Colorado Senate Candidate Suggest Being Is A Choice But That It Can Be Genetically Determined Like “Alcoholism”

Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday, Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck was asked by host David Gregory if he thinks being gay is a choice, Buck answering “I do,” adding “You can choose who your partner is. I think that birth has an influence, like alcoholism and some other things ... But I think that, basically, you have a choice.” Attempting to clarify his remarks after the debate Buck said he think that there exists “some element of predisposition” in homosexuality, and that he referenced alcoholism as an example of another behaviour that can be influenced by genetic indicators, Buck saying “I wasn’t talking about being gay as a disease. I don’t think that at all, and I hope that nobody would be that insensitive to draw that. I certainly didn’t mean it that way.” Buck, a Weld County, Colorado district attorney, who is opposed to the repeal of the military ban on openly gay service members, also attempted to awkwardly defend his handling of an alleged rape in 2005 that he declined to prosecute because he believed that the details appeared to show the women in question consented to the sexual encounter, telling a reporter for the Greeley Tribune months later that “a jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse.” Sunday, Buck told Gregory that he did not regret he spoke of the alleged victim, and that he used the term “buyer’s remorse” to explain that the woman regretted her relationship with the man, who was her ex-lover. Democratic Senator Michael Bennet called Buck’s statements Sunday “deeply troubling.”