k), the argument is moot: Cain has chosen “no.” And “no” is still a decision based on a choice. As I firmly believe, an individual's actions — sexual or otherwise — is her prerogative, her power (unless she is being forced against her will in an assault/rape situation). Also implicit in Savage’s curt letter to Cain is the equation of act to identity, an equation that I agree with (we are how we act / we are what we do), as opposed to the counter-argument of an identity somehow being innate to an individual’s ontological being.

Shortly after Savage’s open letter appeared in the media, Darnell L. Moore wrote a compelling piece in the gay section of The Huffington Post that ponders the idea of selecting one’s sexuality. Moore’s piece is a step in the right direction — in a direction of (self-)affirmation, of ethics not based on prescribed morality, of equality based on the constitutional recognition of