After Valerie Jarrett Apology, Obama Says Being Gay Is Not A Choice

 
PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 15, 2010

During a Thursday question-and-answer session with young people

 broadcast on cabler MTV, President Obama said being gay is not a choice.

The comments come after White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett

 apologized for referring to a gay teen who committed suicide as having

 made a “lifestyle choice.”

“You know, I am not obviously – I don't profess to be an expert. This is a layperson's opinion,” Obama said.

“But I don't think it's a choice. I think that people are born with, you know,

 a certain makeup, and that we're all children of God.”

“We don't make determinations about who we love. And that's why I think

 that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong,” he added.

Jarrett, who spoke Saturday at a fundraiser benefiting the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocate, had been criticized for saying 

that the parents of Justin Aaberg, a gay Minnesota teenager who killed

 himself, had “supported his lifestyle choice.”

“I meant no disrespect to the LGBT community,” Jarrett said Thursday, 

“and I apologize to any who have taken offense at my poor choice of

 words. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not a choice, and 

anyone who knows me and my work over the years knows that I am a firm believer and supporter in the rights of LGBT Americans.”

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF