'Sexual preference' not preferred wording

I am thankful to David A. Nosko for the thorough reporting of the recent event that focused on communities of faith and how they might better welcome and include GLBT people in their midst ("Community debates church's role in gay life, marriage," IDS June 26, 2006). At the same time, I was disappointed at some of the language choices Mr. Nosko used to report the story. On Page 1, he explains how participants learned to welcome GLBT Hoosiers "regardless of their God-given gender or sexual preferences" (my emphasis), and, on Page 9, we hear how a speaker told participants that GLBT Christians "are often afraid to admit their sexual orientation and sexual preferences to other(s)" (my emphasis).\nFirst, when GLBT people come out, we acknowledge our sexual orientation. People admit telling lies, stealing and other mistakes and failures; they do not admit something that is not wrong in the first place. Would we ever speak of a straight person admitting he or she was a heterosexual?\nSecond, sexual orientation is NOT the same as sexual preference. Examples of sexual preferences might include having sex with one's partner by candlelight, or S&M with rough trade, but that's very different from one's orientation. No one would ever refer to a heterosexual person's orientation as a preference! For a straight man, for instance, "preference" would suggest that he could have sex indiscriminately with men or women, but just prefers the latter. Somehow, I imagine most straight people wouldn't like it much if their orientation were described as preference. GLBT people don't either.\nPlease do not describe people's sexual orientation as "sexual preference"