Jesse Bering on Slate said:
This is something which people pressing for the use of the phrase sexual orientation rather than sexual preference have said many times, and it's very important in examining the current controversy. As Bering points out, most people using the phrase are simply using a familiar phrase with no intent of saying that homosexuals have simply chosen to be homosexual and could choose to be heterosexual if they put their mind to it.
People who oppose gay rights deliberately avoid using the phrase sexual orientation and deliberately use the phrase sexual preference instead; but there are many people (I would guess many more people) who use the phrase sexual preference simply because that used to be a common phrase in talking about gays, just as Negroes and colored people used to be common ways of referring to Blacks.
So when someone uses the phrase sexual preference in referring to homosexuality, a key question that people who support the use of the phrase sexual orientation need to ask themselves is whether the speaker is doing so deliberately (as anti-gay activists do) or unwittingly (the way many people who use the phrase do). If it's being done deliberately, people who support gay rights may feel a need to speak out against what the speaker has said; if it's being done unwittingly, it may seem better simply to let the matter pass for the moment if it's not a convenient time to get into such a discussion (and perhaps try to explain the problem to the speaker at another time).
As those who've gone to Google to find examples of people opposed to Barrett's nomination who have used the phrase have found, there are plenty of examples to choose from -- including Joe Biden. I suspect it's especially common among older people (just as years after it was no longer considered polite to refer to Blacks as colored people or Negroes there were older people who'd used those terms for many years of their lives and might unthinkingly slip into using one of those terms again). Most of us don't take time to plan out carefully the exact wording of everything we're going to say when we're engaged in casual conversation, or take time to write out and examine the wording of things we'll say in answer to questions people may ask us before we start answering, and many of us realize that other people don't do that either.
In the case of Joe Biden, and many others who have been found to have used the phrase "sexual preference" on some occasion, I think the assumption (conscious or unconscious) of people familiar with the preference/orientation matter, is that he didn't mean it as a way of saying that being gay is a choice, so they felt no strong need to interrupt him at the time or to write a strong blog post denouncing him for it later.
It would be different, however, if the person using the phrase were an anti-gay activist making a public speech, a member of the anti-gay community, or a person who appeared to have significant connections to the anti-gay community. If a politician who appeared to be courting anti-gay voters were to use that phrase in campaign speeches, for example, it would be reasonable to suspect it was a way of communicating they believed that being gay was something people chose and that therefore gays should not be covered by anti-discrimination laws.
And that's why people are reacting quite differently to Barrett's use of the phrase than to Biden's. Barrett does have strong connections to the anti-gay community. She has met with people in that community over the years, seems sympathetic to many of their views, and appears to be appealing for their support in the current question of whether she should be confirmed as a supreme court justice. So it's reasonable for politicians who support gay rights, such as some of the Democratic senators at the judiciary committee hearing, to question her about her use of that particular wording and see what she meant by it. Was she truly unaware of the controversy over the use of that particular phrase (even though it has come up in many discussions about anti-discrimation laws)? Was she aware of the controversy about that phrase, but simply a little careless with her words, using a once-fashionable phrase without thinking it's now heard differently than in the past (the way Joe Biden likely was when he used the phrase). Or is that her preferred phrase for describing homosexuality and does it reflect an underlying belief that homosexuality is a choice people make?
That's something which is worth clearing up before the hearing is over. And the apology she made doesn't really do that. From NPR:
That's an example of the classic nopology: I'm sorry if you took offense at what I said. But the important question isn't whether she intended to offend gays with her wording; it's whether she believes that homosexuality is a choice people make, which is what that phrase means to a lot of people she has been closely associated with believe. And that's a question she continues to refuse to address in the hearings -- which makes it quite likely that is indeed what she believes and why she used that phrase.
