The First Question to Ask Each and Every 2016 Presidential Candidate

Read the article.

So I would like to see how the press gets them to answer no matter what. Not going to happen.

But I do agree that how they answer tells a lot about the person.

So far everyone is on my S&%$ list except for Rand Paul, in response to Illegal Immigrants questions.

I agree that the answer a person gives to any given question tells you something about the person, especially if the question is controversial. My problem is with a question that does not have an absolute and singular answer. I don't see how you can make a judgment from that type of question.

Rick wrote: I agree that the answer a person gives to any given question tells you something about the person, especially if the question is controversial. My problem is with a question that does not have an absolute and singular answer. I don't see how you can make a judgment from that type of question.

That to me is precisely the point; there is no absolute and singular answer. To be able to watch the politician twist in the wind - their facial expressions and body language - while they try to decide how to answer it (i.e. determine what the audience wants to hear) is the telling part.

Rick wrote: I don't see how you can make a judgment from that type of question.

You can't. They can sidestep the question in the article the same as any other question.

Rick wrote: I just don't think the question has a good answer, especially after knowing a woman all my life who has admitted to me that she never had a sexual attraction to women until she was emotionally and physically abused by a boyfriend and then again by a husband who she divorced two years ago. Now she's in a happy relationship with another woman. I just think this notion that you are always born gay is a bit like saying the science is settled on... whatever.

I think a better and more fair question for a candidate would be, "do you believe two people of the same sex have the right to be married'?

My older brother (RIP) struggled with his sexual identity for much of his life. His college roommate, whom I consider to be like a brother to me, told me my brother sat on the ledge of his 5th floor dorm room more than once. Fortunately his college friend happened to walk in on him each time, otherwise his struggle may have ended right then and there.

He always "fit" the stereotype, too. Mind you, this was "back in the day" when coming out wasn't something anyone in the gay community took lightly. So, when he finally did come out, my family struggled with it mightily, me in particular. The details don't matter. What does matter for me in this instance is that my brother taught me, with one time honored sentence, to be accepting, tolerant, and welcoming to the LGBT community: "physician, heal thyself". It took me awhile to "get" what he meant by that, but when it finally did sink in to my thick headed skull, I finally understood he didn't have a choice in this. It was who he was. He tried to live his life in his struggling period by the standards set for him by a society in denial, IMO, that he had to be hetero, period. That simply was not going to work out in the end. He was destined to "fail" in his efforts, but, by all other standards, his was a very successful life indeed. He was a concert pianist, a Merit Scholar, an operatic tenor, and a successful businessman.

We lost him back in 1996 to AIDS at the young age of 48. He blamed himself for his own fate. We did not. If there is any blame whatsoever to be levied, I place it on a kind of generalized fear of the disease that delayed viable research into a cure for a very long time.

And, no, the question posed by Mr. Wright does not have a good answer, as you state. He emphatically states that in his essay:

Whether we are born the way we are or whether we choose it is a bullshit question.

I write all this with all due respect to your post. I believe you make valid points. I'm offering what I am offering by way of further explanation as someone who had very up close and personal experience with an LGBT person, too.

I'm also going to offer this story in an effort to try and help others understand how coming out for LGBT folks can still be very difficult, especially in more rural areas (this could have been my own family):

www.npr.org/2015/04/16/399806354/a-north...ence-on-gay-marriage

Granted, some may find my post off topic. I choose to share in the context of some politicians of a more homophobic persuasion might find it uncomfortable, at best, to be presented with the type of question Mr. Wright posed. Again, the question, itself, is BS as he so "eloquently" stated. It's the reaction to the question that he was trying to get his readers to understand.

In that vein, I believe his essay was spot on.

The only correct answer to that question is that no single answer applies in every instance. For some it is a choice, for some it is simply the way they are regardless of whether it results from nature, nurture or a combination of the two.

Now what does that tell you about a candidate that makes it worthy of being the first question they are asked? The question, itself, is bovine scat, even according to the author. It's a gotcha question, one that is asked to ignite passions in political factions and serves no other useful purpose.

PrintSmith wrote: The only correct answer to that question is that no single answer applies in every instance. For some it is a choice, for some it is simply the way they are regardless of whether it results from nature, nurture or a combination of the two.

Now what does that tell you about a candidate that makes it worthy of being the first question they are asked? The question, itself, is bovine scat, even according to the author. It's a gotcha question, one that is asked to ignite passions in political factions and serves no other useful purpose.

Again, you said it better than I could.