In the latest installment of her interview with Katie Couric, Sarah Palin said the following about her much-sought after, but still not yet found, gay friend:
One of my absolute best friends for the past 30 years happens to be gay ... I love her dearly. She is not my gay friend -- she is one of my best friends. She happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I would have made.
A charitable (very, very charitable) interpretation of this remark could be similar to the one offered by Bill Richardson in a debate last year when he was asked by Melissa Etheridge if he thought homosexuality was a "choice." "It's a choice!" he blurted, before rambling on that,"I'm not a scientist. It's -- you know, I don't see this as an issue of science or definition. I see gays and lesbians as people as a matter of human decency." Richardson later corrected himself, saying that he had "flown all night from New Hampshire," and what he really meant was that gay people should have the "choice" of living openly.
While it's nice to hear, once again, that Palin doesn't want to "judge' gay people, I think her answer to Couric was far too explicit to assume that she meant the same thing as Richardson. So I'm curious. When did Sarah Palin decide that she wasn't gay and made the "choice" to be a heterosexual? Was it a particular movie she saw with a hunky male star? Some bad experience on the Wasilla High School girls basketball team?
--James Kirchick