This article highlights a challenge the gay liberation movement (if we can still call it that) has long faced: how to deal with the question of the
"origin" of homosexuality. Some people argue that the "nature" position offers a stronger case for gay rights: this is the "benign immutable difference" argument --we're born that way, we're not hurting anybody. Then there are those who argue against this "essentialist" claim. Neither argument has prevented the right from coming up with effective counterarguments, policies, and, indeed, "ex-gay ministries" whose tactics are not always so gentle as Christian prayer.

Some interesting arguments on this topic among queer scholars actually lead back to religion. Rather than arguing that homosexuality is "like race", these scholars suggest, might we not try to argue that homosexualty is "like religion": deeply felt, personally crucial, but not necessarily "inborn." For more on this notion, see the work of legal scholar Janet Halley and see the collaborative book Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance by Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini. Jakobsen and Pellegrini note that, in order for the "like religion" analogy to work, the US would have to drastically change the way it thinks not only about the value of sex but its attitude toward religious pluralism as well.