Republican running for Congress in South Florida says people are ‘born straight’

A Republican running for Congress in Florida told a newspaper that you can’t be born gay. He also suggested homosexuality dates back only to the Roman Empire.Rod Joseph, a former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that everybody is “born straight.”“You cannot be born gay,” he said. “That’s impossible biologically.”His explanation of the existence of gay people? “Most of the people, they’re victims of sexual abuse at the very young age,” he said.He also gave a somewhat anachronistic analysis of the history of same-sex attraction. “Sexual preference from the Roman Empire to date, it’s always a preference,” he said.Of course, historians have evidence of documented same-sex couples dating back to at least 2400 B.C., millennia before same-sex relationships were widely documented in Roman society.But what’s especially surprising about Joseph’s remarks is that they come as he runs in South Florida, a haven for LGBTQ people. Florida Congressional District 20 includes Wilton Manors, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale regularly ranked as one of the biggest gay communities in the country.Still, he claimed homosexuality isn’t found in nature outside humans.“Look at the natural habitat. You never see a lion that mate(s) with a male lion for life. You never see a giraffe, a male giraffe, that mate(s) with a giraffe,” Joseph said. “Myself right now saying I am a giraffe, that doesn’t mean it’s true.”Of course, that also isn’t true. National Geographic photographers have taken numerous pictures of male lions engaging in sexual behavior, though scientists argue this is more male bonding within prides. And studies show giraffes have more gay sex than straight sex and may engage in group sex.Those examples only scratch the surface. As The Advocate reported in May, the documentary Second Nature, narrated and executive-produced by Elliot Page, examines queerness across the animal kingdom, including same-sex peng