Colorado Senate Debate: Ken Buck Compares Being Gay To Alcoholism (VIDEO)

Colorado Senate candidates Michael Bennet and Ken Buck appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, where they challenged each other on their past statements and were called to account for controversial comments they have made.

Republican Ken Buck denied that he was out of the mainstream, clarifying his position on the 17th Amendment and saying that he has often been misinterpreted. However, he gave a strange answer when host David Gregory pressed him to explain his views on homosexuality. In the past, for example, he has said he supports Don't Ask, Don't Tell because the military should be "as homogeneous as possible."

On Sunday, Buck made clear that he believes being gay is a choice, although he said that birth may have some "influence" over it -- such as with alcoholism:

GREGORY: Do you believe that being gay is a choice?

BUCK: I do.

GREGORY: Based on what?

BUCK: Based on what? I guess you can choose who your partner is.

GREGORY: You don't think it's something that's determined at birth?

BUCK: I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically, you have a choice.

According to all major mainstream medical and mental health professional organizations, sexual orientation is not a choice. As the American Psychological Association has concluded, "[M]ost people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation."

Gregory also pressed Buck about his refusal to follow up on rape allegations involving a University of North Colorado student in 2005, while he was Weld County District Attorney. Buck declined to file criminal charges against the alleged victim's attacker on the belief that not enough evidence existed to win the case, a conclusion that is not entirely rare with such delicate cases.

Controversy has erupted over some of Buck's newly resurfaced remarks, including his comments to The Greeley Tribune that a jury may simply conclude it was a case of her "buyer's remorse." In an audio recording obtained by The Huffington Post, Buck told the victim, "It appears to me and it appears to others that you invited him over to have sex with him," before acknowledging she may have been unconscious at the time.

On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Buck said he had no regrets over what he told the victim, saying she needed a dose of "reality":

GREGORY: Do you regret using those words, and whether you think women should give some weight to those issues in deciding to vote for you?

BUCK: I think women, as well as men, are concerned about jobs and the economy and spending and other issues. ... Rape case came into our office, it was reviewed by an attorney -- a prosecutor -- with 30 years prosecutorial experience who's now on the Colorado Court of Appeals. He declined to prosecute. Two female chief deputies reviewed the case, talked witnesses -- they declined to prosecute. Case went to another chief deputy who had handled many of the high-profile rape cases in the Denver metro area. He declined to prosecute. I met with this young lady, explained the circumstances. I then sent the case to the Boulder County District Attorney's office for Boulder County because they had a lot of experience with date rape as a result of the University of Colorado being in that county. They declined to prosecute and told me the case couldn't be prosecuted. It was after the young lady made this case public that I had to explain to the newspaper exactly --

GREGORY: But you regret either the way you talked to her or talked about the case??

BUCK: I don't regret the way I talked to her. I think it is important a prosecutor approach a victim with a certain amount of reality, and that's what I tried to do with this victim. I didn't blame her at all.

GREGORY: So what about what you told The Greeley Tribune?

BUCK: What I told The Greeley Tribune -- I gave them five or six reasons why I thought a jury could decline these. One of the reasons was the fact that she had regretted this relationship. She had buyer's remorse as a result of the relationship that she had with this young man. That is something that I think, when someone decides to make a case public, the public has to understand why.

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Comments

[Oilygarch]

05:13 PM on 10/24/2010

I don't know if it's nature or nurture or perhaps somewhere in the middle. But, why is being gay a choice or not so important? A person is a person is a person.

[buddy boy]

07:29 AM on 10/20/2010

And he's qualified to make this statement because.....?

[bigcypress]

08:14 PM on 10/19/2010

I am straight and my sexual orientation has no effect on:

how well I do my job...
how good of a friend I am...
how I treat my fellow citizens...
how much I rock as a DJ...
Et cetera

Why is assumed that a gay person’s sexual orientation will effect such things?

[terri autorino]

06:46 PM on 10/19/2010

If you've ever had a hangover.... or if you're gay... You cannot possibly back Buck!!!

[juzcuz]

02:39 PM on 10/19/2010

Great, so now the weenie-brains are comparing being born gay to being alcoholic or being obese.

Let's make this plain & simple for all you simpleton bigots out there. I was BORN gay and CHOSE to 'come out' as my authentic & real self and am well loved & respected in my community and my world. I love & respect myself for who I am as a person, and all the wonderful qualities that I express.

What's your excuse bigots - were you BORN that way... to hate & bash others, or did you CHOOSE that kind of lifestyle? Are you really pleased with what you see in your mirror daily?

Don't hate me because of who I love.

[adoantarel]

02:33 PM on 10/19/2010

Buck's answer that "you can choose who your partner is" is off the mark. This is a big disconnect between the two sides.

Sexual orientation is not determined by whom you sleep with. It's determined by whom you want to sleep with. It is determined by whom you are attracted to. If you are a man who wants to sleep with men but represses that and sleeps with women, you are gay. If you are a gay film actor, and you sleep with a woman on camera for a role, that doesn't make you straight.

If you doubt this definition, consider this question: Does a virgin have a sexual orientation?
If orientation is determined by partner, then no, a virgin has no sexual orientation. No one has a sexual orientation until they have sex.
If, however, orientation is determined by attraction, than a virgin (at least one of proper age) does have an orientation, dictated by whom he/she wants to have sex with. And indeed, that attraction/orientation will determine with whom he/she does have sex.

[adoantarel]

02:21 PM on 10/19/2010

Buck's face and response to the "based on what" question show that he has put no thought into this position. He believes being gay is a choice because he is not gay, thus anyone who is gay (i.e., different from him) must have chosen to be that way. It's a very self-centered way of thinking.

[A ScottMiller]

12:40 PM on 10/19/2010

I love how it comes down to whether it's choice or determined at birth. No way there could be any other explanation. The interviewer is, in my humble opinion, dumber than the interviewee.

[adoantarel]

02:37 PM on 10/19/2010

The interviewee certainly doesn't posit there can be any other explanation. Thus, I see no evidence that he is smarter than the interviewee. Your "humble opinion" seems rather biased.

[Lakesideboy]

11:58 AM on 10/19/2010

And these republicans continue to be out of touch with anyone else unlike themselves. That's why they're having such an incredibly difficult time with an African American president....

The middle class is NOT going to survive with their help, only continue to disappear.

[Gayhuman]

11:04 AM on 10/19/2010

When Ken Buck said that he thought being gay was a choice, David Gregory shoud have asked him point blank; "Mr Buck, do you think you could ever choose to be gay"? You know what his response would have been!

[SteveDenver]

01:22 AM on 10/19/2010

If homosexuality is like alcoholism, then I'm jumping off the wagon. Give me a six-pack and a long stiff one, please.

[BriGuy72]

07:28 PM on 10/18/2010

Although whether or not people choose to be gay is SO beside the point (should the rights of left-handed people hinge on whether they chose this perverse behavior?), a person's answer to the question "Do you believe that being gay is a choice?" definitely reveals the presence or absence of very basic critical thinking skills. And Mr. Buck failed this critical thinking test miserably. Does he really think that the majority of gay people, including the handful of teens who have committed suicide in recent weeks, make the conscious decision in their adolescence to be a social outcast and experience heaps of abuse? Obviously Buck's main problem--as is the problem with the majority of Tea Party candidates--is that he DOESN'T think. But that doesn't stop him from having an opinion on everything. If you can't be bothered with facts, common sense, or logic, then you have no business being a leader of anything, let alone your state's government.

[Senzasord]

06:32 PM on 10/18/2010

I would suggest that being gay is as much of a choice as being left handed. Left handed people were at one time persecuted. Their "Sinister" favoritism was looked upon as something of a disease that needed to be cured. Therefore they were forced to eat right handed, write right handed, bat right handed, throw right handed and on and on ad nauseum. Now clearly no one would choose to be left handed knowing that they would be subjected to such discrimination, but left handed people continued to be born. Those rarities that were truly ambidextrous, well... Yet the contributions of left handed people are legion. One even got elected to be President of the United States. Go find something more important to worry about.

[Takebackourmoney]

06:22 PM on 10/18/2010

How does Boehner feel about that.

[SteveDenver]

01:23 AM on 10/19/2010

Yeah, what does Agent Orange have to add?

[Appleton]

06:01 PM on 10/18/2010

The Republican Party appears to have secretly adopted a platform plank which treats science as a system of beliefs which one may choose to accept or reject in the same manner that one chooses which flavor ice cream to purchase. Mr. Buck has decided that he does not really care for the taste of biology. Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell find that evolution science is too bitter to go down easily. Many other Republicans simply abhor the texture of the science of global warming. All of them, however, seem to agree that ignorance and stupidity taste just right.

[ThirdSection]

01:42 AM on 10/19/2010

Yeah, I once liked fast food too.